Polling time carries a mark of liminality. It is undecided time, standing at the interlude between campaigning and election results. Every contender, no matter how confident, mimics a question mark. The air smells of doubt. A politician whose fate hangs in balance appears vulnerable. One ritual that people engage in to get some sense of the future are the exit polls, an imaginary act of psephology which speculates on votes and strategies. Watching these exercises is fascinating because body languages and silences tell tales.
I was watching the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) speculate about its chances on TV. Its spokesman, as usual, unleashed the standard text of how they will march to victory. The BJP at first glance appears like a confident army under General Modi. And yet, as one digs deep into their presentations of self, one senses a variety of changes.
The BJP was and is a party that fought elections on “freeing India from the Congress”. It has been amazingly successful. Yet it is interesting that while the Congress as a party is in the doldrums, the Congress as a metaphor, as a style of politics, seems contagious. The BJP now almost behaves like the Congress. When its candidates, even those in line for chief ministership, are asked questions, they say, “We will get back to the party high command and answer you”. The high command syndrome, the dominance of Delhi, the centralisation of power is almost identical. Of course, in the Congress there is the family and in the BJP the board, but boards are almost family-like in behaviour. The BJP now appears like the Congress in a new costume ball. Its politicians behave like rubber stamps of Delhi. Delhi, now seen as a mentality rather than a place, is a perpetual Congress-stan.
The new looks like a mimicry of the old. The mentalities do not seem to change much. One sees this in the power and presence of families. As journalist Kartika Sharma observed, electoral democracy has a way of coopting kinship. The epidemic of politically established families adds both a sense of familiarity and continuity to politics. Democracy becomes a collection of kinship charts and genealogies still modify the idea of citizenship. It is almost as if Indians want a touch of the family in every new structure they invent. Even change seems more a transfer of power across generations rather than an ideological or economic transformation. People still vote in the name of Bal Thackeray or Bhajan Lal. As a wag put it, they should be listed in the table of candidates. One does not know whether one is voting for Uddhav or for the ghost of Bal Thackeray.
However, one does sense change, at least a sense of ending for some. In the BJP, there is the marked absence of patriarchs like L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. One senses that Sharad Pawar, for all his influence, is no longer the stalwart who ran Mumbai. Age and time seems to have caught up with him. Strangely, Raj Thackeray looks out of place, a cameo item who has no real place in politics. He appears to be the odd man out. It is as if Mumbai has decided that his kind of politics does not work in a global world. Mumbai, people feel, will always have migrants whether they are Maharashtrians from Vidharbha or Biharis from Patna. The logic of global economics needs the migrant. Inward-looking ideologies look reactionary, but do not make sense in the long run. Bad politics is at times like a B-grade movie. It cannot last even if it has new punchlines.
The BJP’s strategy has been interesting. It is determined to play solo because it realises the Senas are stagnant entities. Reading its own and other political surroundings, it took the gamble of going alone. Suddenly the politics of Maharashtra became a four-cornered contest and the BJP realised that whatever the other consequences it need not play second fiddle to the Shiv Sena again.
The love-hate relationship between the Sena and the BJP has a touch of bad opera. Samna, the Sena journal, repeatedly refers to Narendra Modi as the “chaiwala”. It is so persistent a diatribe that Mani Shankar Iyer must be feeling vindicated. BJP plays the long-suffering alliance partner, but it is clear that it wants to cut loose. It feels alliances made in another era by Bal Thackerays and Pramod Mahajans should not tie it down. What drives all of this is the search for power. The BJP knows that when it gets an adequate number of Rajya Sabha seats, the way is clear to enforce its idea of policy.
Politics often raises afterthoughts. When Bal Thackeray died, Uddhav seemed an unlikely successor. Raj seemed more full of sound and fury, but it was Uddhav who signified something substantive. He has survived as heir and the Sena will be for decades to come an intrinsic part of the urban imagination of Mumbai.
The Haryana election by contrast appeared more local. It had a nukkad look to it, with its plethora of families, old, stale leaders like Om Prakash Chautala and Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Mr Hooda appeared tired and alone while Mr Chautala, fresh from jail, looks like he has something to offer. Here again I feel the Haryana of the future will be determined by the fate of its cities. Towns like Faridabad and Gurgaon are dynamic. As towns they will acquire certain autonomy from the old bosses and the khap mentality. It is as if change and the urban imagination has finally caught up with Haryana.
There is a common development script that Mr Modi is seeking between the largest state economy and the fastest growing one. Mr Modi’s promisory note is virtually telling the leadership of the two states that their states will work better if the BJP is elected. The choice before Mr Modi is clear. He has to treat the state elections as a continuity of the earlier election. Whether the results will be a hangover or a spillover, the days will soon tell.
The writer is a social science nomad
