A voter at a polling station in Sanghi village at Rohtak during the Haryana Assembly polls. File
| Photo Credit: ANI
Psephologists have reduced elections and electoral outcomes to a mere number game. Electoral engineering remains important but it rides on an understanding of changing social dynamics. The electoral strategies of the organised and ideologically oriented Right are based on tuning in to existing sociality and creating and tweaking the old into newer imperatives. One does not fully understand if the Right is riding a momentum or creating a moment afresh. Based on a field visit to Haryana, after the recent surprise Assembly electoral outcome, there is ample scope to argue that the Opposition parties, in this case the Congress party, are also struggling to connect electoral strategies to changing social dynamics.
Dynamics on the ground
It is now well known that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) succeeded in Haryana because it managed to polarise the rest of the castes against the dominant Jats. However, such a polarisation is possible due to a changing ethic on the ground — that protest is the weapon of the privileged, and negotiation is for the poor. In the course of discussions with the lower echelons in the caste hierarchy, they asked how Jat farmers could protest for two years. It is only because they have the money and the time. They reminded us that the protesting farmers were using air conditioners and diesel generators at the protest site. Surprisingly, none of the respondents expressed concern for the plight of women wrestlers either. They feigned ignorance, even as they knew the nitty-gritty of all the other relevant issues. It reminded us of Wilhelm Reich’s formulation that totalitarian regimes are constructed through a ‘mixture of rebellious emotions and reactionary social ideas’.
If protest is a symptom of privilege, pragmatism is a privilege of the poor. Respondents from a weaker economic background asserted the importance of having a favourable relation between the centre and the states for quicker dispersion of welfare benefits. Similar pragmatic logic was offered with regard to the Agniveer scheme. They acknowledged that a wider array of castes now get jobs under the Agniveer scheme, and without corruption being involved. Under the Congress it was a permanent job but with corruption involved and only for certain well-connected castes. Under the BJP it is for all but a job only for four years. It is a different kind of a ‘redistributive strategy’ that reduces economic security but with a trade-off with social inclusion. Newer castes now see the scheme as more of an opportunity than about insecurity.
Inclusion and equality
The dominant castes, especially a section of the Jats who voted for the BJP, responded very differently. Their argument was that the BJP stands for parity. The party’s line is ‘Kamake khau (earn and eat’), while the Congress’s is a ‘daggi baggi’ (slang for ‘malpractices’) party. Some said they are anti-Hooda and not anti-Congress. But the point is that the BJP had the capacity to mobilise the micro-fissures. When asked about the lower end sections, especially the Other Backward Classes (OBC) that seem to have consolidated against the Jats, respondents expressed that opinion that ‘OBCs are our brothers’ but saw reservation as a wrong policy.
The BJP’s bid to draw cultural unity seemed to assure the higher echelons of a sense of parity, and among the lower echelons a sense of inclusion. There is a process of a culturalisation of social and economic policy that allows for a sense of unity. But it is not clear how this will address the question of existing inequalities and why the weaker sections do not perceive a sense of loss in drawing a cultural equivalence without economic parity. It looks as if inclusion has displaced the concern for equality.
The professional class in the peri-urban areas view the process as different from caste based-responses. Many of them see the political ascendance of the BJP as a game-changer. One of them said: ‘what the BJP does becomes a sentiment; it is not that the BJP caters to the sentiments.’
Voter perceptions
The organisational heft of the BJP, with the support of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh gives it an ability to capture the mindspace of the voter which no other party can. With a personalised door-to-door campaign, fighting an election is a long-time strategy for the BJP. The Congress, on the other hand, stirs to life just before an election. Further, the choice before the electorate is between the authoritarian service-delivery of the BJP versus the democratic dysfunctionality of the Congress. The Congress looks more democratic because it is disorganised. In the BJP, with the presence of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, decision making is perceived to be authoritative, and not authoritarian, for a large section of the electorate.
Finally, there are the last minute electoral strategies such as changing sitting Members of the Legislative Assembly and managing the dissent through money and fear. In the Congress, which is a much older party, there are entrenched interest groups. The BJP could have also sponsored independent candidates in order to split Congress votes. There are also about 5% of voters who are always indifferent and BJP alone has the cadre to cajole them and bring them to the booths.
The Opposition parties are unable to match this combination of a multi-layered bottom-up mobilisation that the BJP uses. The Opposition parties are struck with the old patronage politics but the intriguing story is that patronage is being replaced by submission. People are welcoming the breakdown of old patronage politics but have yet to recognise the costs of submission to a supra-power being put in place.
Ajay Gudavarthy is Associate Professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Mahesh Choudhary is a freelance journalist
Published – November 13, 2024 12:08 am IST
