THE Bihar electorate’s verdict in favour of the united opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party should not have surprised anyone except for the fact that the setback to the ruling party has come somewhat sooner than expected. And the warning to the 18-month-old Modi government is much too serious to be ignored.

The Modi government was able to take its defeat in the Delhi state election in its stride. It could do so partly because that poll came soon after the 2014 general election, that is, before the electorate had time to judge the new central authority’s performance, and partly because the people of Delhi felt like compensating the Aam Aadmi Party for the raw deal it had earlier received. But Bihar is a different story altogether.

Modi led his party to victory on the slogans of glorification of Hindutva and economic prosperity for the people and he was greatly helped by the rival parties’ failure to challenge him effectively. The new government did not ignore its communal plank and scored impressive gains in the areas of external trade and foreign investment. The fruits of these successes did not reach the have-nots. Realising this perhaps the BJP hardliners chose to take refuge in nationalist extremism and militant communalism. They failed and for some obvious reasons.

Ever since he grew out of Laloo Prasad’s shadow, Nitish Kumar, the Bihar chief minister, has built up a considerable reputation as an efficient helmsman, offering the people notable relief from gangster rule and economic misery. The electorate was not pushed to give up what it already had in favour of the BJP promises. Further, Laloo Prasad forgot what his ‘younger brother’ (Nitish) had done to him and Congress swallowed its pride and agreed to be a junior partner in the united front. And BJP does not have the backing of numbers that can beat the combined opposition in many parts of the country.

Pakistanis need to be extremely careful in responding to political developments in India.

The Modi government’s immediate worry is to avoid a repetition of the Bihar setback in Assam, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, the states next in line for elections. It is likely to be haunted by a leading journalist’s observation that “what Bihar thinks today, India thinks tomorrow”. Several commentators have referred to difficulties the union government may face in getting parliament to approve its legislative agenda.

Probably the most crucial task Modi faces is the need to rein in the saffron brigade because failure to do so over the past few weeks not only alarmed the left and liberal intelligentsia and the secularists scattered in numerous groups, it threatened to undermine the relationship Modi has established with the Muslim countries, from Iran to Saudi Arabia. Even the United States might not be able to blink at the more blatant excesses of the BJP’s far-right zealots.

Modi is an experienced fighter. He should be capable of learning from the reverse he has suffered and nobody should be in a hurry to write him off. His opponents must be ready for much hard work before they can put the BJP down. Thus Bihar election seems to have done both India and Modi good — the former by confirming the possibility of rediscovering secularist ideals and the latter by indicating the conditions for survival in power.

This election result has been widely welcomed in Pakistan too. But the people here need to be extremely careful in responding to political developments in India. However strongly some of them may believe that any gains by India’s secular forces will be in the interest of the people of the entire South Asian region, they must keep their emotions in check. The communal extremists who provided grist to the mills of hate against Muslims, Pakistanis and beef eaters of any denomination are unlikely to stomach the idea of having provided comfort to the targets of their venom. They could be provoked into pushing the government towards a more exclusivist agenda.

Pakistanis generally attribute any action by the Indian state or its citizens that is perceived in this country as anti-Pakistan or anti-Muslim to the entire Hindu community’s implacable hostility towards Muslims and Pakistan. Such a grossly oversimplified explanation of the Indian government’s or ruling party’s policies prevents Pakistani observers from deriving correct conclusions from the ups and downs of Indian politics.

The recent spate of attacks on Pakistani artists and sports officials and creation of mass frenzy over the consumption of beef should have been treated as the Sangh Parivar’s desperate bid to reassure the Indian electorate of its continued fidelity to Hindutva. Pakistan figures in Indian political debate only when a move is made to normalise relations with it without clearing the miasma of hate that has been allowed to gather for decades.

Pakistanis should, therefore, view the Bihar election, what went before it and its aftermath as the Indian people’s attempt to deal with the various claimants to power and their tactics that have been designed to stay afloat.

More important than adopting a non-communal or even an unemotional attitude to the recent happenings in India is the Pakistani people’s need to derive the correct lessons from the politics of religious exclusivism. Pakistan has had a head start over India in the matter of trying to embrace a quasi-religious polity. The fate of these efforts is not likely to be any different than what has befallen the preachers of hate in Bihar though the period of the Pakistani people’s suffering could be longer.

Likewise, the wave of protest created by Indian writers, artists, film-makers and spokesmen against intolerance and targeting of minorities has caused much joy on this side of the border. While some credit is given to the individuals for returning their awards, a much greater cause for satisfaction is the implicit censure of the Indian state. It is doubtful if anyone has thought of this kind of protest against Islamabad’s failure to dispense justice even-handedly.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2015