The rejection by voters of the BJP’s communal-baiting and incendiary campaign in the Bihar state elections is a victory for right-thinking people everywhere — though perhaps it is too early to know if Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP strategists will reconsider their approach to politics going forward.
Without a doubt, however, the Indian voter has dealt Mr Modi and the BJP a serious setback. While the BJP did lose the prestigious state election in Delhi in January, Bihar, one of the most populous states in India and with significant representation in parliament, is both a key electoral battleground and considered a reliable indicator of national electoral trends.
What is particularly telling about the BJP-led coalition’s loss to an electoral alliance led by incumbent chief minister Nitish Kumar is that the loss occurred despite a great deal of effort by the BJP leadership. No less a person than Mr Modi himself was made the face of the BJP campaign — similar to other regional BJP campaigns where Mr Modi has also been front and centre rather than local party leaders being in the position — while BJP president Amit Shah campaigned hard.
Related: Bihar steals Modi’s firecrackers
The high-profile campaign made the tone of the BJP propaganda all the more alarming. When so-called beef politics becomes a key talking point and anti-Pakistan sentiment is introduced in a regional election — Mr Shah infamously asked Bihar’s voters if they wanted Pakistan to set off “firecrackers” in the event of a BJP defeat — there is clearly something fundamentally wrong.
Bihar’s voters appeared to realise that too. As veteran Indian journalist Shekhar Gupta has written, Modi “needs no more evidence after Bihar that polarisation cannot deliver election victories to him, that in India of 2015 there is no vote for beating up anybody, and that Pakistan and terrorism may be issues of great passion and partisanship on warrior news channels and Twitter but not in the world of real public opinion”.
In the end, as is often the case in regional elections, voters chose to ignore fear-mongering and hysteria and apparently voted with stock issues — inflation, jobs, agriculture — in mind.
Now, Mr Modi and his team have a choice ahead of them. There are several more state elections due where the BJP will have the chance to correct course. But it will not be easy. The fear is not that the BJP has not been opportunistic or desperate in its appeal to communal sentiment so far, but that religiously inspired politics is at the core of the Modi agenda.
The Indian voter has demonstrated an early and decisive rejection of communal politics. Mr Modi would do well to listen to the voter. An India lurching to the right is a threat to domestic cohesion and regional stability.
Instead of trying to vilify Pakistan, perhaps Mr Modi may want to reflect on what the Indian voter makes of the BJP’s ugly politics.
Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2015
