By: Ishaan Patel
During the December holidays, I went on a grand tour of India - visiting Delhi, Jaipur and Bombay as I wheeled between relatives, landmarks and hearty food. I would rarely be in the country for the whole break - but understandable given it was thefirst time I was there since the outbreak of Covid 19. Before my trip, I was working on an article about the Gujarati bridge collapse. Between my mocks and a creative block, it languished for quite a while. I was still determined to write a piece about India - a political landscape I find entertaining, complex and mysterious. So, I decided to do an even bigger article. This one is about the BJP - why they came to power, what they are, and why people actually voted for them. I talked to friends, families and drivers across the country, about what the BJP offered them - and why they thought that the BJP has risen to such unparalleled dominance in the country.
But first of course, a brief intro on the Bharatiya Janata Party, or the BJP for short. The BJP is a nationalist, right wing, political party that has held a majority in Indian Parliament (the Lok Sabha) since the 2014 elections that swept them to power. The BJP specifically adheres to a special type of political ideology known as ‘Hindutva politics’, which emphasises Hindu majoritarianism, and the supremacy of Hinduism as the core defining trait of India, a constitutionally secular state. In the promotion of this majoritarian ideology, the BJP has been accused of stoking anti-muslim sentiment and pursuing discriminatory policies against Muslims.
Now, I expected that in India, the type of people I would meet, who were relatively irreligious, affluent and well-educated, would be anti-BJP, and their majoritarian politics. This is something we would expect, being acclimated to a UWC mindset - us being a group vehemently opposed to right-wing governance and ideology in general. But it turns out that BJP support amongst family members and friends was widespread, and indeed extremely strong. Because the BJP’s success may not be so much in terms of their appeal to Hindus, but their appeal against a certain group. And this group isn’t religious, ethnic or caste-based - it’s purely political.
The political group I’m talking about is the INC - the Indian National Congress. The INC dominated Indian Politics for most of India’s history - producing leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru, considered one of the country’s founding fathers, and Indira Gandhi, its arguably infamous first female Prime Minister. From the people I talked to - the INC times produced mostly bitterness. One anecdote tells of how, in the 70s, things like telephone lines were coming to India. Of course - that didn’t mean everybody got a line. INC governance was integrally associated with corruption - more famous examples being the Bofors scandal of the 90s, which saw top Indian officials receiving bribes from defense company, Bofors, to procure their weapons. So, to get a telephone line at the time, you need a connection with a civil servant. Our friend's family at the time worked in the diamond industry - and incidentally a civil servant needed jewellery for her daughter’s wedding. Their application for a phone line had sat in a backlog for nearly 2 years - yet, within 2 days of the diamonds being transferred, a phone line was set up.
Corruption wasn’t the only factor at play. Another was economic development - the INC was a left-wing party, and implemented policies with certain socialist characteristics - bank nationalisation, planning committees etc. However, it was argued due to the inefficiency of these policies, along with the corruption of the INC, caused India’s economic growth to lag behind other countries. It wasn't until the economic liberalization of the 90s (ironically under congress administration), that India’s economy exploded, with its GDP exploding from $266 billion to 2.3 trillion in 2020. However, many argue that the bulk of this growth, and the bulk of this impact came from the aggressive economic policies of the BJP, which have pursued policies of privatisation, and globalisation, which have drastically increased FDI. From the perspectives of working class people in India - the BJP has definitely led to better quality of living. From Delhi to Jaipur, our musically-inclined and friendly driver talked about his village. He spoke brightly of it, but also talked about its rapid growth and improvements. Since the election of the BJP he talked about the rapid electrification of his village, the creation of main roads. His children could finally get quality education with proper resources in his public schools. Now of course this anecdotal - not every villager in India has experienced this. But it falls in tandem with BJP policies - which have been to pursue a rapid development of villages.
But of course there is the elephant in the room, the position and policies that the BJP are primarily known for. It is so ubiquitous with the party, it’s what I mentioned in 90% of my starting introduction on them. It’s their Hindutva politics. Not only are the optics of it simply ugly - the promotion of Hinduism as the superior religion, and indeed, almost as a superior ethnicity, runs foul in a country that prides itself on being one of the most diverse on earth - with the third largest Muslim population in the world, and the largest muslim minority.
It was an uncomfortable topic, obviously. Few of my family, their friends and the common people could outright justify their stance on the BJP, despite their policies which are widely seen as oppressive towards Muslims and other minorities. One perspective I heard was from my Grand-aunt. She contended with me that back in the INC era, whilst minorities were given favourable treatment, they were also kept down by the INC and their ineffectual policies. She said that the BJP was getting rid of policies that discriminated against certain groups, and reserved places for others, and was trying to level the playing field - and said that the environment that the BJP was creating would enable all, including Muslims to do better. And of course this a sentiment of opinion - but it isn’t hard to see how if Indians who do not think of themselves as anti-muslim, would rationalise their stances in terms of anti-affirmation. They are against all sorts of affirmative action and advantaging policies against minorities - these not only include Muslims, but Other Backwards Castes or Tribal communities as well.
So across the three weeks, if it is one thing I have learnt about support for the BJP, is that it centres for a desire for change. People aren’t necessarily attracted to the BJP because of majoritarianism, and Hindutva politics(though some certainly are), but are attracted to the idea of change and a shake up in the current political order - having vividly experienced the effects of stagnation themselves. And of course, they don’t define themselves as anti-muslim in voting for the BJP; they broaden their stances and make it more difficult to pin down. The average BJP Indian isn’t vitriolically anti-muslim; but definitely passionate against policies such as reservations that do advantage communties such as the muslims in India. They view the BJP as a general tool; a blunt sledgehammer with which to disrupt the current order. But they do not care or simply haven’t considered from those pieces, what India would be built from it.
Sources:
Amit Mudgill. “Since 1991, Budget Size Grew 19 Times, Economy 9 Times; Your Income 5 Times.” The Economic Times, Economic Times, Feb. 2018, economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/since-1991-budget-size-grew-19-times-economy-9-times-your-income-5-times/articleshow/62735382.cms?from=mdr.
Ellis-Peterson, Hannah. “What Is Hindu Nationalism and How Does It Relate to Trouble in Leicester?” The Guardian, 20 Sept. 2022, www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/20/what-is-hindu-nationalism-and-who-are-the-rss. Accessed 6 Mar. 2023.
Mehta, Gautam. “Hindu Nationalism and the BJP’s Economic Record - the BJP in Power: Indian Democracy and Religious Nationalism.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 19 Apr. 2019, carnegieendowment.org/2019/04/04/hindu-nationalism-and-bjp-s-economic-record-pub-78720.
Pandey, Geeta. “Why Women Vote for India PM Narendra Modi’s BJP.” BBC News, 18 Apr. 2022, www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61077736. Accessed 6 Mar. 2023.
Verma, Rahul, and Rahul Verma. “The Emergence, Stagnation, and Ascendance of the BJP - the BJP in Power: Indian Democracy and Religious Nationalism.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 19 Apr. 2019, carnegieendowment.org/2019/04/04/emergence-stagnation-and-ascendance-of-bjp-pub-78735.
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