BJP, West Bengal, Hinduised-nationalism and the X factor in politics

All three non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states have seen their incumbents decimated. West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala threw up different insights and lessons. I will list some common to these three states, and some unique as we go along. West Bengal first.

 

Let me start with a story. Shyamal Dutta (or Datta), a 1965 batch West Bengal cadre Indian Police Service officer, served as director, Intelligence Bureau (DIB) (1998-2001) under Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Later, he was governor of Nagaland (2002-2007) across the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments. He was no party’s loyalist.

 

It was on a flight to Kolkata when he was DIB that I asked him if the BJP can ever win in West Bengal. He said Bengal will embrace the BJP more wholeheartedly than any other; it’s a matter of time.

 

Dutta, 85 now, lives in retirement in Kolkata’s Ballygunge. I called him today to remind him of that conversation about 26 years ago. What made him feel confident that the BJP will rise in his home state? “It was a long time back,” he said to me today, “but probably because I had accompanied Vajpayee for his rally to Kolkata and he visited Mamata Banerjee’s home.” He recalled how Vajpayee touched Mamata’s mother’s feet.

 

The warmth there, and the crowds lining the streets made him believe Bengal was ready for the BJP. He also said, somewhat philosophically, that he had even thought that “Mamata might become the BJP’s person in Bengal”. That story turned upside down or inside out. Mamata’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) was a member of Vajpayee’s NDA and she its railways minister. The Gujarat riots of February, 2002, the rise of Narendra Modi, and her need for Muslim votes made her leave the NDA. 

 

The story told, here are some takeaways.

 

The first follows from her decimation. So far the combination of welfare and identity politics worked for her. Given the 30 per cent Muslim vote and the loyalty of women, she looked invincible despite the BJP’s decade-long challenge. But finally, lack of visible development and the old, Left Front-era ‘dadagiri’ (local mafias) defeated her. Of course, the BJP threw everything at her. But the lesson is, just welfarism and identity politics won’t keep working for you. Not for the fourth time. You need development.

 

Both West Bengal and Tamil Nadu underline the limitations of regional identity politics. Both Didi and MK Stalin built their pitch against Delhi, Hindi domination and an unfair Centre. Neither appreciated that their young people were impatient. Tamil Nadu had created more jobs than West Bengal. But, in large populations like ours, those left behind will always outnumber the gainers. It’s that grievance that led Joseph Vijay to success. Didi has no ideology except her definition of secularism. And the Tamil voter is fatigued with old Dravidian ideology. They needed a renewal.

 

Vijay’s rise isn’t unprecedented. Both Sri Lanka and Nepal, the two genuine democracies across our borders, had already seen rank outsiders sweeping aside established parties. The lesson therefore is, people, especially the young, can get bored with the same old, same old. If a fresh face emerges with new ideas and a clean slate, they’ll take their chances. We saw the first sign of this with the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi, and, more significantly, in Punjab, which had deeply entrenched political forces, including the Akalis, a religious regional party. The political outsider is now the X factor in our politics. Remember, Tamil Nadu has more voters than Sri Lanka and Nepal put together.

 

We’ve seen the marginalisation of what’s called the “minority” vote. It’s the logic of Partition that the Muslims are scattered even in states where their numbers are significant. Their vote matters if the leaders they trust build coalitions with significant sections of the Hindus. In the Mandal era, the Yadavs and Mayawati brought in their caste bases. They could then win with about a 30 per cent aggregate vote in a three-way split. With the BJP expanding its Hindu domination and also signing up multiple caste-based parties, that era of 30 per cent is over. If the BJP gets 50 per cent of the Hindu vote, it’s home. In West Bengal and Assam, it needs about 60 per cent. The ‘secular’ parties, therefore, have to revisit their formula. Or, the Muslims, 15 per cent of India, won’t matter electorally. 

 

The end of the political Left has looked so inevitable that one can’t even claim boasting rights. But do check out my WritingsOnTheWall from North Bengal published last week. The big defeat in Kerala, a near-blank in West Bengal, decimation of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led alliance in Tamil Nadu have reduced the Left to nothing. This coincides with the end of the armed, ‘revolutionary’ Left.

 

The regional parties are on their way out. On a net basis, the rise of Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) equals the score. But, TMC will struggle to recover. In Assam, the once-dominant Asom Gana Parishad is BJP’s distant hanger-on. Shiv Sena is divided, Akali Dal a shadow of its glory days, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), DMK, the Janata Dal (Secular) diminished, and Janata Dal (United) headed into the sunset with Nitish Kumar, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) broken, and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in perpetual hibernation means regional powers are fading. Mind you, I’ve only listed parties that have enjoyed multiple chief ministerships.

 

Besides Keralam, this regionals’ decline is also a positive for the Congress. Many of these regional parties had either broken away from it (TMC, Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party, or YSRCP, NCP), or vacuumed its vote banks (Samajwadi Party, BSP, Rashtriya Janata Dal). If it’s willing to put its head down and be patient — remember the BJP started with three seats in West Bengal in 2016 — the decline of these parties opens up spaces for the Congress. Does it have the skills, guts and humility?

 

And finally, you’d err if you credit or blame the BJP success only on Hindutva. It’s more than that. It is Hinduised-nationalism. In democracies the world over, hard nationalism is back. Unless BJP’s challengers accept this, they’ll slip further into obscurity. The image of Rahul Gandhi in Nicobar on the eve of the last round of West Bengal voting, to stop what the wider public opinion would see as a project of great strategic interest, fails this test. Today’s liberalism will have to first pass the test of hard nationalism.