India’s Absurdly Long Election May Actually Have Worked Against Modi; What Actually Happens When the King Meditates?
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by MK Venu, Seema Chishti, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sushant Singh, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal and Tanweer Alam | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK
Snapshot of the day
May 31, 2024
Siddharth Varadarajan
Floods in the North East have claimed 40 lives and affected over 200,000 people across five states. The worst affected districts are Aizawl (Mizoram), Cachar, Karimganj, and Sonitpur (Assam) and Imphal (Manipur).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is meant to be isolation, except there are hundreds of cameramen and at least 2000 policemen surrounding him at Kanyakumari. So who is in charge in South Block as he shuts his eyes to the world? Or is he actually working once the cameras move away? The Wire contacted senior officers who were in prime positions in the past.
Years ago, Rabindranath Tagore anticipated the drama. Here is what he wrote about the meditating King:
“Religion, Karl Marx wrote, is the opium of the people. This thought still resonates in places where organised religion remains a powerful force. That is why Donald Trump also claims to be doing God’s work. In India, poor people often see politicians as gods delivering relief to numb the pain of reality. By claiming to be divine, Mr Modi is making devotees of voters, encouraging a belief that it is God’s purpose to target minorities, outlaw dissent and ride roughshod over constitutional protections,” scolds an editorial in The Guardian taking stock of Modi’s audacity of hate.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission’s radio silence on Modi’s meditation gambit “would lead to a serious violation of the Model Code of Conduct for political parties and candidates,” writes V Venkatesan arguing that it has severe legal implications:
“In the normal course, Modi’s inclination to meditate after a gruelling election campaign across the country would appear to be well-intended, as it would help him as an individual to restore for himself some degree of composure and equanimity in preparation for the uncertain electoral verdict on June 4. However, the Prime Minister wanting to exercise his individual right to meditate at a public place like the Vivekananda Memorial amounts to an open invitation to the media to broadcast the event live to the voters, who are yet to exercise their franchise in 57 Lok Sabha constituencies spread across eight States and Union Territories, after the restriction on any campaigning—direct or indirect—kicks in.”Meanwhile, the search for Vikas continues.
Sushant Singh raises a pertinent point about the one-month extension to the Army chief, bang in the middle of the elections. That he is retiring on the date he is, has been known for years. So why do this now and raise serious apprehensions? Recent conduct of the armed forces has raised serious questions about their apolitical nature and it is up to the current Army chief to emulate the precedent of Gen Raina. “When Indira Gandhi imposed the official Emergency in June 1975, General TN Raina was the army chief. According to his biographer, he “politely and firmly refused” the army’s involvement and at a function at the Imperial hotel in New Delhi, and publicly declared that “the Indian Army was an apolitical organisation.” That is a precedent for the current set of military leaders, whether on extension or not, to imbibe and follow. Nothing less will suffice.”
In a tragic turn of events in Bihar, at least eight poll workers have died of heat strokes, casting a shadow over the final phase of India’s protracted elections.
Survival is at stake as South Asia’s heat wave reaches a scorching 127 degrees. Pakistan and India are sweltering under the extreme temperatures, leaving many labourers facing an agonising dilemma, reports The New York Times. For those who cannot afford to miss a day’s pay, it becomes a dire choice between working and collapsing from the heat.
Unemployment looms large in voters’ – especially young voters’ – minds this election, but you wouldn’t think so if you used Modi’s campaign speeches as a barometer. The Quint Lab analysed speeches Modi gave between March 16 and this Monday, and found that as opposed to 2,942 utterances of ‘Congress’, ‘2,862’ references to himself and even 104 references to Pakistan, “jobs” figured only 53 times in the prime minister’s script.
Documented death, debt and despair on a 150-km journey along the Ganga, from Prayagraj to Varanasi to Kaithi, three years after the river bore truth to the trail of destruction left behind by the COVID-19 pandemic. Asmita Nandy has a story about the human memory and the lack of it.
The young men who inhabit the Bazaar Samiti area of Musallahpur in Patna are ready to vote for those whom they think will finally offer them a hand out of poverty that they live in, reports Arfa Khanum Sherwani. “Some of these youth had voted for the BJP in the 2014 elections. Now, however, many seem to have changed their mind.”
Prajwal Revanna was arrested this morning in Bengaluru upon arriving from Munich. He was produced before a judge at the city’s civil court and the SIT probing allegations of his sexually abusing and filming women is likely to request his custody. The SIT has also sought the cancellation of the bail granted to Prajwal’s father HD Revanna, who is accused of kidnapping women in the sexual abuse case.
As India is an inch closer towards finishing the elections – the last day of polling is June 1 – it is worth looking how Western leaders view the recent erosion of democratic institutions and the state of democracy. “Even so, many Western officials I spoke to seem unsure that their current hands-off approach towards Mr Modi is working. They still mostly believe in trying to help India to develop into a strategic counterweight to China. But many worry that a more authoritarian India would bolster China’s efforts to legitimise its own form of government—especially in the global south—and undermine the Western-led global order,” writes Jeremy Page in Essential India The Economist’s Newsletter. “As one interviewee argued, Western backing for right-wing authoritarians was problematic enough in the cold war but sometimes served to halt the spread of communism. The ultimate goal now, though, is to stop the spread of autocracy in all its forms. Speaking out may not persuade Mr Modi to change course, but it demonstrates consistent concern to his government, to India’s public and to other democracies in jeopardy. Silence sends the opposite message.”
India’s election is the ‘Talk of the Town’ in its diaspora. Even though “the number of Indians abroad is small relative to the country’s population”, The New York Times reports on how “Indian political parties want their support anyway.”
The petition of an interfaith couple who sought protection was recently rejected by the Madhya Pradesh High Court. While refusing their plea, the court said that marriage between a Muslim man and a Hindu woman was invalid as per the Muslim Personal Law, reports LiveLaw. The petitioners had said in their plea that despite being in love with each other, their marriage couldn’t be registered under the Special Marriage Act as they couldn’t appear before the Marriage Officer owing to objections raised by their family. “As per Mahomedan law, the marriage of a Muslim boy with a girl who is an idolatress or a fireworshiper, is not a valid marriage. Even if the marriage is registered under the Special Marriage Act, the marriage would be no more a valid marriage and it would be an irregular (fasid) marriage.” Justice Gurpal Singh Ahluwalia stated in the order passed. The court observed that the petitioners were neither willing to be in a live-in relationship, nor was the woman willing to convert to Islam, the man’s religion.
Prabir Purkayastha, Newsclick’s founder-editor against whom the Delhi police invoked anti-terror laws but whom the Supreme Court released on bail earlier this month, spoke at a Press Club event yesterday, Sumedha Mittal reports. “Democracy does not survive just because of courts and the press. It survives only because people believe in it. People want to act for it,” he said. “That is the spirit with which we have seen the rebirth of resistance of different kinds…It is the journalists from different kinds of platforms who keep up the spirit of people who need to know what is happening.”
Sixteen reserve soldiers, including three of the lieutenant colonel rank, are accused of barging into a Kashmir police station on Wednesday, beating up cops there and kidnapping the head constable after a local police raid on a reservist’s home earlier that day. The soldiers are also accused of extracting the reservist who was arrested following the raid. An unnamed defence spokesperson said the allegations were incorrect and that only “minor differences” had arisen between the two sides and were later “amicably resolved”.
Among the constituencies in Punjab that will go to the polls tomorrow is Jalandhar, an SC-reserved seat that is an erstwhile bastion of the Congress and was won by the Aam Aadmi Party following over two decades of grand old party victories in a bypoll just last year. Former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi is up against many turncoat politicians in what will be a five-cornered battle. Kusum Arora reports.
Saying that as the voters will have already spoken by the time voting for this general election comes to a close tomorrow, the Congress has announced it “[does] not see any reason to indulge in speculation and slugfest for TRP” – it will not participate in exit poll debates between tomorrow and when counting takes place on Tuesday, Pawan Khera announced today.
Paddy procurement season in Telangana marred by controversy
The paddy procurement process in Telangana has been marred by delays in transportation, shortages of gunny sacks and unseasonal rains, which have damaged many acres worth of crops. P Sridhar and B Chandrasekhar also report that instances of farmers having to wait to get their hands on inputs for the upcoming kharif season are also on the rise. This has turned into fertile ground for political parties to step in: the ruling Congress is warding off attacks from the BJP and the regional Bharat Rashtra Samithi, which allege apathy and even malfeasence on behalf of the Revanth Reddy government.
Seventy-six years after Partition, a newfound sense of alienation
“There was a bit of uncertainty about Muslims’ place in India after the Partition … But I didn’t feel scared. I had faith in India as a nation. Today, however, after spending all my life here, I wonder if I belong,” a 92-year-old Muslim voter from Beed who voted both in India’s first election and the ongoing general election, told Parth MN, who also spoke to an octogenarian Muslim resident of the district. They recount what seems to be a fast fading time where integrity mattered more than power, and where fraternity instead of suspicion or hate prevailed among Hindus and Muslims.
Household savings hit record low at 5.2%, debt at all-time high in FY 23: RBI
The Reserve Bank of India’s annual report for 2024 reveals a worrying trend in household finances. Household savings plummeted to a record low of 5.2% of gross national disposable income (GNDI) in FY 22-23, while debt levels surged to an unprecedented 5.7%.
Despite net financial savings maintaining a decade-long average of 7.5%, they sharply declined from 11.6% during the pandemic year FY20-21 to 7.2% in FY 21-22, reaching an all-time low last year. Similarly, gross financial savings, which had been steady at 10-11%, peaked at 15.6% in FY20-21 but fell significantly post-pandemic. This decline in savings suggests increased consumption and reduced domestic investment, widening the savings-investment gap.
The Long Cable
India’s ridiculously long election may actually have worked against Modi
MK Venu
There is hard evidence to suggest that stretching the Lok Sabha elections over seven phases and 77 days has given a big advantage to the opposition. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, who presumably nudged the Election Commission to prolong the process, would never have anticipated this.
Lokniti-CSDS’s running post poll survey estimating the vote share of different parties has very interesting revelations. Lokniti co-director Sanjay Kumar said on India Today TV that in the first week of April, their survey showed that the BJP was going to exceed the vote share of 37 per cent it got in the 2019 elections.
However, as Lokniti kept doing post poll surveys after every phase of the elections, it found there was a late swing of 5 to 6 percentage point votes away from the BJP. It appears that at the sixth phase of the elections the BJP may have slipped closer to its 2014 Lok Sabha vote share of 31 per cent.
How did this late swing of 5 to 6 percentage points vote away from the BJP happen?
Kumar has an interesting explanation for it though it may not seem entirely satisfactory.
Kumar says that in early April the Lokniti survey showed the BJP vote share exceeding its 2019 tally of 37% because many "reluctant voters" of BJP had decided to stick with the party for want of a viable alternative.
But in the subsequent weeks, Kumar reckons, the party's campaign of "400-paar" for NDA and 370 plus for BJP began to scare voters as they started apprehending that Modi could alter the constitution with such a brute majority. The Congress and other opposition leaders took this campaign deep into the hinterland and the fear among Dalits and poorer OBCs got heightened as the elections progressed through April and May.
By now Modi realised the damage caused by the BJP's 400-paar campaign and he began dialling down on it. But his damage control came too late as the fear had already taken root.
Kumar says this could be the main reason why there was a late swing of votes away from the BJP. Lokniti does post poll surveys for The Hindu and other media platforms. Post poll surveys are known to be more reliable than exit polls which are done immediately after voting. Post poll surveys are done a day later when voters are probably less guarded in their response.
However, Lokniti does not do seat conversion from vote shares. It has had a reasonable record of predicting vote shares of different parties in the past.
Conversion from vote share to seats can be tricky. Even if the BJP’s vote share in 2024 is closer to what it got in 2014 (i.e. 31 %) it is difficult to predict the number seats it will win. In 2014, the party got 282 seats. But this does not mean it would get a similar number if its vote share this time is closer to the 2014 figure.
For instance, the BJP is likely to get more votes in the South and East but it may drop vote share in the North and West. What impact this would have on seat conversion is anybody's guess. What is important is that Lokniti anticipates the BJP’s vote share will fall from its 2019 figure of 37% and be closer to the 2014 figure of 31%. That itself opens up many possibilities.
Speaking to The Wire, political economist Parkala Prabhakar says that when there is a sharp fall in vote share, it can't be predicted where the bottom will be. He reckons the BJP's vote share could even fall below the 2014 mark and go down closer to what the party polled when Atal Bihari Vajpayee formed the government in 1998.
Parakala says Modi is a shrewd politician and he probably figured his 2019 vote share was slipping. That might have prompted him to turn his campaign sharply communal so that he could ring-fence his core Hindutva constituency.
The results on June 4 will really tell us the real story of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Reportedly
In another sign of the lack of trust in the elecoral process under the current Election Commission of India, the DMK has written to the ECI to remind it about what the rules say on postal ballots: only these votes should be counted in the first 30 minutes of the counting process and the results from them declared before the EVM counting begins. The reason for this? Fear that so-called uncounted postal ballots may be brought in to tip the balance in closely fought constituencies.
Deep dive
In her paper ‘Displacing and Disciplining Muslims in India's Burgeoning Hindu Rashtra’, historian Audrey Truschke looks at three major developments in modern—or Modi’s—India: “the 2019 state policy changes regarding Kashmir, the late 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act, and the February 2020 Delhi riots”. Common across all three cases, she says, “is Hindu nationalists' penchant for using force and coercion to achieve their aims at the expense of Muslim communities.”
Prime number: 5×
Digital payment frauds worth Rs 1,457 crore occurred in FY24, a fivefold jump from FY23, new RBI figures say. Some voice concern saying prevalent financial illiteracy, loosening control among fintechs and fraudsters growing increasingly sophisticated means “vast [sections of the] population is rendered vulnerable to such attacks”, Sidhartha Shukla reports.
Opeds you don’t want to miss
With Indian democracy increasingly under threat from Hindutva, “B.R. Ambedkar’s fight against caste inequality acquires a new significance.” Gyan Prakash on a ‘life of contradictions’.
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval’s call to integrate all Centrally Administered Paramilitary Forces goes against One Border-One Force, says Sanjiv Krishan Sood arguing that it will be nothing but catastrophic. “The BSF guarding India-Bangladesh and India-Pakistan borders faces an entirely different operational environment than the Sashastra Seema Bal”.
While the Indian elite resorts to strident nationalistic rhetoric and jingoistic grandstanding in domestic politics, its psyche longs for a seat at the high table of Western democracies, writes MK Bhadrakumar.
The 2024 Lok Sabha campaign, says Rajdeep Sardesai, “suggests that electoral democracy is alive in India even if constitutional democracy appears weakened.”
Bharat Bhushan writes about the significance of Narendra Modi’s ‘meditation’ at Kanyakumari: He “deliberately combines Hindu rituals in his public persona for the political purpose of appealing to the Hindu masses.”
If India wants to become an upper-middle income country, it needs to build more: but scorching temperatures that are followed by strong monsoons – brought to you by climate change – threaten to stymie India’s dreams, David Fickling says.
Migrants are often unable to cast their votes due to systemic exclusions and economic constraints. This has made them invisible as a vote-bank and heightened their marginalisation, writes Namrata Raju.
Listen up
Listen to Muhammad Faysal’s interview with Hakim Sameer Hamdani and Shakir Mir on the Museum of Kashmir podcast. They discuss Kashmir’s most famous sultan, Budshah Zain-ul-Abidin.
Watch out
‘There is a clear attempt by the RSS to infiltrate the judiciary’, says Christophe Jaffrelot to Sidharth Bhatia in an important interview. Must watch to understand all that is in play in India today – and will be in the future.
Over and out
SARPA is an app dedicated to helping snakebite victims find aid and connect with snake handlers in Kerala. Nadeem Sarwar reports on how the app has, according to the state’s wildlife minister, led to thousands of rescues and has the potential to push people away from superstition or faith healers. There are still obstacles though, like a lack of trained doctors and unavailability of antivenom.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.