In poll season, a reluctant acceptance...

...and some dim lights at the ends of dark tunnels

It’s been festival overload these past two weeks. This year, Eid-ul-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramzan, coincided with the annual cluster of traditional New Year celebrations from different parts of India - Ugadi and Gudi Padva in the Deccan region, Poila Boishakh in Bengal, Vishu in Kerala, followed by Ram Navami, which celebrates the birth of Lord Rama - to create a smorgasbord of good food, dressing up, meet-ups and WhatsApp greetings. To top that, it’s general election time, and that is a kind of festival, too - a festival of democracy, if you will, as a recent government press release termed it! Between 19th April (the day I send this SubStack out) and 1st June 2024, 97 million eligible voters can exercise their franchise to choose representatives to the lower house of the Indian Parliament, with the winning party or coalition getting to choose the country's Prime Minister.

Except democracy in India appears to be in a spot of trouble. Even if you aren’t impressed by global rankings, such as the Gothenburg-based V-Dem Institute’s rating of India as an “electoral autocracy” (that is further autocratizing), it is quite clear from the government’s obsessive control over media, lopsided political funding and the jailing of activists, critics and leaders of the Opposition on unproven charges that all is not well in the world’s largest democracy.

Given this scenario, it isn’t surprising that there isn’t much of an election buzz this time. Everyone seems to think that election results are a foregone conclusion, with the current incumbent’s larger-than-life persona, flawless approval ratings, and a weakened Opposition having imbued the exercise with the flavour of a one-sided Presidential race.

The two largest national parties INC and BJP are locked in an unequal race in India’s 2024 national elections

Yet, many conversations in the past weeks have challenged this idea, and people I have met have expressed dissatisfaction, even trepidation, about PM Modi getting a third term. For instance, I was admonished by an auto driver for asking for a QR code to pay him. Certainly, Modi’s government has pushed digital payments aggressively, bringing an enormous convenience to daily life, so much so that many of us have stopped carrying cash. I said as much to him in a light-hearted sort of way, triggering an angry diatribe about how the constant reliance on smartphones and mobile data is hard for the poor, and how the poor have been neglected and the rich cosseted in recent years. He ended with a poignant question, “Gareeb ko muft ka anaaj dene se kya unki gareebi khatm ho jaati hai, bataaiye? Humein bhi apne pairon par khade ho jaana hai.” [Can you really end poverty merely by giving the poor free foodgrains? We also want to stand on our own feet].

The auto driver’s words go to the heart of the strange crossroads India finds itself in. On the one hand, a world of tech-enabled progress and convenience strengthens the narrative of India’s progress and development and feeds aspiration for a consumption-oriented modern lifestyle; on the other, the failure to create large-scale and decent employment, rising costs of living and falling real wages has made life really difficult for ordinary households. The language of handouts particularly insults the working-class city-dweller, whose growing aspirations have urged him to leave behind the world of rural poverty where subsistence on handouts is a common experience but whose struggles to eke out a living are constantly frustrated by a hostile urban environment riddled with petty bureaucracy, threats of eviction from precarious housing and the fear of unexpected expenses, most notably for healthcare.

Political analysts remind us that economic issues rarely decide an election in India, where caste and religion are far more evocative. Metropolitan folks like me, who considered these assertions rather irrational, have been forced to eat humble pie as the juggernaut of Hindutva has relentlessly marched into our neighbourhoods, homes and, God forbid, our hearts too! The loud opinions of privileged Hindu folks (a demographic in which I must also include myself) resound confidently all around me. In October, in taunts made towards a minority neighbour, who commented on how the ritual burning of Ravana during Dussehra had singed the community lawns. In January, in the unabashed celebration of the installation of the idol of the child God Ram in Ayodhya, the country’s most religiously contested site, in total disregard of the decades of communal violence and suffering that preceded it. Last week, in the barely veiled gratitude from my Muslim friends whose homes I visited during Eid for the sake of friendship, but where, unwittingly and unwillingly, I performed the role of the secular Hindu compensating for the bigotry of those drugged by religious nationalism.

When the politics of the rich and privileged in India’s large cities is so torn by religion, with barely veiled undertones of caste, what must it be like in the numerous small towns and villages across the country that will really decide this election? Revati Laul, someone with my utmost respect for quitting a successful journalism and writing career to work on community building, wrote a piece recently that sheds some light on this by unravelling the on-ground workings of power. From her location in a provincial North Indian town, she shows us how deeply fascism has penetrated our lives and lulled us into a comfort zone of acceptance. When individuals are trapped in families that have become feudal, patriarchal spaces with no room for dissent, she asks how dissent can make an appearance in a national election. A “father-figure demagogue” is exactly what people are looking for, she points out, who can tell them exactly how to go about their lives so that they do not have to make any sense of the mess around them.

I totally agree with her analysis that the business of challenging the status quo, politically and socially, needs to start from the ground up in the deep work of building interpersonal and community relationships. Just as Hindutva is built on decades of social organising, she reminds us that those of us who believe in a post-caste, secular and diverse society have no choice but to put in the everyday work to make those structural shifts.

“Power does not shift in regular electoral intervals unless the cellular, deep work in the every day is done. And that needs us to get up from where we are and go elsewhere.” 
- Revati Laul, in 'Those Who Think 2024 Is a Done Deal Must Know Power Doesn't Change Hands Merely in an Election', The Wire, 10th April 2024

So what does this mean for me, as a voter and citizen who is concerned about preserving (and building back) diversity, justice, and peace in my country? Maybe, instead of getting bogged down by the distorted realities of the privileged bubble in which I live or escaping to the safety of the liberal one that I can quickly access, I need to step into unknown worlds and brave unpredictable interactions.

This is not just about stepping into a ‘research field’ and culling out the information that answers the questions I have in mind, as I have done for many years in my professional life. Rather, I sense this will entail cultivating a different sensibility about interacting with the world around me, starting with learning to listen, observe and record what I learn without prejudice, honing an incessant curiosity about people and circumstances, and shedding many existing inhibitions. I imagine this SubStack and the routine of writing it has helped me sustain will be a constant source of succour as I navigate this journey forward.

But circling back to the job at hand, voting in the upcoming elections, let me throw in my two bits to those who ask: If not Modi, then who? If you are not the kind of person who is looking for the father-figure demagogue and has some faith in the electoral system, then its best not to dwell on who the PM will be, but rather to figure out which candidate and party we want representing us in our constituency. Coalition governments are totally normal in multi-party democracies, and we should not let dominant parties use the argument of potential instability to push us to make choices we are not comfortable with. To learn more about the candidates, you can refer to PRS’ compilation of all the relevant information in an easy primer, or download the Election Commission’s Know Your Candidate app. Also, don’t forget to check your name in the voter’s list and figure out where your polling booth is well before your polling day, which you can see on this schedule.