Bihar For BJP

The results of the Bihar Assembly elections were declared on November 10. It was the first full-fledged election in India during the coronavirus pandemic. But that did not deter people from casting their votes. More than 4 crore out of over 7 crore eligible voters stepped out to vote, said the Election Commission. According to the results, National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which comprises BJP, Janata Dal (United) (JDU) of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, and a couple of small parties, retained Bihar by winning 125 seats in a tightly contested election. Challenging NDA was Grand Alliance, which comprised Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) of Tejashvi Yadav, Congress, and three communist parties. It got 110 seats in the 243-member legislative assembly. The half-way mark is 122.

Just a month before election, it was seen as a cakewalk for the NDA. However, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav took things into his hands and dominated the election campaign. He set the agenda for the campaign and put the NDA on the defensive. But the NDA got the edge thanks to BJP’s election strategy, Prime Minister Modi’s popularity and communal rhetoric.

Despite the Grand Alliance falling behind the majority mark, RJD became the single largest party in the Assembly. It got 75 seats, while the BJP got 74. It is laudable also because the election was looking one sided for NDA till a month ago. Tejashwi Yadav was nowhere to be seen in the state. Not only his opponents, but his own party members and allies doubted his ability to lead the party and the alliance.

But once the campaign began, Mr. Tejaswi (31) pushed himself into it. He raised the issue of unemployment in the state from where people migrate on a large scale to other states for jobs. It was also significant on the backdrop of thousands of migrant workers facing hardships during the lockdown. Addressing 247 rallies across the state in about a month, he promised 10 lakh jobs if he came to power. The BJP first questioned where will so many jobs come from, and later itself promised 19 lakh jobs if it won.

In response to Tejashwi Yadav’s unemployment issue, the NDA centered its campaign around the fear of the so called Jungle raj during the rule of Tejashwi Yadav’s father Lalu Prasad Yadav between 1990 and 2005, and emotional and communal issues such as Article 370, Ram temple, CAA, Chhatpuja. Senior NDA leaders made personal attacks on Mr. Tejashwi and his family. For example, he was called “jungle raj ka yuvraj” (prince of jungle raj). But he did not respond to them in the similar language or tone and continued his campaign focused on unemployment. That paid off as the campaign did not get ugly and the Grand Alliance got just 12000 votes less than the NDA.

Despite all this, Bihar election 2020 is the story of BJP’s growth in the state. JD (U) which was till now the senior partner in the NDA, and used to win more seats than the BJP, remained far behind in this election with just 43 seats. Both the parties had contested equal number of seats. However, it seems the BJP is not attempting long jump of the kind it attempted in Maharashtra and fell down. In Bihar, it is taking one step at a time. That is why BJP leaders have reiterated that JD (U)’s Nitish Kumar will continue as Chief Minister.

Clearly, RJD and BJP are going to be the two dominant forces in Bihar. Though the communist parties performed well, even better than Congress, their influence is limited. The BJP has been using emotional issues and blatantly communal rhetoric to win elections. However, these strengths will eventually become its limitations, at least in the state elections. Bihar’s people will benefit if both the parties focus instead on issues that have an impact on people’s lives.

Chasing The Illusion

The world is in panic due to coronavirus pandemic. The virus and the measures taken to contain it are hitting us in many ways. Global supply chains are badly affected due to restrictions on movement. Caught off guard by the crisis, people want to take no chance and want to do everything they can to safeguard themselves from any such crisis in the future. But in this desperation and fear we must see to it that we are not playing into the hands of forces which are searching for opportunities in crisis to push forward their highly flawed ideas.

In one of his addresses to the nation Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a call for Atmanirbhar Bharat (self reliant India), which means that Indians should buy products made in India and use services of Indian companies. People should also be vocal about using local, he appealed. This way, Mr. Modi said, global brands will emerge from India.

The idea of using “swadeshi” is not new. It did not surface after the pandemic struck. It has been around since early 20th century. The insistence on using swadeshi and boycotting foreign goods was justified when we were under British rule. We were not free to choose with which country we want to trade. The trade was not necessarily for the benefits of Indian people. But when we became independent, we could choose our trading partners, and trade with them on equal terms. The idea of swadeshi became irrelevant especially after India adopted new economic policy of Liberalisation, Privatisation, Globalisation in 1991. However, some radical forces, who were, in the words of former U.S. President Bill Clinton, on the ‘wrong side of history’, kept hugging the idea of swadeshi. In recent years, these forces have come to power and have been imposing their outdated ideas on people through coercion. Coronavirus pandemic has given them the opportunity to exploit people’s fear and push for the highly flawed idea of “be Indian, buy Indian”.

Before coming to the flaws of the idea, let us consider the reasoning behind the self reliant India mission. Apart from reducing India’s dependence on other countries, it is claimed that the mission will provide opportunities for Indian businesses. However, is setting up a new business, putting ideas in practice easy in India? The answer is simply no. Besides the challenges businesses generally face, there are India specific challenges.

A lot has been said about hurdles posed by bureaucracy. I will just share two data points which appeared in Bangalore Mirror. According to an estimate of National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI), if you are in Bangalore and if you want to open a restaurant, you will require a total of 36 approvals. In Delhi the number of approvals is 26, and in Mumbai it is 22. Of late, people have been talking about making India a “manufacturing hub”. According to a figure quoted in the Economic Survey of India 2019-20, manufacturing units in India require complying with 6796 rules and regulations. However, this is the total number of rules and regulations and every rule does not apply to every unit. But look at the number of rules the sector has to comply with. What will happen to a small business which has a limited workforce? They cannot have a dedicated person or team to ensure that they are complying with all the rules.

Indian social environment is not very conducive for entrepreneurship. Society and families in general do not encourage risk- taking. There is no space to make mistakes. People feel pressure to take up a job and live a stable life. Also, despite Indians boasting about unity in diversity in the country, different groups are stereotyped. It poses an additional hurdle in the way of people from different backgrounds who may have brilliant business ideas.

India’s education system, like Indian society, does not encourage entrepreneurship. Let alone the lack of entrepreneurial skills in the curriculum, the culture in the schools gives excessive importance to discipline. There is no scope for children to think and to do something different. Not enough opportunities are given to children to explore themselves. School in India is not at all a better place for different children. It leaves no stone unturned to crush their confidence. As far as education in these schools is concerned, children are bombarded with facts rather than encouraged to put them in different perspectives. Not surprisingly, many people have no clue at all about what to do in life, let alone them thinking about business ideas.

Now let us come to the flaws of the idea of self reliant India. As per my understanding, it means import substitution. India would restrict imports and force people to buy from local companies. In other words, it will reduce people’s choices and competition for Indian companies. If a person gets a good quality imported product at Rs 20, and the same product made in India costs Rs 25, the former is giving more value for money. The person can use the remaining Rs 5 in some other economic activity. That avoids the flow of wealth from one section of the society to another directly, ensures that the wealth doesn’t get concentrated.

If we talk about the competition aspect, as we have seen that setting up a new business is not very easy in India, if we restrict imports, the established businesses will have nobody to compete with. Indians will strictly have to buy products from these companies no matter how the quality and what the price is.

As far as creating global brands in India is concerned, how will Indian companies be able to compete at the global level when they don’t face competition within the country?

The concept of Atmanirbharta or self reliance is an illusion. Nobody in this world is self reliant. We are dependent on one another. It will be disastrous for our economy and our people if we start chasing the illusion of self reliance. Instead, we must compete with the world by making changes in our policies, in our attitudes and, most importantly, by making drastic changes in our education system.

BJP’s Trust Vote

It is surprising that the Congress-JD[S] coalition managed to run their government in Karnataka for almost two month after their massive defeat in the Lok Sabha election. I was hoping that the government will collapse in a week or two after the May 23 election result. For there was infighting within the coalition, and BJP was attempting to lure the coalition’s Members of Legislative Assembly[MLAs]. Finally, starting from July 6, 15 coalition MLAs resigned in phases, bringing down its strength in the Assembly. What followed was dragging and misuse of constitutional offices by all political players for their selfish motives.

The speaker is deliberately delaying decision on the resignations. He has not accepted the resignations yet. In such a scenario, those 15 MLAs will get disqualified if they don’t vote in favor of the coalition or remain absent during the trust vote. In that case, they won’t be able to become ministers in an alternative government. Secondly, the speaker is using his extraordinary powers to run the house in favor of the Congress-JD[S] coalition by allowing a three day long debate on the trust vote.

On the other hand, the 15 MLAs reached Supreme Court against the speaker’s inaction on their resignations. The Supreme Court, in its July 17 order, said that the MLAs need not be present in the assembly during the trust vote. Which means, they will not get disqualified even if they remain absent for the vote. The Congress-JD[S] combine hopes that the court will reverse this order, and that is why they are delaying the vote through speaker. They have approached the Supreme Court.

Karnataka Governor is echoing BJP’s stand of having the trust vote at the earliest. The BJP wants it early so that it can form the alternative government. The question is: how can the Governor direct the speaker about house proceedings? The house has taken up the trust vote and they are debating on it. The voting happens after the debate. It is the speaker’s right to decide the duration of a debate in the house.

There is clear disrespect of people’s mandate in all this.

This is an opportunity for the BJP to prove that it adheres to democracy. that it stands for a change, that it is different from the Congress, that it wants to start a new kind of politics in India, and that it respects people’s mandate. The Congress-JD[S] coalition government in all likelihood will collapse on Monday. Instead of immediately forming the alternative government, the BJP should wait. Let the by-elections on those 15 seats whose representatives have resigned, happen. Let the people in these constituencies decide which party members they want as their representatives. After the by-elections, if the numbers go in BJP’s favor then it should form the government. But if the numbers don’t go in its favor, it should play the role of a responsible opposition and wait for its turn. Isn’t that the change the people of India want?

After The Landslide

It was clear since before election and during electioneering that, Narendra Modi will become Prime Minister for the second time. Because the opposition neither had any leader, nor any idea which could mobilize the voters. Congress’ minimum income guarantee scheme did have the potential, but it came too late, and the Congress was only on social media and not on the ground. Given this, I was hoping that National Democratic Alliance [NDA] will form the government with BJP emerging as a single largest party, but not crossing the 272 mark. I was hoping that the 2014 performance of the BJP [282 seats] was all time best performance and it can’t go higher than that. But Thursday’s result stunned all of us. The BJP on its own got a whopping 303 seats and the Congress came a distant second with 52 seats.

How is it that despite agrarian distress, economic slowdown, joblessness, poor implementation of GST, and demonetization BJP got 21 seats more than 2014? How is it that there was not even slightest anti incumbency? The answer is in just two words: Narendra Modi. Not only during election, but in the past 5 years India’s public debate revolved excessively around him. Narendra Modi was everywhere. He was in his campaign, he was in opposition’s campaign, he was on television screens, on mobile screens, in he newspapers, in people’s living rooms, in people’s minds! It includes both, his supporters and his critics. Just like his supporters gave him credit for anything and everything, his opponents criticized him for anything and everything. When his critics pointed finger at him for each and every problem, ignoring the bigger picture and sometimes even getting personal, people started sympathizing with him. It did not go down well with an average Indian voter that everybody is criticizing one person day in and day out, a person who “has come from humble background”, who works for “17-18 hours a day” for the country, who “has sacrificed his life for the country”. He also very cleverly played victim card, telling people that everybody is after him because they can’t see that a “tea vendor” has become prime minister. In all this, issues disappeared and everything was all about Narendra Modi. Of course, credit must be given to the media and his PR team.

When any leader emerges, he carries with him certain ideas. They may belong to him, or to the organisation which backs him. They may be the ideas of development, ideas about how we imagine ourselves as a community or a country, ideas about worldview. These ideas continue to exist even after the leader is gone. It is these ideas that shape our future course and not the leader who popularized these ideas. If we look at the history of modern India, we can see that different leaders had carried different sets of ideas which brought us where we are today. The ideas which emerged during our freedom movement continued to guide us after independence as well. While the leaders who had carried the idea are not with us. Modi also carries certain ideas. They are not entirely his but are of the organisation which backs him. He has risen to top powered by that organisation. Through Modi, the organisation is popularizing its ideas.

Now that the election is over and Narendra Modi is here to stay at least for the next five years, we must ask ourselves a question. Why do we support/oppose Narendra Modi so much? Is it just because he is Narendra Modi? Or is it because we agree/disagree with the ideas which he carries? If the first is our answer, then we need to rethink. India is a huge country. One person cannot run it alone. He needs a party or an organisation, which does not support him for free. Mahatma Gandhi could become a national figure partly because of a huge Congress organisation. Ignoring this and blindly supporting/opposing one person amounts to a great disservice not only to the country but to democracy as well. If the second is our answer, then we need to do a course correction. First, let’s talk about the supporters. Narendra Modi is not going to stay here for centuries. But the ideas can. Instead of highly banking on him, we should propagate the ideas and convince people to embrace them as these are the best for our country. For critics, instead of criticizing Modi every now and then, we should criticize the ideas. We should tell the people how dangerous these ideas are, and give an alternative set of ideas which people should embrace for the betterment of our country and humanity. It is only if we walk on one path, will we be able to reach our destination and not by changing paths again and again.

Well, we have time to answer the question and change our future course of action accordingly. For now, let’s congratulate Mr. Modi and BJP for a landslide victory, and hope that the next government will work for a prosperous, progressive and inclusive India. Let’s also hope that the government will work towards removing as much artificial hurdles from the way of individuals as it can, so that every individual gets an opportunity to do what he/she loves to do.