Failure has many mothers: The Indian voter gets it right again
- A ‘we can do no wrong’ attitude seems to have led the BJP to a weakened mandate. We can expect better checks and balances.
Failure has many mothers. Explanations will be many over the next few days, if not months, about why the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, someone who has not lost an election to date, lost the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
One outstanding reality is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be below the majority mark on its own. There are several corollaries to this conclusion: among them, the rise of the Congress, the survival of Janata Dal-United’s Nitish Kumar and the resurgence of Telugu Desam Party’s Chandrababu Naidu.
Before we get to the big failure, some important side-stories to consider.
Also read: Lok Sabha Election Results 2024: PM Modi set for historic 3rd term; Congress emerges a strong opposition
Why did pollsters get this election so wrong? I am an election junkie and have forecast elections even when not asked to. In my book How We Vote (with Abhinav Motheram), I had forecast a comfortable victory for Modi. I based my conclusion on the simple proposition that people vote on the basis of improvement in individual economic welfare. The analysis was right, the forecast was wrong.
Across the seven seas, there is a parallel phenomenon emerging, and one where the hypothesis ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ originated. By all accounts, Joe Biden is presiding over a very successful US economy, a performance that would have predicted a healthy victory for the Democrats in November 2024. According to many analysts, the Democrats will likely lose 2024.
Most exit polls reached the same conclusion as mine; and the best performing exit poll, by Dainik Bhaskar, had the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which the BJP leads, at 316 seats (+- 34). It had the I.N.D.I.A. alliance at 173 seats (+-28). While credit should be given where due—i.e. by getting the NDA tally approximately right at the low end— there is failure at the upper bound of I.N.D.I.A., which will likely go home with 225+ seats.
In other words, the whole class failed. Why and how? The last time the whole class failed was in the 2015 Bihar assembly election. I was one of the few who got it right. Useful advice to forecasters: Advise people often and always remind them when you are right. But when you do, it is advisable to point out your failures as well!
Three states stand out as performers for the I.N.D.I.A alliance: Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Maharashtra. Equally, the NDA should introspect and identify its mistakes. A common feature in all these states was anti-Muslim rhetoric and polarization.
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About a year ago (before the ODI World Cup), I was surprised by the extreme reaction (arrogance?) of intellectual conservatives to my suggestion of opening the doors to normalization of relations with Pakistan by allowing cricket friendship tours. Remove Article 370, but normalize cricket ties. But the ‘conservatives’ won.
Introspection is the buzzword post the election. Modi and the BJP have to introspect the most. An open-door policy of welcoming all to a party known for its disciplined intake, the rise of corruption, and a profoundly mistaken belief that polarization works, all these deserve some thought. Underlying all this seemed an arrogance bordering on ‘We can do no wrong.’
The BJP was seemingly coasting to victory when a downtick in voter turnouts in the first two phases appears to have convinced the party’s ‘planners’ that anti-Muslim rhetoric and polarization works. There is no evidence that it does, and Karnataka a year ago was an important piece of proof that polarization is counter-productive, and equivalent to ‘Apne pair pe apni kulhadi maarna.’
A lose-lose proposition. So, why did the BJP leadership indulge in it? A credible one-word explanation may be arrogance; i.e., a we-can-do-no-wrong attitude. Another pointer from the Karnataka assembly election was that while corruption in India was all pervasive, it was expected that the BJP under Modi would be significantly less corrupt than the rest.
I want to end this column on failures with successes that supersede failure. The Indian voter, ever mindful of pulling the correct lever for the country, has set in motion much-needed checks and balances to policy.
To use an analogy from economics, why do monopolies happen? Because of innovation, because of invention and because of thinking big. Why do monopolies fail? Because the monopolist, having tasted profound success, wanders into complacency, and worse, arrogance. The end of arrogance comes from competition.
Significant checks and balances are now likely to invade the BJP policy space. At every opportunity, I hold up my mobile and state, “Jaago aur jaagte raho—duniya badal gayi hai" (Stay alert, for the world is changing), followed by the maxim, “There is no place to hide anymore".
In policy terms, we could expect substantially less misuse of Enforcement Directorate powers, less tolerance of sexual offenders (as in the case of wrestlers), and less (or zero?) imprisonment of opposition leaders.
Also read: Poll result debacle: The stock market’s love for the BJP cost it dearly
Expect less centralization of power in administration—again, monopoly has advantages before laziness in thinking and arrogance of action devour the monopolist. Expect less banning of data, less suppression of information and more freedom of expression.
As I have mentioned often, and will continue to write, no data should be suppressed, however bad its quality. The non-release of the 2017-18 Household Consumer Expenditure Survey set in motion an atmosphere of suspicion and non-acceptance of any data produced by Indian statistical authorities. Why it happened for the first time in India is a question still not answered. Again, the ever-mindful Indian voter will have an effect.
This election, as always, belongs to the Indian voter.
