Politics re-discovered balance for a short spell before losing it again. Rahul Gandhi shined a bit more before losing the glow. Prime Minister Narendra Modi dimmed a bit to burn bright again. The opposition shrank more and the BJP made its footprint larger. Seen through the prism of elections, year 2024 marked no big shift in politics. It only acknowledged the obvious. If politics is solely about election verdicts, then it bore the stamp of continuity, not change.
The general election, the biggest political event of the year, sprang a surprise. It posed a threat to continuity but the idea of a powershift was not strong enough. The 400-plus seats was hyperbole, but no one expected the Narendra Modi-led BJP to come below the majority mark. It did, and dealt a blow to the aura of invincibility of the ruling dispensation. However, the damage was not big enough to unsettle it. Post-poll arrangement with Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP put it in the saddle again.
The united opposition had reason to gloat. They had, at last, found the magic formula to tame the untamable. Combined, they could defeat the BJP. The overarching appeal of Hindutva could be challenged by bread and butter issues – jobs and rising prices, after all, were more fundamental existential matters than religion. The towering image of Modi could be matched by Rahul Gandhi, so far considered a political lightweight. Then came the assembly election in Haryana as the dampener, and then the Maharashtra election results. It left the opposition in a quandary again, and Rahul Gandhi turned into a small player again.
But Rahul Gandhi is irrelevant in the bigger scheme of things. Election results can be a wrong guide if you are looking at the future direction of the country. The big fight in the country is now between two ideologies, one focussed on the past and maintaining the ancient status quo, and the other on moving beyond both; one insistent on confining people to faith and the other on breaking free of it; one resisting change and the other seeking pragmatic adjustment with the new; and one batting for the supremacy of the community and the other for the freedom of the individual.
Electoral politics does not catch much of these nuances. A crude test of numbers as it is, it operates in the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ binary. Results are where its utility and purpose end. In 2024, if we must find a message from the masses in the results, it would be that it favoured a longer stint for the ways of the ruling dispensation, but with strings attached. It also made clear that the opposition’s argument for change has not been convincing enough, or they have not been punished enough for their grave indiscretions in the past.
Election results, in the final analysis, are the victory of defeat of people and parties, and they depend on many variables, however, the clash between the core visions remains a constant. The vision for India envisaged in the Constitution combined with bread and butter matters would stay valid, as would the revisionist thinking. Each would choose a leader at an appropriate time. If there is any takeaway from politics in 2024, it is this.
Expect the clash to continue in 2025.
(By arrangements with Perspective Bytes)
