From the soundings an observer may take just before the first polling for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls on April 19, politically, the chips look to be down for the ruling clique. This could be the perfect trigger to energise the processes that add up to the staging of a counter-revolution against the Constitution of India – meaning democratic order and its values and virtues, even if these have come under frequent strain in India.
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, adding energy and speed to that process is needed even if he falls prey to his own propaganda that the polls are a cakewalk for him. He can take no chances and must quell every obstacle in his path – and there are many.
The truth is that the election is far from being a done deal, although that is the refrain of the mainline media.
It can now be seen that the counter-revolution has been in the making for a considerable time, though this wasn’t quite realised as events unfolded. People tended to attribute dangerous, egregious and extreme approaches, and the relentlessness of communal politics and polarisation, to a zealot’s bigotry.
But, under the surface, the leader was aiming to win religion-based majoritarian sanction from the populace for a longer-term project.
Lately, some BJP leaders have said that the objective of jettisoning the constitution can only be realised if the Modi-led BJP returns with something like 400 seats in a Lok Sabha of 543 – a goal which the prime minister adverts frequently.
The media has been overpowered and made to kowtow and facilitate the spread of propaganda and hide the truth. Criminal laws were changed to suit regime objectives. Staggering sums of party funds were collected from the electoral bonds scheme, declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court after an unconscionable delay.
The destination of the PM CARES fund, which the government has placed beyond scrutiny, may only be speculated about until an impartial inquiry reveals the insides of this mystery-filled coffer.
An important manifestation of the deeper ideological processes underway is the pampering of the ultra rich in the Modi raj and the tilting of the policy balance in their favour.
The direct support and influence of this class will need to be harnessed, especially in the evolution period of the regime after the 2024 poll, should Modi secure a third consecutive term with a constitution-bending majority.
Without that support, the counter-revolutionary outcome runs the risk of collapse, as it does not seem to enjoy people’s trust.
Therefore, people’s trust has to be manufactured, as if by a machine tool corporation or its electronic counterpart. Crucial to this enterprise is the nominated Election Commission of India (ECI), charged with the superintendence and conduct of the election.
This new brand, regrettably still called the ECI, was brought into being by changing the law to enable the government to have a majority in the selection panel.
By any measure of assessment, the much-vaunted ECI, once admired around the world, has been rendered hollow and turned into an adjunct of the Modi sarkar. There were many things wrong with the ECI before the advent of the ‘bulldog of democracy’, T.N. Seshan. However, none of these could be said to be a part of the toolkit to overturn the democratic system in the country.
But it seems clear that the ECI in its present avatar will henceforth be required to berate the opposition parties, overlook their harassment at the hands of the government and its coercive agencies, ignore their valid complaints while flagrantly favouring the governing party, and further disenfranchise larger segments of voters who threaten not to fall in line – in short, do everything to make the poll process one-sided and asymmetric.
At the level of instrumentality, it is the electronic voting machine (EVM) that will be the ECI’s go-to accessory. It is widely suspected to not accurately reflect, and to distort the outcome of, the vote in favour of the establishment in New Delhi through the manipulation of the VVPAT – the paper trail.
For some eight months, the ECI has refused to hear opposition parties on this complaint, and is going about as if everything was normal and that there was full public satisfaction with the EVM system.
The matter has landed before the Supreme Court at this late stage.
Casualness by all concerned is on display here. When the case is due to be heard next on April 16, the first polling on April 19 will be only three days away. The people of India must watch in anxiety, for the time seems too little for effective intervention unless a radical course can be conceived.
Meanwhile, Indians have reason to wonder if they are destined to be presented with the fait accompli of a counter-revolution to democracy for want of timely and effective intervention by the highest court in the most urgent business imaginable. The regime’s record in the protection and upkeep of democratic values and culture is a sorry one – and that written all over it is the making of a totalitarian, one-party state with core values that favour a dharma sansad or a religious leadership council, rather than institutions to protect personal liberty and a secular, liberal state.
There is a strong flavour here of Integral Humanism espoused by Deendayal Upadhyay, a former president of the Jana Sangh – the BJP’s parent – who is the Sangh parivar’s lodestar in matters of politico-philosophy.
The instruments are stacked in the government’s favour – the institutions of governance have been subverted, civil society has been made to cower through tactics of intimidation, the supposedly independent mainstream media conducts itself as an extension of the regime and the ruling party, and the opposition is being reviled on an everyday basis and its senior figures jailed.
The enormity of the threat posed to democracy at such a conjuncture can hardly be minimised.
For the government, however, this was the perfect launch pad for a sweeping poll victory, enabling it to amend or mangle the present constitution, born in the crucible of anti-colonial struggle, in order to meet the needs of authoritarian or fascist power – depending on the exigencies.
But the regime seems surprisingly insecure and fearful.
Therefore, it is likely to do what it takes to be determined about executing its counter-revolutionary vision and agenda – and to win the election at any cost in order to be able to do so.
It is important for the top judiciary to retreat from its past lackadaisical framework.
The reasons for the government’s nervousness are understandable. Quite separate from the very poor economic performance in the ten years under the present prime minister – to wit, the worst unemployment data in 40 years, the worst household savings figures suggesting acute financial distress at the level of the family, the untamed prices of essentials, widespread dissatisfaction in agriculture and the rural economy, and with the employment-generating small and medium enterprises sector going to the wall on account of policies aimed at pampering big businesses – the political picture emerging in the recent months is apt to fill the ruling party with worry.
The BJP’s efforts at corralling regional parties to partner with it as subsidiary allies in the election has come a cropper by and large, the most conspicuous case being that of the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha where its leader, chief minister Naveen Patnaik, first nodded ‘yes’ to Modi and then left him high and dry.
It is unusual to see the “all powerful leader” being stood up who, in January, had the temerity to have a photo issued (hastily withdrawn) which showed him leading Ram Lalla (the child Ram) to his partially constructed temple in Ayodhya.
In Bihar, as a ‘catch’, chief minister Nitish Kumar may in fact prove a negative factor as he has morphed into a jelly-like figure with no spine left and has become a butt of condescension.
The much enfeebled Telugu Desam Party leader Chandrababu Naidu has gratefully accepted a deal with Modi in Andhra Pradesh, but what the BJP gains from this is unclear.
In Karnataka, a bargain with the Janata Dal (Secular) is causing anguish to leaders and the rank and file in both parties.
In Maharashtra, there is a revolt of sorts brewing in the Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena. This faction had manipulated all the institutions of the land with the Modi-Shah benediction to grab the state government from Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray.
In Tamil Nadu, even the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam factions have decided against partnering with the Modi regime.
In Haryana, the BJP’s old allies have departed.
In Uttar Pradesh, Modi gave the Bharat Ratna to Chaudhary Charan Singh in exchange for the support of his grandson Jayant Chaudhary, who ditched a done deal with the INDIA bloc to grasp the BJP’s hand.
However, the disgruntled Jat farmers of western UP, who form Jayant’s core base, are not amused.
Much depends on the top court at this late stage, but what can it do to prevent the country sleep-walking into a counter-revolution? Photo: Pinakpani/Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.
For Modi, the pre-poll alliance scene looks bleak. Willing regional allies were Modi’s strong suit in 2019. After the stage-managed and dramatised Pulwama-Balakot affair (as lately disclosed in public pronouncements by former J&K governor Satyapal Malik), the regional entities had rushed to grasp Modi’s hand.
This time around, the regime looks friendless. This highlights the leader’s declining graph. Outside of the Hindi belt, his hunting grounds have shrunk. Is the EVM magic going to answer his prayers?
In contrast, the BJP’s INDIA alliance opponents have held together practically everywhere, though they were jeered and mocked by the prime minister and his coteries and the mainline media, and harassed on a daily basis by oppressive arms of the state in the shape of the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigation, and others.
The arrest of chief ministers Arvind Kejriwal and Hemant Soren, and under Income Tax pressure, the freezing of the bank accounts of the Congress party, the regime’s ideologically significant opponent, proved to be a galvanizing factor for Modi’s political opponents. It also played a role in swaying world opinion that something strange was happening in democratic India before the national election.
The arrest of chief ministers Arvind Kejriwal and Hemant Soren, and under income tax department’s pressure, the freezing of the bank accounts of the Congress party, the regime’s ideologically significant opponent, proved to be a galvanising factor for Modi’s political opponents and in swaying world opinion that something strange was happening in democratic India before the national election.
Evidently under international pressure – with adverse comments emanating from Germany, the US and even the UN – the regime has backtracked a little for now. The clamps have been removed from the Congress accounts, but with the threat that coercive action will re-commence after the election. A prominent opposition leader has been released on bail after many months.
Much depends on the top court at this late stage, but what can it do to prevent the country sleep-walking into a counter-revolution? This is an onus of unbearable severity on a single institution.
However, what’s pretty clear should not be done in the name of correcting the malady is to increase the sample size of VVPATs at a polling booth for examination to a statistically significant level, as goes a well-meaning suggestion advanced from respectable quarters.
The whole point of dissatisfaction is that the votes are not always registered for the party for which they are cast by pressing a button on the EVM. The point is: how to change the method in order to convince voters that the election system will honestly reflect their choice and that there is no jiggery-pokery?
It simply is of no consequence that the counting time for votes will have to be extended. The aim is to have a clean election for a healthy democracy, not a vote count in record time.
Anand K. Sahay is a journalist and political commentator based in New Delhi.
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