The Indian Political Scenario and the ‘Modi vs. Modi’ election

“First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — 
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — 
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — 
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.” 

- Martin Niemöller

This poetic prose by Martin Niemöller, from the post-war Germany of 1946 is strikingly relevant to the current political scenario in India, but in a contrasting and ironic way.

Today, amidst the Lok Sabha election in India, there are new developments every day that brings a National Party participating in the elections, either a step closer or away from being the most powerful party in the nation. With the voting for the Lok Sabha elections already underway since April 11, there is not much time left to the day when we will know who the new Prime Minister of our nation will be or if the political ‘reign’ of Narendra Modi will continue.

The BJP, led by Amit Shah and current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been in unceasing flack, predominantly in a negative sense. In their heyday of the last five years, the BJP led government has taken a multitude of decisions that have affected, from the economy to the communal harmony of the nation. But, there also have been many undertakings which have helped recuperate the image of India as growing superpower globally. Ideologically, the BJP is seen as a ‘pro-Hindu’ party, which puts it in a very polarized state of affairs politically. Despite having a highly influential and revered representation, over the last five years, there is still a big uncertainty for them to return into power even with a coalition, with the chance of getting a majority in the house too far-fetched.

The other key national party is the INC, the oldest political party in India. In the last decade, its reputation had degraded drastically owing to the party being at the epicentre of multiple scams, corruption cases, and other hitches. Today, Rahul Gandhi is the face of Congress, and if someone would have asked me about him a few years ago, I wouldn’t have replied to it without mocking him blatantly (nevertheless this would still be the case today, but it’s a fact that he has grown to be more sensible). He has come a long way from being the joker of the internet, to be a political leader with decent oratory skills and public presence, but he still has a long way to go for the people to see him as a seemingly worthy candidate to represent our nation globally.

There are a lot of other parties which are also significant nationally, but none come close to the significance of the aforementioned parties. All thousands of the parties play merely a character in the theatrical drama of Indian politics. It feels unfair to even call it theatrics, as there is little to no logic in some of the bilateral dialogues between the parties.

Today, if we refer to the media to see, what’s the state of the elections there is a big question going around, about the competition in the election; the ‘ModivsWho?’ debate. In my opinion, it really is a Modi vs Modi election. The chief gain of support to the opposition has grown merely out of hatred against the Modi government, which has evidently grown in their last tenure. And, the people aren’t supporting the current opposition parties for a sincere reason, like for their accomplishments when in power or because of the influence of a political leader. Amazingly, on similar grounds, there is a big portion of support for BJP exclusively in the name of ‘Modi’, ‘Hindutva’, and despite their failures, some support them for their accomplishments in the last five years. There was huge support for Modi, the ‘Modi Wave’, in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections which has died out over time and some of the supporters have developed a sense of hatred for him, because of their failures, improper governance and rise of communal crimes, the credit for this hatred also goes to the mass media institutions of our country. Though there is no doubt, that they also helped in nurturing that support in the first place.

The Indian media institutions aren’t the only ones to be blamed. The rise of opinionated and whimsical journalism has been pretty flagrant, and it’s not difficult to uncover the underlying truth in what’s presented to the people, it just needs a little effort.

Politics? Leadership? I don't know. (Image Source: Google)

But the society chooses to accept what’s presented to them without question. And they have suddenly started to have some extreme opinions of their own. After all, everyone is a ‘Social Activist’ today; well the people are quite active on social media articulating their opinions and imposing them on others.

Today there is a big gap due to polarization in the society in regard to the support for Modi, not for the support of two different parties. The spectrum is simply divided into people who love and hate Narendra Modi. This polarization has risen out of the info that people consume from the media without proper evidence. If the people consume information that supports an opinion of their own, over time they slowly drift towards one end of the spectrum. And that’s the reason for the extreme political bigotry in our society. There are very few people who understand what is presented to them, analyse it and then either form a new opinion or are ready to reform their opinion. The ones on the extreme end of the spectrum fail to realize the truth behind many of the national issues and try to promote their opinion, sometimes in ways that aren’t socially justified or even legal. People interfere in matters, without proper knowledge about the matter and simply out of the stupid opinion of their own that they feel is correct, after all, they have good reasonable support from the news outlets. People who don’t understand the real plight of the farmers will be vocal on the issue irrationally; people who don’t know anything about international agreements and affairs will suddenly become experts on the subject. There have been many national issues that blew up unreasonably just because of this, like the case of JNU students. It’s not wrong to have an opinion about something, it’s a free country and there is the right to freedom of speech to express those opinions, but expressing them in a bigoted manner and without any repercussions is something that is wrong.