The Bharatiya Janata Party, the vehicle of pure nationalism in Indian politics, has suffered a second successive defeat in national general elections. It is understandable that a lot of effort will be spent on localised micro-analysis, as well as on extracting generalised views like imperfect confidence levels, negativity in campaign, national-mood-an-aggregate-of-local-ones.
Let us look at the analogy of two beams each fixed at one of their ends to a solid wall, and at the other end supporting equal loads. One of the beams is made of solid steel, and the other an awkward construct of wooden pieces patched together with pudding. The former is like the BJP, the latter like the Congress – with SRP as the pudding. Now which would one expect to collapse first when heavily loaded (with the same weights) – the solid steel beam or the wooden patched one? Obviously the latter. The wonder is that the solid steel beam has collapsed, while the wooden patchwork has held.
Trying to explain the causes of defeat in terms of local organisational weaknesses is like trying to explain the above analogy in terms of hairline cracks in the solid steel beam. And trying to explain the causes in terms of incorrect confidence, negativity, agglomerated effects, etc, is as superficial as trying to explain the above analogy in terms of colour of the steel beam or its surface roughness. It is obvious that the reasons lie in things more fundamental – those that have not yet arisen properly within the boundaries of our thinking processes.
Fact is, the comparative environment in favour of the BJP was even more drastic than the analogical comparison between the two beams would suggest. Just look at these aspects:
No ruling party at the Centre since 1989 has ever returned to power under conditions of greater than eight per cent inflation in prices of primary food articles. In the five years of UPA rule, these prices have increased more than 60 per cent; the latter half of this period accounting for the bulk of this increase.
A terrorist attack of the magnitude of 26/11 has not occurred in India before. This was preceded by equally jarring terrorist attacks across all major Indian cities – with the exception of cities along the eastern coast. And it was the activism of the BJP ruled Gujarat government post-Ahmedabad-attack that put an end to this chain of bombings
The chain of scams like Satyam, Quatrocchi, CBI-misuse and parliamentary bribery scandal were unprecedented in any prior 5-year governance period, including those of Congress rule.
The depression, job-losses and economic uncertainty in the past nine months were again unseen before in India.
The Congress chief campaigners shamelessly ran away from one-to-one debates in public, and its president didn’t even have the guts to give a single press interview—lest the internal hollowness get exposed.
Most importantly, the comparison between the years of NDA and UPA rule. The BJP faced the wrath of the world order by making India an overt nuclear power. It faced and rolled back the global economic sanctions (accompanied simultaneously by years of poor monsoon) to transform India into an economic powerhouse – with years of unprecedented low inflation creating low interest rates that spurred capital investment, leading – with a time lag – to greater than 8.5 per cent growth rates that continued into the first three years of UPA rule. In the process every Indian across the world could hold his head high. And what did the UPA do? Transformed this atmosphere of positivity into depression. The Indians across the world who could strut around proudly – “our time has come” – were now transformed into shamed “slumdogs”. Any Indian with minor self-esteem (and that leaves out only spies and criminals) would find it extremely painful to sit through that movie. Its decoration with multiple Oscars is only a sequel to the Western attempt to humiliate emerging powers like India and China. And yet the Congress claimed credit for that movie and co-opted its theme song into its campaign. And wonder of wonders, with this sort of background the Congress won the elections hands down while the BJP reached its nadir!
Obviously there is something profound, deep down that is causing this. To find this out, let us return to our analogy and ask the question – were the two loads supported by the two beams really the same, as we had assumed?
Superficially, the BJP was fighting the Congress and the Congress the BJP, so the loads supported by both beams were apparently the same (here load = what is being fought against). But in reality, the BJP was fighting the Congress plus – and here we introduce a new term – the “Public Opinion Makers”, while the Congress was fighting the BJP minus the Public Opinion Makers (or POM). And the load supported by the steel beam was far, far higher than the wooden one, leading to its collapse. This is the fundamental reason for the BJP defeat, not just in 2009 but in 2004 as well.
Now who are the “Public Opinion Makers”? As the name suggests, they are the ones who determine what the country thinks, how it responds to emergent situations, and how it evolves in thought. In other words, they determine the direction of the National Mind. They operate at both pan-national and regional levels. Broadly, they can be classified into three groups: TV News Channels (we will club Radio with this), Newspapers (including newsmagazines), and what we may call as “distributed opinion makers”. The first two do not need any explanation. The “distributed opinion makers” are the traditional, localised, grassroots-level opinion makers. This includes samskaras and socio-cultural values and traits, public-place gossip, views of reputed personalities, and also mass movements. As an aside, the following clarifications are in order:
1.“Character maker” and “Opinion Maker” are two different things, in so far as character is different from opinion. While opinion is transitory, character is more fundamental and permanent. If “character maker” and “opinion maker” are defined as two different sets, the region of overlap between them lies in the “distributed opinion maker” space. TV news and newspapers have hardly any role in making character, while primary & secondary educational institutions, which have no role in making opinion, have a significant role in making character.
2. The internet and blogspace cannot be considered to have any worthwhile role in making public opinion in our country, and the situation will not change at least in the next ten years. This space is restricted (in terms of time spent) to those who do not have any serious family or professional responsibilities, who are usually males, who are unlikely to turn out and vote, and most importantly, to those who are social loners – the latter trait increasing in intensity with time spent on the net. The BJP erred severely in trying to make the internet its prime means of advertisement and public reach in election 2009 pushing newspaper & TV ads to a secondary role, and it needs to seriously introspect why (i.e. what led it to) it did so, instead of just saying retrospectively that it was incorrect.
Continuing with the Public Opinion Makers or POM, the first important point of note is that its composition has been changing significantly with time. When there was no TV and hardly any newspapers, the bulk of POM was composed of the “distributed opinion makers”. That is no longer true today, and this shift has been very rapid over the past twenty years. (Figure 1) shows the evolution in the composition of POM space over the past twenty years, from 1990 to 2009. Please note this is an approximate, qualitative view, not based on analysis of accumulated data. It shows the trends, not the actuals, and serves as an enabler in framing our concepts. Furthermore, these trends are averaged across the country, and across urban & rural areas.
In 1990, when Sri Ram Janambhoomi agitation was at its peak, TV-news occupied only 10 per cent of POM space, while the “distributed opinion makers” occupied about 40 per cent. The share of TV-news increased sharply in the period 2000-2005 (during the NDA government), when a multiplicity of regional news channels came into existence across the country. Share of newspapers did not decrease correspondingly due to the spread of literacy. Consequently, the share of “distributed opinion makers” decreased the most (see Fig. 1).
Now why would this compositional change in POM space affect the BJP? Because that component which is the most antagonistic to the RSS school of thought has increased sharply, while that which was least unfriendly has contracted the most.
(The writer can be contacted at 5, Straight Mile Road, Northern Town, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand-831001. Email: aryabhat@@hotmail.com)
(To be concluded)
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