Wages of arrogance

Yet again the Indian voter has confounded pundits, pollsters and party strategists alike. They had unleashed a torrent of statistics and scholarly insights about the outcome of the elections. Their claim to prescience was in tatters by noon on Thursday. The reason, as it turned out, was their inability to grasp the one thing that seems to determine the choice of the voter: an alchemy whose ingredients vary from state to state and sometimes even from region to region within a state.
This is especially true in an election fought without an overarching ideological issue.No single factor can wholly account for either defeats or victories. Anti-incumbency, for instance, doubtless explains why the ruling parties in Andhra Pradesh and in Karnataka suffered severe reverses. Here problems related to drought, lack of power and indebtedness of farmers counted for more than the IT revolution, a fact that most analysts did not quite grasp. Nor were they able to anticipate why the electorate reaffirmed its confidence in the ruling dispensations in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar despite mediocre governance and lack of development. In these cases, ‘secularism’ — a synonym for an OBC-Muslim combine — held firm.
Even more striking was the failure of the analysts to foresee the miserable showing of the BJP. Here was a party which having shed some of its more cumbersome ideological baggage — the Ayodhya issue, uniform civil code and Article 370 — had focused on economic growth and development, reached out to Muslims, initiated a dialogue with the Kashmiri separatists and embarked on the peace process with Pakistan. All this, with Atal Behari Vajpayee’s towering personality, pointed to the continuance of the NDA in office. Where did things go wrong?
The answer probably lies in a single word: hubris. Arrogant pride was the BJP’s undoing. It alienated its allies without a shred of remorse. The result of the DMK’s unceremonious exit from the NDA and the fawning seduction of the AIDMK is there for all to see. It is hubris again that prompted the BJP to coin the ‘India Shining’ and ‘feel good’ slogans.
In a country where unemployment, poverty and the lack of physical and social infrastructures are still pervasive the slogans suggested an alarming insensitivity. Add to this the tasteless personal attacks on Sonia Gandhi, especially from the likes of Narendra Modi who, despite the Supreme Court’s indictments, the party chose to parade as its star campaigner. The Congress’ splendid gains in Gujarat have exposed the real worth of Modi’s hate-filled charisma. The fate that awaited the BJP must be traced to these terrible errors of judgement and to the in-fighting in the party.
Where do we go from here? Over and beyond the rhetoric heard during the election campaign, what is singularly reassuring is the consensus that prevails in the country’s political class on every issue of vital concern to its future. For instance, no party wants to reverse the economic reforms agenda even though there might be differences over their pace and thrust.
A Lohiate like Mulayam Singh is busy wooing industrialists to invest in UP and so is a Communist like Buddhadeb Bhattacharya in West Bengal. Consensus also exists on issues related to the country’s security and its foreign policy: the modernisation of the forces, the peace process with Pakistan, the efforts to settle all outstanding problems with China etc.
The tenor of the relationship with the US could become a tad staid. But no wave of anti-Americanism is in sight. Continuity, not drastic change, will be the hallmark of the new dispensation. Change can however be expected on one front. The saffronisation of educational and cultural institutions will end. That bodes well for the Republic.