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B.J. party Fails to Retain Absolute Majority in India [1]

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Date: 2024-06-04  

"A woman cannot become a priest in a temple, or a Mullah in a mosque (or a Pope in the church). But she can become the Prime Minister (President) of the country. Only the constitution guarantees equal rights."

-An anonymous guy interviewed by a news agency during polling.

Modi's right wing BJ party (Bharatiya Janta Party) has won the single largest number of seats in India's senate equivalent, but failed to cross the half way mark; this means that it would require an alliance to form a government.

A quick note about the title. Modi's opposition came up with a cheeky name for itself: Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance (I.N.D.I.A). Refusing to refer to the opposition with this name, Modi and his media proxies choose call them I.N.D.I. alliance. I am maintaining that consistent rule here and thus calling them BJ party, rather than the traditional BJP.

Modi's leadership has been an economic disaster for India. He has lead one of the most corrupt regimes of India's history. And he arbitrarily jailed his opponents and selectively stopped all investigations against whoever bent the knee to him. Despite all of this, the "highly educated spectra" of India's population, the "upper castes", believes Modi to be a saint (in a manner that can only be compared to Trump's or Putin's supporters). Many of these people even vote based on poll predictions, because they think that voting for a loosing party is a waste of vote. As if this was a football game where their interest lay in cheering for the winning team. And of course, Modi had purchased all poll predictions to show himself winning by a landslide.

Conversely, one of the biggest factors that led to Modi's decline is the fact that many sections of India's lower caste spectrum, despite being held back by poverty and lack of education, realized the threat that another term of Modi would pose to the constitution of India. The quote at the beginning of the article is a testimony to this. The part in brackets was added by me for clarity, considering that the audience here isn't Indian.

The good news is that the alliance partners that BJP will need to muster do not share their fascist tendencies. Hence, BJ party wouldn't be able to fundamentally alter Indian democracy now, even if Modi is their leader again. That makes it all the more likely that the BJ party will loose the next elections 5 years from now, thanks to a diminished control of media and institutions. It is also possible that all his alliance partners ditch him for his fascist tendencies, in which case, we will have a new Prime Minister this time. India has survived it's biggest threat yet. I hope I can say the same for the US, come November.

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