Roads, Riots, and Rabble-rousing: the World’s Largest Election
Each time we turn the corner onto a different street in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s largest city, my grandmother taps me on the shoulder. “Modi paved this road,” she says, every time. We were returning from a week in Mumbai, where we trundled through hours of traffic to relatives’ homes all over the city. My grandmother sat on a stack of pillows to ease the bounce and lurch of three-hour drives over what felt like an endless field of potholes. In Gujarat, the pillows were gone. The roads are smooth and semi-orderly. In Mumbai and Delhi, traffic lights serve as tragicomic street decoration, a reminder of a near-complete lack of order. In Ahmedabad, uniformed policemen with handlebar mustaches patrol intersections during rush hour. Buses travel in dedicated lanes.
My family attributed the difference to a single hometown hero: Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) prime ministerial candidate. His party is poised to win the world’s largest electoral contest, India’s sixteenth elections for the Lok Sabha (the lower house of parliament). Voting occurs in nine phases from April 7 to May 12, with over 800 million people are eligible to vote. And there isn’t a simple binary choice between parties like in the United States. 370 parties, many local and regional, are backing 3,305 candidates. Only three parties are serious contenders, though. Aside from the BJP, the perpetual, incumbent Congress Party and upstart, populist Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have the opportunity to shape the Lok Sabha and serve at the head of a ruling coalition.
Modi’s BJP and Rahul Gandhi’s Congress Party stand across the aisle from one another. The BJP is a center-right nationalist party with visions of spreading Gujarat’s neoliberal model across India. Modi and the BJP’s Gujarat model is seen as a viable path to reinvigorating India’s stagnating economy.
However, the party needs to think more critically about its long-term vision for a productive, independent India. Congress’ fecklessness and inertia aren’t bringing India anywhere anytime soon. The AAP is too young to create a practical and holistic vision. But the BJP’s appeals to age-old religious rancor will do nothing to strengthen the world’s largest democracy and ensure that it keeps moving forward.
Both the party and Modi himself have a distinctly uncomfortable relationship with pluralism and India’s Muslim-minority population. Gujarat has been rocked by sectarian riots and clashes since its inception. In 2002, one year after Modi came to power, a train filled with Hindu pilgrims was burned. Vicious anti-Muslim riots spread throughout Gujarat in response. Countless groups, including Human Rights Watch, accused Modi and the police of taking paltry action and even condoning the attacks. A “Special Investigation Team” convened by the Supreme Court of India cleared Modi of any responsibility in 2009, but serious worries linger. In Gujarat, the party attempted to block scholarship funds for persecuted communities, including Muslims. The BJP also roused Hindu nationalist support by refusing to fund restoration of Islamic sites destroyed in the 2002 riots.
The incumbent Congress Party positions itself as a more generous and tolerant alternative. The party promises to maintain legal protections of Muslim groups and actively fight against sectarian conflict. It has further pluralist credentials: Congress put the first Sikh, current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in India’s highest office. The party has its pre-independence origins in inclusive secularism, and has no fear of stoking fears of religious strife under BJP rule. The AAP has also tried to hop on the communal bandwagon.
These progressive commitments, however, don’t come with a track record of success. Congress pledges to kickstart India’s slowing growth, but has shown little momentum in its incumbency and is beleaguered by endless corruption scandals. The party is also closely tied to the Gandhi and Nehru family, who have ruled India off and on since Independence. Congress has a reputation for being corrupt and directionless. Many see Manmohan Singh as little more than a complacent pawn of party leadership.
Corruption and inaction is undeniably a critical issue at the heart of Indian politics. According to Transparency International, over one third of Indians paid a bribe to obtain a basic public service in 2008. Decreased corruption would make India a better place to do business for those at all levels of the food chain. Arvind Kejriwal, the former Chief Minister of Delhi and a recent arrival on the national scene, offers an unequivocal, ideologically-blind commitment to the “common man” that could well help overcome partisan rancor between Congress and BJP. India has a burgeoning middle class, but that isn’t a reason to stop expanding wealth. A state study in 2007 found that India had over 800 million citizens living on less than 50 cents a day. Passive, corrupt elite leadership won’t create an India that creates growth for every citizen.
In December 2013, Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party didn’t hold a single major office in India. Now, the party is in place to topple the two traditional pillars of subcontinental politics. They offer a vision of an inclusive, grassroots India that looks beyond traditional centers of power.
From Out of Nowhere: the Rise of the AAP
My uncle grumbles and complained while we were watching TV in his Mumbai flat in January. “Who the hell is Kejriwal?” Many throughout India were no doubt wondering the same thing. He motions towards a short, bespectacled and sweater-wearing man ecstatically waving a broom in front of a screaming crowd of supporters. Arvind Kejriwal looks more like a librarian than populist firebrand and Chief Minister of Delhi. Kejriwal served only 2 months in office before declaring his intent to run for Prime Minister. He is both founder and figurehead for the Aam Aadmi (“Common Man”) Party (AAP).
The movement and party attempt to exist outside of the traditional political spectrum. The party has the soul of the Occupy movement coupled with the populist suspicion and morality of the Tea Party. Supporters want India to erase what they see as the primary barrier to serious progress: domination by a neglectful political elite. The AAP wants to decentralize and eliminate corruption by whatever means necessary. To Kejriwal, neither side has all the right answers. “If we find our solution in the left we are happy to borrow it from there,” he says. “If we find our solution in the right, we are happy to borrow it from there.”
This decentralization has been a sticking point for the traditional figures of authority. Congress cabinet member Jairam Ramesh snubbed AAP as “not a party… [but] a platform.” Ramesh echoes a shared sentiment. The AAP may have what it takes to stir passions and anger, but it may also lack capacity for leadership. India needs bold vision, yes, but bold vision that can be backed up with tangible results.
The BJP’s Path Forward
The Congress Party has exhausted their mandate. Lingering corruption and lack of vision make them an untenable choice to lead India’s next few years. Modi’s BJP will wake India from its economic slumber, whereas Congress is looking to maintain a bloated bureaucracy by promising to preserve India’s expansive and expensive public sector. That isn’t to say that the BJP is looking to make heartless cuts. Both parties promise to continue extensive subsidies of housing and healthcare.
The BJP is also interested in building a sustainable economy that can carry India forward. Modi wants to chart Gujarat’s path to development throughout the nation through extensive developments in infrastructure and technology. The Gujarati state-run Green Revolution Company has introduced new irrigation techniques and genetically modified crops, increasing cotton production by 200 percent since 2000. The irrigation improvements are powered in part by Narmada River dam projects, which have helped make the state one of the few energy surplus states. Gujarat has also maintained above 10 percent growth since 2000. And the Congress response? Rahul Gandhi had nothing to say but snide remarks about Modi’s popularity.
The Congress Party leadership’s shortsightedness extends to foreign policy. Their platform speaks of maintaining India’s place at the heart of the Non-Aligned Movement, and looking for peaceful solutions in Kashmir. Yet Pakistan continues to send militants into the disputed region. The BJP has long looked to strengthen India’s border with Pakistan and prevent the neighboring nation’s tumultuous politics from spilling over the border. The BJP is wise to do so: recent American revelations about Pakistan’s collusion with terrorists demonstrate the dangers of negotiating with a state often controlled by extremist elements. The party should look, however, to make these concerns about India’s security instead of Hindu national pride. Religious division will neither help the BJP’s commitment to economic growth nor ensure a robust and stable political future for the region.
Perhaps the BJP can take a page from the AAP’s playbook and engage more substantively in dialogue with all Indians, not just its Hindu base. They could even incorporate AAP leaders into their ruling coalition, although this unfortunately seems unlikely. The Indian nation has much to be excited about. India deserves leadership that can look forward, make big promises, and deliver. The BJP is the only party ready to take on that challenge.
My great-great-aunt can barely leave her bed in Ahmedabad’s Maninagar neighborhood. She has lived there since the 1940s. It’s one of the few neighborhoods with both minarets and mandirs. When my grandmother and I arrive, she gets up and walks to the road with the help of the whole family. My grandmother playfully scolds her for taking the risk of getting out of bed. She pulls out a bottle of pills from her sari and then points to a BJP flag across the street. “Modi gave me these. And now I’m here.”
Image credit: Manipal World News, CNN.