The Long India Election ends soon

Thousands of miles separate me from India as I type these lines, but a most amazing possibility is swallowing my sleep. The possibility is that the people of India may very soon free themselves from about ten years of bearing uncomfortable weights. Only a possibility, I know. Any one of a dozen ugly things may abort liberation’s birth.

However, since the hope has extended beyond some minutes into several hours, I wish to acknowledge it.

Around 6 or 6:30 PM on the evening of Saturday June 1, i.e. half-an-hour or so after the seventh and last phase of India’s endless voting season actually gets over, news outlets will telecast a clutch of exit polls (dependable or not) that have been conducted at every phase of these elections, starting from April 19.

Three nights thereafter, on the morning of Tuesday June 4, the thousands of electronic machines into which, during a wicked summer’s heat, the preferences of India’s hundreds of millions have been pressed, will disgorge their tallies.

These tallies may enable Modi to begin a third term, with or without a comfortable majority. On the other hand, the tallies could also enable the opposition INDIA bloc to form a government, with or without the support of unaligned small parties.

Although, in my assessment, the latter possibility exists, what is beyond doubt is that Modi’s standing has taken a huge hit. For those who have not personally experienced the burdensome weights of which I have spoken, let me merely point to a few things.

Did any election held anywhere in the world at any time possess the glamour, gold, and gargantuan scale of Narendra Modi’s personalized 2024 campaign? This campaign (we may never know who paid for it) encompassed videos on TV channels, mammoth billboards on thousands of highways, streets, and lanes, and massive newspaper ads in hundreds of newspapers in most of India’s languages (for which God knows how many trees elsewhere in the world gave up their lives). Every ad or video displayed Modi’s face, one or more of his countless costumes, and a turban or two from his stock of headgear (which must be the world’s largest).

The opposition, in contrast, was, in effect, silenced or made invisible for much of the time by what in India is called “the Godi Media”, rhyming with “the Modi Media”. Meaning the Lapdog Media. Or silenced by direct governmental action. Influential opposition figures were charged with corruption and put away at or just prior to election time. Funds of the leading opposition party, Congress, were frozen on election eve.

Activists for the right to dissent and free speech have now been behind bars for two, three or more years without being tried, and in most cases without being charged. Held under special laws, they add up to thousands. Fear has silenced a manifold number.

Then there’s the irrationality. Under this heading can be included the well-known disempowerment of, and discrimination against, India’s religious minorities (Muslims, Christians and Sikhs) during the ten years under Modi. The policies that have produced such outcomes are irrational apart from being unconstitutional and hurtful. What should also be placed under this heading is the lack of balance that Modi seems to have displayed during the campaign. His declaration, in a video seen by everyone, that he was not biologically born but sent by God for special purposes has been widely commented on.

Similarly irrational, apart from having no connection to facts, is an allegation that Modi has been repeating many times in the campaign’s final phase. He has told his audiences – and all of India through the media -- that the Congress Party plans to seize the wealth, homes, buffaloes, and sacramental ornaments of poor Hindus and give them over to Muslims in order to get the latter’s votes.

Really? Would a political party consciously sponsor criminal acts and forfeit four or five votes in order to gain one?

Another indication of a problem with balance is Modi’s charge (May 29) that because free India’s Congress governments from 1947 onwards did not take the trouble to spread the word about Mahatma Gandhi, the world remained ignorant of him until Attenborough made his film in the 1980s. Some will say that the charge only proves Modi’s ignorance of the world that existed before the 1980s, even though he was born in 1950 and went on to earn, it has been claimed, an M.A. in “Entire Political Science”.

Accompanying this May 29 charge is Modi’s announcement that on May 30 he will fly to India’s southern-most tip and there commence a 40-hour ritual of personal meditation, presumably to prepare himself to lead India for the third time. This announcement adds that 2,000 security personnel will protect the PM at that picturesque spot, and that other visitors will not be allowed to enter there. No word on who will cover the cost of this well-guarded if also well publicized meditation.

What seems clear is that in state after state, and in phase after phase of this Long Election, large sections of the Indian people have shown their fatigue with a style of politics that has divided and embarrassed a great nation and hurt its democratic institutions. Whether or not they manage to release themselves on June 4 from what hampers and troubles them, their sounds of disapproval have been clearly heard.