Political Crystal Ball — Bharat In 2030

Predicting the future is difficult in politics.

Recent events remind me of Winston Churchill’s quip about the Japanese on the eve of Pearl Harbour when he said that “however sincerely we try to put ourselves in another person’s position, we cannot allow for processes of the human mind and imagination to which reason offers no key”. 

What will be the outcome of the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls? I will not waste my time with a foregone conclusion — the BJP will get its simple majority, and possibly cross its 2019 tally.

More interesting is what the political dispensation will look like in the Bharat of 2030, rather than in the India of 2024?

My analysis starts from the standpoint that the Indian voter is smart — he considers various options, also realising that he might have little contact with the person elected for a full five years.

People like to vote but do not like to waste their vote. They have realised that politicians need them badly at the time of polling. They cast their vote for the party that most nearly approximates to their idea of who they are — and to their core identities. 

Our general elections may be roughly divided into three phases: from 1950 to 1984; from 1989 to 2009 and; from 2014 onwards. The country gave a single party a majority in the Lok Sabha in the first and third phases.

It did not do so in most of the 1989 to 2014 interregnum. The 1991 result, like the 1984 one, was a freak result arising from a political assassination.

The first phase saw a force feeding of half-baked liberal, socialistic and so-called secular ideas down the throats of a largely poor, unthinking people who were still coming out of the trauma of the colonial era and partition.

These ideas mutated in the second phase, with concepts of regionalism and linguistic chauvinism thrown in. A number of regional, dynastic, political parties came into existence and held their state satrapies in a firm grip.

By the 1990s, the Nehruvian idea of India was largely a fiction in the drawing rooms of Lutyens Delhi and the lounges of the India International Centre, the heart of the imaginary liberal empire.

On the ground, however, in the states, it was regionalism, casteism and linguistic jabberwocky that ruled the roost.

The regional parties found great comfort in joining coalition governments at the Centre as it allowed each satrap to consolidate himself or herself in their satrapy, and increase their patronage, influence and of course their bank balances.

The Centre became debilitated and weak. There was effectively no real idea of India from 1989 to 2014. 

The rise of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), through the disputed structure demolition and the long years till last month’s pran pratishtha, has paralleled a social and cultural reawakening among all Indians as the nation found itself finally as a Hindu Rashtra.

The BJP defined and refined a national alternative to the false secularism of the Congress. It testifies to the acumen and patience of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP (including its previous avatars) that they were able to so correctly judge the nature of the Hindu in Bharat and persist with their convictions for a full century before achieving their stated aim of Hindu Rashtra.

The spontaneous outpouring of emotion, which went far beyond political loyalties, has finally established that Hindus like being Hindus and for the first time they are not afraid to say so openly.

At this inflection point, what are the possible political contours of the Bharat of 2030?

The rise of national consciousness, must see the inevitable downfall of the regional parties and a concomitant decline of dynasty. As the country becomes richer, citizens will pay far less attention to language, caste and regionalism for example about things like why Odias and Banglas in Bengaluru are unable or unwilling to speak in Kannada. Malayalees will stop arguing about the greatness of a bankrupt Kerala.

People will be more worried about jobs, their children’s education, housing, clean water, and amenities such as rapid transport systems and security on the streets.

An ageing population will want better healthcare and security. Very few will vote for a Kurmi just because he is a Kurmi or vote against a Brahmin just because he is a Brahmin, even in Tamil Nadu.

Muslims might actually vote for the BJP. There will be an increase in inter-caste marriages. This is what a stronger economy means. Cultural awareness drives the economy and a stronger economy drives social progress.

There are around 200 Lok Sabha constituencies where the BJP has not won at all since 2004. In some of these cases, the BJP did not contest, as part of a seat-sharing arrangement with an ally (Maharashtra, Bihar, Punjab) but it does appear that there are still around 150 seats where a BJP victory is practically impossible in the near future.

Politics abhors a vacuum and it is but inevitable that with a decrease of regionalism, there will be a national coalescence of political forces in these areas that would appeal to the voter in ways the BJP does not or cannot.

The way would accordingly be paved for a genuine two-party system, the ideal for a parliamentary democracy with first-past-the-post voting. Four possibilities will be enumerated for the consideration of the reader.

This is not as far-fetched as it might appear. Political revolutions in other countries are often accompanied by the removal or expulsion of unpopular leaders and the continued incompetence of the family in being unable to secure electoral victories for the Congress might be enough for an internal bloodbath.

A Congress without the family might attract a respectable number of middle of the road citizens whose fondness for Nehruvian secularism is still so strong that they can never bring themselves to vote for the BJP.

Without the family, I suspect that the Congress can easily assume the second political place in a majority of the states.

The second possibility considers the intransigence of the first family to vacate their pole position, leading to the demise of the Congress.

In this situation, a new national alternative could emerge from those who share the concepts of appeasement secularism and soft socialism but are more politically savvy than the Congress.

Such a national party might not have a distinctive ideology of its own, but this in itself would appeal to Hindu voters who abhor the BJP as being anti-Muslim or have strong feelings of self-loathing brought about by stubborn Macaulayism.

These are the Hindus who call themselves spiritual but not religious and feel that Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life. They say they are apolitical but want a strong opposition. These form the bulk of the 20 per cent committed Congress voters in the country today and urban non-voters.

They might have hoped that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was going to be a credible alternative to the Congress but the shenanigans and corruption in the AAP has put paid to this.

There is a chance that this rainbow coalition of religious minorities, affluent upper castes, victims of reservations and non-practising Hindus can command a tenacious block of 25 per cent or so of the national vote against the BJP.

Such a bloc could never beat the BJP in the Centre in a first-past-the-post system but they would form a solid opposition that could attack the BJP inside and outside Parliament on issues rather than on personalities.

The third possibility considers that a left liberal alternative forms within the BJP itself. This might happen in the event of the second possibility being a non-starter.

A new grouping may not find enough traction to forge a national consensus a bit like INDI Alliance today.

As the family might not yield control of the Congress, the regional satraps might not yield control of their individual outfits. In such a case, and since politics abhors a vacuum, a left alternative might well carve itself out from the BJP.

The BJP is becoming very large today as the Congress had become by 1970, accommodating several economic ideologies within it.

The Congress gradually split but the breakaway units kept to their regions rather than staying national. In the BJP, cultural ideology is strong, and so the fragmentation might not become dissipative.

We might see a leftist, liberal, but still nationalistic, version of the party along with a more rightist, conservative version, with both parties placed well within the ideological ambit of the parent organisation, namely the RSS. Hindu Rashtra would then be complete and with it any memory of Jawaharlal Nehru would have been erased completely from our consciousness.

The final possibility considers that future political developments in India are directed by world events of a gigantic nature. The first possibilities have only discussed happenings and personalities within India. If, on the other hand, the US, Europe, China and West Asia move towards a Third World War like situation, it would be impossible for Bharat not to be drawn into such a conflict.

Each of the previous world wars led to a reconfiguration of empires, countries and nations. The Third World War would be no different.

The great ideals that this country has always stood for, duty, tolerance and understanding, might well gain centre stage in a new world order and Bharat as an exponent of the Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam philosophy might not be such a far-fetched fancy.

This situation might become inevitable for the world for economic rather than political reasons. In this case, all bets on how 2030 would look are off, and it would be anyone’s guess.

Borders would be redrawn, Pakistan might disappear and a non-political entity called Bharatavarsha might become the sphere of influence for the political entity we call Bharat.

The present situation of a strong BJP and a splintered opposition, is not stable. At best it is metastable, and these conditions move rapidly to the nearest stable condition, the one that is obtained the quickest even if it is not the best.

In chemistry, we call this kinetic and thermodynamic control. If politicians study this subject, they would realise that kinetics usually wins unless the temperature is very high. 

Which of my four possibilities can we get to the fastest? Or will we achieve the best?