People’s demand for a strong leader feeds into the BJP’s majoritarian politics perfectly | The Indian Express

People’s demand for a strong leader feeds into the BJP’s majoritarian politics perfectly | The Indian Express

Written by Suhas Palshikar |Updated: June 26, 2019 6:37:37 am

The writer taught political science at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, and is chief editor of 'Studies in Indian Politics'.

People’s demand for a strong leader feeds into the BJP’s majoritarian politics perfectly

Over the past decade-and-a-half, the idea that claims made by the majority are a natural corollary of democracy has settled itself quite comfortably in India’s collective imagination of democracy

What both sides refuse to publicly acknowledge is the extraordinary coincidence of the demand side of political culture and the supply side of the BJP’s politics almost matching each other neatly. (Illustration by C R Sasikumar)

Analyses of the factors that contributed to the handsome victory of the BJP in the 2019 elections will continue to compete for attention and popular as well as scholarly acceptance. The political spectrum, however, appears to be hopelessly divided and oblivious to reality. If proponents of Narendra Modi have been reading in the BJP’s electoral success the role of governance, foreign policy, anti-terror aggression and, as a footnote, the many welfare programmes implemented by the Modi government, the anti-BJP forces continue to sulk in the argument that this victory hinged on an almost fraudulent exercise of money power and the consequent use of image projection.