In 2014 Narendra Modi resurrected a phenomenon that has been dormant in Indian politics for three decades. This was the national wave Hindutva wave or the ‘Modi wave’ as it was retorted then on the bank. The Bhartiya Janata party swept two consecutive general elections and a host of states only in its first term.
Since the Congress landslide of 1984, politics had progressively become localized and revolved around the complex matrix of caste, region, religion and welfare. Power in Delhi was won by sticking together a phalanx of desperate parties based on a ‘common minimum agenda.’
All that changed as a dominant BJP constructed an electoral coalition except for Southern India cut across caste, class and region. The height of this natural way was the 2017 elections in Uttar Pradesh which the BJP romped home with over three-fourths majority, the biggest in almost four decades.
Even before the covid-19 crisis, the old political cleavages of Indian politics, caste and language, and relatively newer ones, class and gender, have been almost imperceptibly pushing back towards the center stage. But this whole thing and waning national wave might just have been taken off the tracks by the most ferocious waves of the pandemic.
Amidst his first term, realizing he couldn’t deliver the cross of jobs he promised, Modi tempered expectations by promising a new, less ambitious target. Even when the health crisis of sides the effect of the senior economic crisis brought on by the first and second waves are likely to last till the term of this government in these times of economic uncertainty, the outlook of the ordinary Indian is bleak.
The BJP’s National wave and its state-wide manifestations were constructed on a narrative that could be glued together the promise of economic prosperity with Hindutva under the leadership of Modi. As the second wave has destroyed the financial history and blunted the leadership appeal of Modi, the clock of Indian politics seems to be turning back to the pre error. The enduring weakness of the Congress means there is no counter-national narrative leaving the field open to regional and local politics.
Is Modi Wave receding in India?
