Daily Times

India hosts 1.4 billion people, with diverse cultures and religions as its beauty, and is recognized as the world’s largest democracy but since the last decade, BJP has acted as a termite for the secularity of India, and its beauty turned into a tumour.

BJP’s politics is based on Hindutva ideology and Modi left no stone unturned to impose Hindutva policies. For Modi, the religion card is the king of all the political cards. He muzzled the media, snatched the independence of the judiciary, and subjugated minorities to transform India from a secular to a Hindu state, from a liberal to an illiberal democracy. Despite these efforts, the Indian public tried to save their almost-dead democracy through ballot boxes and managed to get their democracy back from the brink of death. Recent elections made it evident that India’s democracy and democratic-minded people are still alive.

The staggering results have changed the Indian political landscape. The slogan of 400 seats of BJP has been razed as they lost 63 seats and their alliance NDA lost 60, compared to previous elections which makes it explicit that the public has rejected the Hindutva narrative, ultimately rejected the idea of a Hindu state.

Indians have realized that for Modi, the public is just the grantees of schemes, not citizens endowed with rights.

Congress rolled back in the game by 99 seats and its alliance INDIA secured 232 seats, only 8 short of BJP’s total through a successful electoral campaign as the opposition emphasized minority rights and the restoration of the secular entity of the Indian state. For Modi, it’s a defeat in a win and a win in a defeat as he won the elections but has lost the narrative. BJP made their electoral campaign revolve around the Ram temple but faced a major debacle in the constituency.

This loss is a jagged slap on the BJP’s narrative. However, India has a coalition government today. In countries like India, coalition governments are inevitable to keep their democracy alive. Interestingly, the BJP is in coalition with two secular parties, TDP and JDU. Ideologically both are opposite to BJP as JDU wants a caste census for equal resource distribution whereas BJP prioritizes Hindus. In the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, TDP pledges the rights of minorities which the BJP wants to annihilate.

This coalition has a strong impact on both domestic and foreign policies. Now BJP might face challenges in practising brute majoritarian policies. The international community used to deal with Modi and his deputies directly, but now they have to convince other political groups and because of the coalition, the officials would be hesitant to make bold decisions to avoid public backlash. All of this, ultimately will affect Modi’s aims just because the toothless parliament gained its teeth back, has re-energized, and gets back in order.

Experts prophesied an outperforming victory leading Modi to a third term based on upgrading the stature of India, Chandryan’s success, the building of the Ram Temple, making India the 5th largest economy, and welfare programs but they overlooked unemployment, inflation, transformation of a secular constitution.

It is noteworthy, that two-fifths population of India falls under the age of 25, if they are unemployed and the purchasing power is alleviating day by day then they have nothing to do with the tag of the 5th largest economy with the name of India. The exacerbating stature of India is of no use to a common voter until or unless he is getting benefits, until or unless his fundamental needs are not being fulfilled.

The loss of the Ayodhya constituency makes it evident that there’s a limit to infiltrating religion and caste into politics, ultimately it’s a performance that decides political fortune and BJP failed on the economic front and domestic policies.

In this election, Indian democracy has bounced back just for the secularity of India. Indians have realized that for Modi, the public is just the grantees of schemes, not citizens endowed with rights.

They also realized that if India follows the Hindutva narrative and becomes a Hindu state then it wouldn’t be a democracy anymore, since no country can be a democracy if it is created for one religion. Also, there is no future for the BJP if you put a brand name, Modi out of it. So it’s a golden opportunity for the opposition to cultivate the voters through good performance. These elections outage the concept of caste and religious politics and show that democracy and democratic-minded people can do wonders.

By not giving the BJP a majority, Indians impeded the filthy politics of mosques and temples, it’s evident they don’t want India’s secularism to be abolished, they don’t want an ill-liberal democracy, and they don’t want Hindu Rashtra. They want diversity, and the beauty of India to prevail.

The writer can be reached at sowaibamahmood5329@gmail.com and tweets @SowaibaMahmood.