Global Courant 2023-05-26 08:39:15
India’s political landscape is alive with new possibilities after the southern state of Karnataka toppled the Hindu supremacist Bhartiya Janata Party from power in recently held assembly elections and elected the long-struggling Congress Party.
The BJP’s decisive defeat in Karnataka means that all of South India is now free from the BJP regime. This dashed the hopes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party to use the state as a gateway to a part of the country it has largely failed to conquer. about. It is a sharp rebuke to the BJP, which has said it wants to free India from Congress.
The defeat also contains other messages. It should not be forgotten that Modi’s many rallies and roadshows in Karnataka were aimed at telling voters time and time again that Congress should be punished for insulting him. Modi thus turned the election into a referendum on himself. He was rejected.
His party lost in most of the constituencies where he campaigned, tarnishing his carefully crafted image of invincibility. He tries to divert public attention by flooding TV screens with images of a rally where he addressed the Indian diaspora in Australia, but the damage has been done.
Under Modi’s leadership, the BJP ran a campaign that relied heavily on dog whistles and direct references to Muslims, portraying India’s largest religious minority – 200 million strong – as a threat. Modi also used a highly controversial and Islamophobic film strategically released during the campaign. But this too was rejected.
The Congress Party’s reaffirmation of its secular resolve during the campaign is extremely important, including in its suggestion to ban the Bajrang Dal, one of the most militant branches of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP’s Hindu supremacist parent body. Muslims and Christians, long suffering from the violence of Bajrang Dal, had accepted it as a fait accompli that they would have to live with this violence regardless of which political party was in power.
Not anymore.
The new Congress government in the state has announced that it will reverse the previous BJP government’s approval to ban the hijab in educational institutions – a move that has assured Muslims that their cultural rights will be protected and respected. Priyank Kharge, a minister in the new government, has also said that a controversial ban on cow slaughter will be reviewed, which was used by the deposed BJP government to harass and persecute Muslims, but also hurt the rural economy.
The return of the rule of law is indeed welcome. But it will be a great challenge for the new government to cleanse the state of the majoritarian poison that the previous government had injected into Karnataka society. And how it succeeds or fails will provide vital clues to the struggle the rest of India faces to undo the loss of its national, secular identity since Modi came to power in 2014.
After all, it is not just the Bajrang Dal, but the BJP itself – along with its numerous fraternal organizations and informal networks – working day and night to transform Hindu communities into a unity bloc that opposes minorities. Still, even the state government’s pursuit of the law as per the Indian Constitution would make the daily lives of religious minorities much easier.
It is not only the defeat of the BJP, but also the decisive congress victory that is significant, as many analysts had come to write off India’s Grand Old Party. It will boost party morale in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, where parliamentary elections will be held later this year.
The elections in Karnataka also sealed the authority of Mallikarjun Kharge, the new Congress Party president. His leadership from the front during the campaign was proven wrong by those who claimed he was just a puppet of the Nehru-Gandhi family that controlled the Congress Party – and even Indian politics – for most of the past 75 years has dominated.
Kharge, a Dalit, played a leading role in the government process in the state and has emerged as a team leader. He is a fearless orator who seems to have brought purpose to the organization of a party that previously seemed disoriented in many ways.
The implications are great.
The Congress remains the only political party with a pan-Indian presence that can take on the BJP. Its marginalization and decimation would have made it very difficult for a coalition of opposition parties to appear credible to voters when choosing their next national government in the 2024 parliamentary elections.
This victory has underlined for regional parties why the Congress must remain the fulcrum of any opposition national front if it is to provide a credible alternative to the BJP.
However, the obstacles to a national opposition are many and formidable. First, there is the collapse of the independence of constitutional authorities – from the election commission to the courts to law enforcement agencies. Instead of ensuring a level playing field and serving as checks and balances against the executive, these formerly sacred institutions are today hollowed-out shells, increasingly partisan, often openly, towards the BJP.
The mainstream media is campaigning against the opposition and propagandizing for the ruling party. Business honchos – who also control the media – have not yet abandoned the BJP and major electoral funding goes to Modi’s party, while the opposition is short of money.
In the coming year, the rhetoric against Muslims and minorities in India will become sharper. This is a tried and tested election board for the BJP. The people of Karnataka have shown that a secular appeal can still find ears and translate into voices. The big question is whether the rest of India will follow the example of the South and help restore India as a country with equal rights for all.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial view of Al Jazeera.
