The public discourse in the election campaign and the results have shown that the BJP is not invincible. The significant increase in the Samajwadi Party’s vote-seat share shows the limits of communal politics, which further indicates that communal consciousness was not the decisive factor for many voters, and such consciousness is subject to change. The BJP’s handsome victory cannot trump the economic challenges facing the people. The wider issues thrown up in this election — the bulldozer approach to dissent, communal polarization, economic inequality, agrarian distress, joblessness and public health — will not go away, but continue to influence public discourse in the longer run.

While we must not disregard the significance of economic relief provided to people through free ration, it doesn’t explain the BJP’s success in UP. This alone could not have defanged the effect of economic distress and massive unemployment. It appears that the people voted for something else: they voted for the political agenda of this government, fueled by a communal campaign.

The results of the 2022 Assembly elections indicate a reinforcement of the decisive rightward shift that India’s polity had embarked upon in 2014. Barring a few setbacks, notably the defeat in the West Bengal elections in 2021, the trend is not reversing. The BJP, the party of the Far Right, has, in fact, consolidated its primacy in most states, barring those where the regional parties hold sway and have kept it at bay. The recent poll results have set the stage for the General Election in 2024, with the ruling BJP retaining control of four states, including winning a two-thirds majority in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh.

Numerous media reports exposed multiple sources of economic discontent in UP. Voters complained ceaselessly about the joblessness, price rise and stray cattle menace among the host of issues reported by journalists covering the election campaign from western to eastern UP. While employment, public health, education or industrialization were not on the BJP’s agenda, they were on the people’s agenda and, yet, economic dissatisfaction did not translate into a large enough vote to defeat the BJP.

That the BJP has held power and increased its vote share has to be seen in the light of the issues it campaigned on which seemingly matter more to large numbers of people in the state.

Importantly, economic frustration was not blamed on the government. Instead, the people commended the government’s handling of cultural and security issues, with economic distress taking a backseat. Hence, this couldn’t become a counterweight to Hindu majoritarianism. Even the disastrous impact of the Covid-19 pandemic didn’t figure in the voter calculus.

The BJP’s massive win in UP has sparked a discussion about the balance between economic discontent and voter choices, government subsidies and voting preferences, and hate politics and vote. The materialist understanding led many commentators (including this writer) to argue that the economic discontent and shift in public discourse could trigger an electoral change in UP. But the assumption that the need to maximize material well-being would drive voting preferences hasn’t transpired. Four factors signpost why this didn’t happen. The four things that set the narrative for the BJP were: Hindu majoritarianism, rashan, prashasan and induction of caste under the Hindu canopy (though not in this order). Put differently, the Hindu-Muslim divide, free ration and law and order were the mainstays of this canopy. Communalism was the ideological driving force of the campaign and nearly 44 per cent of those who voted approved of this slant. The overall thrust was dominated by the Chief Minister’s messaging and his statement in the beginning of the campaign that UP was facing an 80-20 election, denoting the Hindu-Muslim conflict and competition. This template framed the meta-narrative of the campaign, signaling the central role of communalism in this landmark election.

Arguably, the campaign was not overtly communal; it was disguised through dog whistles of ‘law and order’. This was a code for converting Muslims into a security threat and then claiming to control this threat. The ‘law and order’ platform echoed fears about the ‘Muslim criminality’, depicted through front-page advertisements in newspapers with two images of a young man with a kaffiyeh around his neck, symbolizing a terrorist; and the other without the kaffiyeh, seeking pardon. And the caption was: now we have established law and order in the state. The use of the bulldozer to demolish those seen opposing the ruling party, and placing them outside election rallies, was another unabashed signal of the same message. The ‘law and order’ rhetoric was explicitly meant to divide citizens into two classes: those who are lawful by nature, and those who are not, who are inherently lawless. This created a strong sense of community identity that required protection. Above all, it created a communalized common sense. As a consequence, people were willing to overlook the economic failures of the government. Economic discontent was cancelled out by the much greater cultural and ideological acceptance of the BJP as a protector of the Hindus.

The third issue is the impact of ‘welfarism’ or, more precisely, free ration on voter choices. Free foodgrains provided by the Central scheme to tide over the pandemic period, and additional items like cooking oil provided by the UP Government, is claimed as the key to the BJP’s electoral success. Undoubtedly, free ration at the time of the pandemic, with little prospect of getting a job, did count for a lot. However, the point is that even this minimal economic security was not provided as a matter of right to decent living but as largesse from the state. MGNREGA, which was instituted as an economic right has been whittled down, while the distribution of free ration, gas cylinders, toilets or houses as one-time benefits have become the main items on the welfare list closely identified with the political leadership hailed for its benevolence in helping the poor at a time of economic crisis. In return, the beneficiaries support the party offering these benefits. In the bargain, the beneficiaries have emerged as a new electoral category of labharthis linked to political choice. The political logic of this beneficiary category has profited the ruling party.

While we must not disregard the significance of the economic relief provided to the people through free ration, it doesn’t explain the BJP’s spectacular success in UP. This alone could not have defanged the effect of economic distress and massive unemployment and the vote against it. It appears that the people voted for something else which was non-economic reasoning, which is to say, they voted for the political agenda of this government, fueled by a communal campaign. Those who see the BJP’s victory as a vindication of its welfare policies ignore the compelling logic of communalism in UP politics today, as its impact is reflected in the poll results.

Last but not least is the caste question. The caste-oriented social justice plank as a mobilization strategy of the Opposition was superseded by religion, as in the 2017 and 2019 elections, pushing traditional notions of caste-based identity politics to the margins. Caste politics was effectively countered by the BJP’s campaign, uniting voters across caste lines by emphasizing the Hindu identity of the backward castes under the capacious Hindutva umbrella. That paid rich dividends for the BJP, making lower castes indifferent to the Mandal politics and this also underlined the problems of a single-minded focus on caste-based empowerment and representation. In sum, what worked for the BJP was religion plus caste plus ‘welfarism’.

The public discourse in the election campaign and the results have shown that the BJP is not invincible. The significant increase in the Samajwadi Party’s vote-seat share shows the limits of communal politics, which further indicates that communal consciousness was not the decisive factor for many voters, and such consciousness is subject to change. The BJP’s handsome victory cannot trump the economic challenges facing the people. The wider issues thrown up in this election — the bulldozer approach to dissent, communal polarization, economic inequality, agrarian distress, joblessness and public health — will not go away, but continue to influence public discourse in the longer run.

(The author is Professor Emerita, JNU)