New Sheriff in Town : Three wishes for Home Minister Amit Shah

That was fun. All the rumors and speculation were just that. Speculation. Till the very last moment, the biggest leak that emerged from the corridors of the new Modi government was perhaps some portion of the dinner menu. I don’t know if the media even managed to get that right.

They were waiting and so were we. In the same line, mind you.

If you think you’ve seen the full liberal meltdown on May 23, you are very very wrong. You haven’t seen nothin’ yet. The election results left the liberal elite gasping for breath, quivering and whimpering in pain. Trust PM Modi to rub it in … and in style.

Dear right wing friends, be sure to savor this moment. It is truly ours to enjoy. Go get drunk on liberal tears to your heart’s content.

But beyond the fun, there is a country to run. And I am confident that I speak for a lot of RW when I present these three wishes for Home Minister Amit Shah : the new sheriff in town.

(1) Wake up Naxals, because your time is up.

As I can only express in Hindi, subah ho gayi mamu. For several decades now, large parts of India’s heartland have been stalked by a great evil. Not only is it a violent attack on the Indian state, Naxal terrorism has made hostages of the poorest and weakest sections of our people. In every election, the people in these mostly tribal areas come out in ever higher numbers to express faith in our democratic system. Very often, they come out to vote quite literally at the peril of their lives.

These people deserve better. We can’t let the Naxals hold our people back at gunpoint. Too many generations have been lost already behind the iron curtain of left wing terrorism. In PM Modi’s first term, we saw the Naxals gradually squeezed into ever smaller territory as roads, railways and airports penetrated deep into the so called “red corridor”.

It’s now time for the final assault. The knockout punch to pulverize Naxalism once and for all. To bury the threat forever.

This, in short, is my first wish from Home Minister Amit Shah.

And no, I haven’t forgotten the ‘backroom Naxals’, who operate under cover of journalists, intellectuals and academics. I think Arun Jaitley used to call them the ‘overground face of the underground‘. Enough! It is time to identify their incentives, clamp down on them and shut down their NGO businesses. This applies not just to those who provide intellectual covering fire for Naxalism, but to the support crew for any other kind of terrorism, such as in Kashmir. We have to take apart the elaborate web of NGOs and “civil society organizations” that wine and dine our ‘intellectuals’ with funds from all sorts of dark sources, from Pakistan’s ISI to vested business interests. Many of the leads are already in the public domain. These have to be pursued vigorously and professional sedition put out of business.

This is not a free speech issue. A clampdown on paid lobbyists for enemy states, terrorists and miscellaneous vested interests has nothing to do with free speech.

(2) Rein in the ‘missionary mafia’

The cultural identity of India is under attack from another quarter. The missionary mafia is trying to ravage the diverse garden of Hindu society, seize us by the roots and tie us all up with Western oriented monotheism. One book. One god. One dogma for all, with no roots in India’s ancient culture.

They are aggressive and well funded. In our poverty lies their opportunity. Every adversity for India is a stroke of good fortune for them, whether it be a flood, an earthquake or a tsunami. They bring in money, resources and people from abroad, making a mockery of our laws on both immigration and foreign funding.

This daylight robbery needs to stop. It’s time to make the FCRA laws twice as strict and the penalties four times as harsh. Most important of all, we need to enact a strict nationwide anti-conversion law that should be enforced ruthlessly.

This is not about taking away the freedom of any person to choose their religion. This is about clamping down on organized cultural aggression. The Hindu religion is not Abrahamic, it does not seek converts, nor does it seek to dominate the world. If left unprotected, the one sided cultural aggression will ultimately flush away our identity.

(3) National Register of Citizens 

If we want to stop the aggression from within, we need to know who is here. Are they Indians?

Even if we think beyond demographic aggression and only in economic terms, we simply do not have the resources to take care of everyone in the world. We have a right to put Indians first.

The NRC in Assam was a decent beginning to a very difficult task. But the NRC in Assam needs to be sharpened and the holes plugged. Stories abound of illegal immigrants who have smuggled their way into the list as bonafide Indian citizens. At the same time, many genuine Indians have been left out, which really hurts. Thereafter, the NRC must be applied nationwide, starting of course with West Bengal.

Of course, the NRC does not mean anything unless we also have the all important Citizenship Amendment Bill. As the inheritors of ancient Bharat, we must fulfill our historic duty towards those from the Indian subcontinent who have nowhere else to go : the persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists from what is today Pakistan or Bangladesh.

In short, these are my three wishes for our Home Minister. It’s time to take the gloves off.

Without Modi-2, the real risk was going back to bad habits

This grand moment from May 26, 2014 is still etched in our memories.

Today, in a few hours from now, this will be joined by another memorable image as Narendra Damodardas Modi is sworn into office for a second time. And yes, I will boldly predict, without any doubt whatsoever, that there is going to be a third time.

What if we take a moment to speak of that which now seems unthinkable? What if Modi had lost these elections? What if this was either Rahul Gandhi or someone else being sworn into office with his support, beginning the 59th year (yes 59th year!) of Congress rule in India? Beyond the partisan egos, what would we have lost as a nation?

The real loss is that we as a nation would have gone back to the bad habits of old. Those would be the bad habits that have kept us from achieving our potential even after 70 years of independence.

What makes a ‘first world country’? One of the most fundamental things is ‘rule based governance’. In other words, the rules are the same for everyone, whether you are a small shopkeeper or running a global multinational company. Money and prestige and power coziness will get you nowhere.

That’s not how things used to go in India. If a young student owes Rs 500 on her hostel mess bill, she doesn’t get her degree until she can settle the account and get a “No Dues Certificate”. But if you owe, say 5000 crores, you can get all the exceptions and extensions you want. Even more credit.

All that changed with Modi. He put Indian business houses on a “diet” of rule based governance for the first time in 70 years. The best example of this is the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

This is not anti-business, but pro-competition. It is the most pro-capitalist thing you can do. When big business cannot use its influence to shut out the competition, that’s when you unleash the true uplifting potential of capitalism.

Every child in India today knows the sequence : 0, 5, 12, 18, 28. These are the slabs for GST rates. Can you imagine a common person five years ago being able to remember the service tax rate, the sales tax rate, the VAT, the excise duty, the local body tax rate, etc on each item? No need today. This is the kind of transparency that is needed for business to flourish.

The other endemic problem in India is a culture of corruption. PM Modi ensured ZERO top level corruption in five years, possibly delivering the first “scam free government” since independence.

This should have been the norm. It is a pity that this is an exception. Unlike floods and cyclones, scams are not natural disasters. But we learned to take them for granted. Indeed, we learned to take scams as an integral part of politics.

To become a first world country, we had to stop this corruption some day. Somebody had to draw a line in the sand and say: thus far and no further.

But what about corruption at lower levels? Well, corruption is a culture and the cues come from the top. Once the tap is turned off upstairs, it will take some time for the stream to dry up below. For the new habits to be cast in stone.

In fact, some direct benefits have been clearly visible and have massively contributed to the BJP’s victory. Money from the government arrived directly in bank accounts of the poor, with no scope for middlemen to take a cut. Many of the benefits such as gas connections, electricity connections, toilets and pucca houses were obtained without paying bribes.

If the Indian electorate had gone the other way this time, the tap upstairs would have been turned on in no time. And the flow would have continued just as it has for decades.

There are other visible symptoms of this. The new Modi sarkar will be formed in just a few more hours. And yet, every anchor has shrugged miserably on every show and admitted that they have no clue who is getting what. Most have admitted openly that “sources” simply don’t work when it comes to Modi sarkar. What a sea change from just 10 years ago, when celebrity journalists would be on the phone with lobbyists fixing portfolios.

It takes time to build good habits, to build a routine with a healthy diet and regular exercise. We had five years and that was a good start. But India could not afford to go on a binge just yet. From the Insolvency Code to Swachch Bharat, we needed at least five more years of discipline.

Finally, Shashi Tharoor admits NYAY would have picked pockets of hardworking middle class taxpayers

A campaign may be over. But the evil that they did lives on. We deserve to know what they were willing to do to honest hardworking people in the country in order to fulfill the ambitions of a lazy and entitled dynast.

Going into the General Election 2019, the biggest idea that the Congress had to offer was a Minimum Income Guarantee (NYAY). A guaranteed sum of Rs 72000 to every poor household. What’s “poor”? Who gets to identify the “poor” and how do you define “household”? We were never told these details and likely deliberately so.

But the most important detail that was officially kept hidden was where the money would come from.

The hints were obvious, though. They were planning to shake down the honest middle class taxpayer.

Nothing’s viable without raising taxes: Abhijit Banerjee, Economist (NYAY Advisor) while speaking to @RShivshankar | #NyayKaSach pic.twitter.com/AdZSGQFmVd

— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) March 29, 2019

That’s MIT “economist” Abhijit Banerjee, the adviser for the NYAY scheme.

This isn’t even a case of middle class vs poor. Mr. “economist” Abhijit Banerjee also wanted to use the “inflation tax”, which must be a cute academic term for letting prices spiral out of control, used by people who are sitting in Boston and will not have to bear the brunt.

In other words, everyone would be punished: both poor and middle class. The only intended beneficiary of NYAY was Rahul Gandhi himself.

But when Rahul Gandhi was asked to clarify, he personally assured that the money for his minimum guarantee scheme would not come from extra taxes on ordinary folks.

Not that anybody believed him at the time, on this or any other issue, but it is satisfying to have a senior Congress leader admit this finally. Now that the campaign is over.

That’s Shashi Tharoor in his interview published today in The Hindustan Times. There you have it! Shashi Tharoor admits that it would be the “professional classes” centered in urban areas who would be paying for it.

Compare this with Rahul Gandhi’s statement that “Money won’t be taken from the middle class and income tax won’t be raised.”

Also notice how unabashed the Congress Party is. Not a lick of shame or repentance about the fact that their entire campaign was based on lies. Instead they are regretting the fact that news of NYAY reached only those who were going to be scammed by it and not those whose votes they wanted to buy.

The Congress Party has ruled this nation for close to 60 years. If anyone had the time and opportunity to address India’s poverty, it was them. Indira Gandhi promised to make a beginning in 1971, after the Congress had enjoyed uninterrupted power for 24 years. How did that go?

As I pointed out in a previous article, by 1974 the inflation had risen to 28.6%, the highest income tax rate had risen to 97% and the GDP growth meanwhile had collapsed to 1.2%! No wonder Indira Gandhi had to impose Emergency the next year. And in 2019, after the Congress had ruled for almost 60 years, Rahul Gandhi tried to claw his way back to power by announcing a vote buying yojana. No wonder the poor saw through it.

Now let me say a word about those “professional classes” that the Congress was planning to soak in order to fund its vote buying scheme. Who are these professional classes?

See, Nehruvian socialism kept India poor for forty years as the world raced ahead. Then, some reforms were made in the early 90s when India was at the brink of bankruptcy. A small group of people made use of this window of opportunity to escape from the clutches of utmost poverty and make a slightly better life for themselves. They slogged through school, competed with lakhs of others for a seat in a decent college and then squeezed themselves into a decent job. They achieved a moderate standard of living, something that even someone with a high school education in the first world would take for granted.

And so the Congress Party’s zamindars have their eye on this new professional class, the ones who have made their way in life without coming from the ranks of the high born in Lutyens Delhi. The NYAY idea was the plan of these Congress zamindars to extort money from those they saw as upstarts.

And when they heard murmurs of discontent, they tried emotional blackmail.

You see, unlike the Congress zamindars who have been ruling the nation for generations, these professional classes are known to suffer from something called ‘conscience’. Because they are drawn from the ranks of ordinary folk and they do relate to the suffering of the absolute poor.

The Congress tried to use their conscience against them by sending them on a guilt trip. It didn’t work.

Who are they calling “selfish”? Does the Congress elite know what it takes to get a seat in a decent college or  even a seat in a local train? Does the Congress elite know how hard it is to earn that paycheck? And how it feels when the government dips into that paycheck and collects a hefty tax? Rahul Gandhi would know if he had ever earned anything in his whole life.

How would he know? All he gets is one more promotion every time he fails at something.

The money that the government takes out of paychecks of ordinary people is not for entitled dynasts to buy votes with. It isn’t free.

And by the way, Shashi Tharoor is wrong about one more thing. It’s not just 50 percent of people who had heard about NYAY.  Everybody had heard about it, poor, middle class or rich. These days news spreads on the internet in a matter of minutes. You can wag your tail and thank Rajiv Gandhi for it if you want.

Everybody had heard about 72000. They just didn’t believe it. People didn’t vote for you. Not because they were selfish. But because they were smart.

Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Karnataka were the 4 miracle states in 2019

On the day of the results, I wrote half of an excited post and promised to continue it the next day. But then there were more exciting things to talk about and this post got shunted further down the line.

Which is a pity, because I had been rearing to write it.

I would say that Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Karnataka were the four “miracle states” in this election. Why these four? Why not Bengal or Odisha or Uttar Pradesh?

First of all, o be fair, it was pretty hard identifying the true miracles, because there were just so many. Ultimately, I decided to define “miracles” as election results that were so counter intuitive, so “absurd” in the traditional sense that they almost seem to defy explanation.

We all knew BJP was surging in Bengal. The only question was how much. We knew the caste arithmetic in UP, but we knew that UP has a “national vote” that surprises each time. We were all waiting and hoping for surprises.

Not so much in these 4 miracle states:

(1) Jharkhand

I am so proud of my home state. I am still rubbing my eyes in disbelief. The NDA got 12/14 seats. To be honest, I did not really expect more than 2 or 3.

If it was anywhere in the country where the opposition had the strongest possible alliance, it was in this state. I mean, there was Congress, JMM, JVM, RJD all of them together as well as a host of other tiny parties. Even parties like Jharkhand Party with small captive vote banks.

I kept saying that the popularity of Modi was sky high in Jharkhand, but that the alliance arithmetic would ultimately prevail. If you go back to the 2004 election, the BJP crumbled in face of alliance arithmetic in Jharkhand. I believe there were at least 7 parties together fighting the BJP. Together these 7 parties polled just 2% votes more than the BJP. But the lead across the state ensured that BJP got just 1 seat, with Babulal Marandi winning from Koderma. Yashwant Sinha from Hazaribagh lost to a freaking CPI candidate!

Not so this time. For good measure, the BJP polled a staggering 51% in Jharkhand. The alliance made no difference. True miracle I would say.

This is probably a reward for the excellent delivery system of real goods … toilets, gas, electricity, food rations, even LED bulbs that made Modi sarkar a big hit among the tribal population.

For what its worth, “guruji” Shibu Soren lost his own election from Dumka. Such fun.

I sometimes feel that Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das does not get enough credit, neither from his party nor its supporters. Without the state government participating and cooperating, it does not seem possible to achieve such a level of efficiency in taking welfare measures to every door.

Elections are coming soon in Jharkhand. It will be curious to see if Das is again the clear CM face or the old guard wants to try its luck again. There is no doubt that BJP will win again, but if Raghubar Das gets a second term, he might just prove to be a Raman Singh like rock for BJP.

“Janata ke das” is the slogan he uses. I have heard a thousand complaints (and jokes) about him, but you can’t argue with the election results.

(2) Chhattisgarh

Even bigger miracle. How did Congress go from 68/90 seats in December to just 2/11 in May?

Again the BJP’s vote share in Chhattisgarh is 51%. Compare that to the Assembly polls, where they trailed the Congress by as much as 10%.

After the disaster in Chhattisgarh and expecting really bad results from Jharkhand, I was beginning to suspect that the tribal voter was moving away from the BJP. This would be a shame, because BJP’s success with tribals is one of the crowning achievements of the Sangh Parivar.

But this is now the 4th successive Lok Sabha election in which BJP has swept Chhattisgarh. This is what real dominance looks like.

But the mystery of the 2018 verdict remains. If Chhattisgarh’s love affair with BJP continues right since 2004, what exactly were people voting against in December?

If anything, this only raises the chances of internal sabotage being the reason for BJP losing Chhattisgarh last year. In my blog I have been maintaining that the verdict from that state remains an enigma. I mean…I understand anti incumbency after 15 years in power. But losing by a 10% margin? And then recovering to sweep the state within 6 months? Something strange has happened, something that goes even beyond the extraordinary.

(3) Delhi

You might wonder why I say Delhi was a miracle state in this election. Why? Didn’t we all know that BJP would get 7/7 after AAP and Congress couldn’t stitch the alliance?

Well yeah. But the real story is in vote shares.

Turns out that BJP didn’t need to worry one bit about any alliances. The party has polled a staggering 57% in Delhi. This is actually up by 10% since 2014!

On this blog and in the general RW sphere, there is a lot of nervousness over losing what can be called the “culture wars”. In other words, the RW getting stereotyped as orthodox and boring … and overall, just not cool. Millions and millions of youtube hits for comedians and journos attacking Modi. We knew it wouldn’t matter in most of the country, but if there was one place it could bite, it was Delhi.

I didn’t think Kanhaiya’s speeches would matter in Begusarai. And by the way, Kanhaiya lost by 4.22 lakh votes, which is the highest margin in Bihar. That was expected. I was worried what Kanhaiya’s speeches were doing to youth in Delhi. And speeches of all his friends… you know the gang I am talking about.

Turns out Delhi came out in even larger numbers than 2014 to vote Modi back to power. By a staggering 10%.

Perhaps fortune is finally favoring the Delhi BJP. They have been out of power since 1998. This is the longest that BJP has been out of power in a state within their catchment area. Delhi went for 3 terms of Congress. When things finally began to spin out of Congress control, the people looked to AAP instead of BJP. No other state unit of BJP has got such a raw deal from the people. But with Kejriwal’s politics becoming a parody, seems it is finally the BJP’s turn in Delhi. Twenty two years! Phew! But ultimately, Mauka Mauka...

(4) Karnataka

I am taking one hundred percent credit for this 🙂  There are reasons why people on Twitter are asking me to find a job in Andhra Pradesh.

No, seriously. Who could have thought that BJP could cross 50% vote share in Karnataka. The party has swept seats in the deep south of the state, where BJP barely existed five years ago. Or even a year ago.

At the time of the Assembly election in 2018, it was always a given that Congress would get more votes than BJP. The reason BJP was in the game is because its vote is more concentrated and the party tends to sweep North and Central and Coastal Karnataka. The 60 seats in Old Mysore Region generally give the party a blank. In many seats of this region, the BJP struggles even to reach 2-3% vote share.

There are two things that likely made the difference. Modi’s godlike image in the state and the JDS Congress alliance. The alliance turned the entire Old Mysore Region (which used to be JDS vs Cong) into a one horse race. But democracy doesn’t allow for a one horse race. The people in turn flocked to BJP.

Realizing that BJP would sweep the Northern half of Karnataka, the JDS and Congress fought each other bitterly in the “safe seats” in the southern half. Intense infighting, a blundering state government and Modi’s image.

Think about B S Yeddyurappa for a moment here. He resigned from the CM post in tears, resolving to uproot the Congress Party as punishment. He has kept his word.

By the way, there is a bit of misreporting in media that should be corrected here. The BJP+ has won not 25 but 26 of the 28 seats in Karnataka. That’s because Sumalatha Ambareesh is the BJP supported independent who has won from Mandya. Like so many other seats in those parts, the BJP didn’t even have enough base to put up a real candidate of their own. Yet they swept everything. Real miracle.

One wonders what is Congress’ “exit strategy” in Karnataka now? They have alienated the Lingayats forever. If they withdraw support to JDS, they will make the Vokkaligas (Gowdas) even more angry. And the Kurubas are unhappy because the Congress has treated their leader Siddaramaiah very poorly. Every single community is now against them.

And most importantly, a huge thank you to Karnataka (and Telangana) for standing like a rock against regressive forces.

Behold!

Not just dividing people. Not just a demand for secession. But a plan to create a separate nation based on race theories!

How much more “illiberal” do you have to be to earn the wrath of India’s alleged liberals?

But with India’s liberals, everything goes as long as you are against Modi. Do you remember any of our fearless media or elite liberals asking Rahul how he feels about a race based “Dravida Nadu”? The idea is being pursued by M K Stalin, the undisputed leader of Congress’ No.1 ally! M K Stalin is likely the next CM of Tamil Nadu.

But nobody will dare question him or Rahul Gandhi. Only Modi is to blame for everything his Twitter followers say.

Well, now it turns out that the BJP is the single largest party from South India in the Lok Sabha, with 29 seats of its own.

So will liberals now argue that Karnataka and Telangana are not “real south” but located somewhere in Eastern Uttar Pradesh? Wait for it…

Reservation for “Economically Weaker Sections” was the first symptom of a changing Hindu society

Like so many other right wingers, I have been binge watching left wing media over the last one week, especially after May 23. To get a kick out of their misery and watch them quivering in pain.

You might not like that so much, because it sounds kind of sadistic. Well, just remember that these same left liberals have been calling us “Hindu Taliban” and “Cow Nazis” for five years. A couple of days of enjoying their agony on Youtube is the least we deserve.

But I did come across a couple of interesting points being made here and there. Not surprisingly, liberals were all in mourning about the post caste electorate. And one of them (can’t remember who/where) said something which I felt was very significant:

The fact that no major party opposed reservation for “Economically Weaker Sections” in January did say something deep about changing attitudes in Hindu society.

It is true that the EWS quota was over and above the existing 50% quota. So it’s not like they disturbed some existing reservation.

Even so, the move could well have ignited deep seated fears that this could be the first step towards removing caste based reservation. Remember that this is a smear that ‘secular’ parties have always tried to cultivate against BJP : that BJP is an upper caste party, that they are plotting to remove reservations, etc etc.

When Modi brought in the EWS quota, it could have been the moment for the opposition to stoke those embers. That didn’t happen. All parties rushed to support it. And even if the top leadership had their political compulsions, they could have engaged lower level cadres and leaders to run a whisper campaign against it. Even that didn’t happen.

Why would that be? Because all parties recognized that Hindu society has changed a lot. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was of course the first to understand this and make a bold decision. It could have been risky. Very risky. But he had his finger on the pulse of the people.

I have always been in two minds about caste based reservations. I have met RW who are fervently opposed to it. But I am not. I have heard the arguments about “merit”. But there is also the matter of the starting line being the same for all. Not in a Communist kind of way… we can never achieve total equality of opportunity… but some amount of basic fairness to all is needed. And many historical wrongs need to be addressed. Just as we demand that modern India address the systematic injustices against Hindus committed by Muslims, we should allow for addressing systematic injustices within Hindu society.

You may call me a hypocrite. You might ask if I would give the same “intellectual” response if a college seat or a government job that I personally needed was given to someone else because of reservation. Probably not.

So I am always in two minds about reservation, but I do have one red line: Caste based reservation should be a strictly temporary measure. Some sort of deadline for Hindu society to finally dissolve the caste system. Remember that the Constitution also intended it to be the same way. Reservations were supposed to exist for only 10 years. Every 10 years since the Constitution came into force, this was extended by Parliament for another 10 years.

The end is still far away, but it is finally in sight. My guesstimate? Twenty years more.

In twenty more years, I believe India should be able to move from caste based reservations to quotas based on economic criteria.

This should be seen as a triumph for Hindu society. Triumph is when nobody feels like a loser. The simplest examples would come from gender equality. When a woman became India’s Defense Minister, I don’t think it made any man feel any lesser. The old prejudices were dying and were finally flushed out in one swoop.

Every step in this process was important and necessary. We had reservations for decades to address the injustices of old. These helped in creating an upwardly mobile middle class drawn from the “lower” castes. Two generations of “lower” castes looked for a 9 to 5 government job. The new generation wants more. Adhering to the dictates of the caste system is now effectively impossible in schools, colleges and the workplace. This shows in personal relationships including romantic relationships. I haven’t heard the expression “inter caste marriage” in at least 10 years. Back in the 90s, an “inter caste marriage” in one family would become everybody’s business…the talk of the whole neighborhood. Not any more.

And Narendra Modi was another big step in this process. Himself an OBC but rarely mentions his caste. Represents the holy city of Varanasi. And he has established a level of credibility with poorest and weakest sections of society that nobody has had in decades. These sections naturally overlap with backward caste and tribal populations. He brought the government to their doorstep for the first time in 70 years with the basic needs of life. Toilets, gas connections and electricity.

In doing this, a bond of “vishwas” has been created like nothing before. This trust was so strong that people rejected 72000 pie in the sky from Rahul Gandhi.

A lot of people accuse PM Modi of not delivering directly on “core Hindu issues”. This is false. In fact, empowering backward castes and tribals is the most pro-Hindu thing ever done in independent India. Why does a backward or tribal person convert to some alien religion? Because they feel the government is too far away. The missionary mafia steps into that vacuum.

The missionary mafia uses foreign money to deliver actual goods to the doorstep of the poorest and weakest. Why? Where did our own money go? Corrupt officials and politicians ate it all up midway before it reached actual people. Modi closed these leaks and brought the government to people’s doors. This is what will really put the missionary mafia out of business.

This is why you sense some desperation from “liberal” media when they talk about caste these days. Remember the infamous Scroll article finding shades of casteism in rasam? It’s more than funny. It’s an example of desperation on the other side. Because they know real casteism is dying. They are trying to rediscover it in all sorts of ridiculous ways.

The 2019 election is a deep shift that has changed Hindu society forever. The voter was silent but decisive. Anger is temporary. Vishwas is permanent. Unlike 2014, there was no anti-incumbency for Modi to benefit from. He only had his own karma of the last five years to bank upon. And Modi reaped the fruits.

 

The two moments when I thought BJP was definitely losing the election

Now that the ghost of 2004 is dead and buried, we can finally laugh about it.

There isn’t much happening on the news anyway. This seems like a good time to tell stories, share anecdotes and the like. And to all the “liberals” out there, come back y’all!

There are op-ed pieces and editorials to write on “peak intolerance” (the next stage of “rising intolerance”) and hard cash to be made, some of it in $$$. Above all, we want our entertainment back. So come back. I also entreat the Sahitya Akademi to furnish our jholawallahs with another round of awards that can be returned. I think they returned it all thinking Congress would definitely come back in 2019.

And I want Rahul Gandhi to start tweeting again. We can’t all afford foreign vacations every other week, so we need you guys to keep us entertained.

Okay, so what were the two times I thought it was all over for BJP?

The first was NYAY. I think the date was March 25 or something when they announced it. You can go back and read my blog post that day; you can almost tell that I am blacking out. Giving RaGa credit for this much : he said “shock ho gaye na?” He was right.

Rs 72000 is a *lot* of money for a *lot* of people. This seemed like it would dominate the election. But it did not.

Why? I suspect it was a combination of three factors. In what proportion, I don’t know.

The first was the maturity of the electorate. I mentioned before that if the Indian public rejects this bribe, they will be showing the way to the whole world. How much poverty we have! And how clever our people were to see that the promise would never work. Amazing.

The second is the spectacular failure of the Congress PR machinery that they couldn’t make it a talking point at all. Even on freaking social media. Even avowed liberals and hardcore dynasty chamchas barely spoke of NYAY. In the first few days, the only people discussing it were panicked BJP supporters. Then they shut up, as they slowly realized nobody else was talking about it.

The third: one day I would like to know how the BJP managed to dig its way out of this hole. I don’t think they intended to go silent at first. They would have been too jittery for that. Their first reprieve came with the “selfish” remark from Sam Pitroda. In rally after rally, PM Modi brought it up. But after a couple of phases, I think he stopped mentioning it. Likely realized that NYAY was not a talking point at all, so why give it any publicity at all?

In this whole NYAY thing, I think the people were ahead of the parties.

The second time I got a real fright was when this happened.

I didn’t say a word about it. When friends mentioned it to me, I insisted it did not mean anything. But I was absolutely terrified on the inside.

Because nothing like this to bring back memories of 2004.

I don’t know how many people would remember this event. But this was from May 12, 2004, a day before the results. Despite all the exit polls in the world, Anil Ambani went to meet Sonia Gandhi. It made no sense. And people speculated a lot about this at the time.

Did Ambani know something that we did not?

The similarities here were too strong for me to ignore. I didn’t sleep very well after hearing about the withdrawal of the defamation suit, I can tell you that.

Phew, that was tough.

We can still speculate about why precisely Anil Ambani withdrew his defamation suit just after exit polls and just before the results. If all he wanted to do was clean the slate, what was the hurry to do it on the Monday as soon as voting ended? Surely he knew people would talk about it. Maybe he was just having fun psyching people out 🙂

It would be fun to be an Ambani 🙂 That much we know for sure… Have a great day y’all!

The difference lies in what holds BJP and Congress ecosystems together

The BJP’s stunning 303 seat tally has left the liberal ecosystem immobilized for the moment. Not even quivering in pain, but knocked out cold. Seriously, how did BJP even achieve this? In the last five years the BJP has recovered in Uttar Pradesh, captured Haryana, Maharashtra, Assam, Tripura and much of the North East. In this election they have roared into Bengal and Odisha and have delivered the first punch in Telangana. The BJP wave has swept also the southern tip of Karnataka where the party barely even existed five years ago.

How are they doing this? How come BJP has been able to use its five years in power to expand relentlessly? Before that the Congress ruled for ten years. Can anybody name any stretch of the country where the Congress party rebuilt itself during the UPA decade? Or even made a serious effort?

Surely, there is a difference between how the two parties and their supporters think. Let me explain what it is.

Two examples will make this clear.

A few days back, Yogendra Yadav, stung by the exit polls and in a moment of extreme mental agony made the remark that “The Congress must die”.

Now, we are all familiar with Mr. Yogendra Yadav’s political loyalties and his illustrious career within the liberal ecosystem. And yet, so fierce, so vicious and so emotional was the reaction from his friends and well wishers that he spent the next three days clarifying his words again and again. Above all the fact that he has nothing against the Congress leadership.

Watch how Lutyens deals with murmurs of discontent.

Rajdeep asks if Yogendra will clarify.

And then just see Yogendra is groveling about how his words had nothing to do with anti-Congressism, nothing against Congress leadership, etc etc. pic.twitter.com/2L3YxHSt6W

— Abhishek (@AbhishBanerj) May 21, 2019

Yogendra Yadav  ji, you are an old man with a big ego and many failures in life. I hope your friends forgive you.

Now remember this:

This happened to BJP’s seniormost leader in (active) politics at the time. To the man whose Rath Yatra built the BJP. At a time when BJP was at one of its lowest ebbs.

Because no matter how badly the BJP’s fate hung in the balance, the ideology mattered more.

Compare that to how the ecosystem is treating an old hand like Yadav for one line of heresy. Yadav was taking an ideological viewpoint, one that I may not agree with, but an ideology nevertheless. In fact, he was talking about party getting in the way of ideology. But “liberals” couldn’t care less about ideology.

Because modern Indian liberalism is all about following a divinely appointed hereditary monarch, staying invested in that ecosystem and reaping benefits from it.

This is how the word “liberal” became an insult. Because Indian “liberalism” is a cover story, a PR spin on the worst form of cronyism and regressive politics.

What is liberalism supposed to be about? About having an open mind? Well, who wouldn’t approve of that?

Now tell me this: who do you think were the real open minded ones in this election? They are the ones who dumped their traditional caste based parties and voted for an idea.

Who is a liberal? Is it really those who vote for Akhilesh Yadav because he is a Yadav or those who vote for Mayawati because she is a Jatav? Or those who vote for Ajit Singh or his son because they are Jats? Do you know that BSP has never so much as released a manifesto in its entire existence as a political party (yes, it’s true!)? Indeed, Mayawati has never promised anything to anyone. Only demanded support from members of her caste group. Are those who answered that call really “liberal”?

In Karnataka, the Congress had called PM Modi a “North Indian import”. Voters rejected those who defined Kannadiga pride as a form of hatred towards people of other states. People of Karnataka wanted to define Kannadiga pride through love, not hate. In Bengal, voters taught a lesson to TMC for their racist rhetoric against “non-Bengalis”. In Maharashtra, Raj Thackeray was smart enough not to contest but his speeches were much sought after by the liberal elite.

Indian “liberals” went to the electorate offering them every form of division: Do you hate Hindi speaking people in Kolkata? Then vote TMC. Are you angry that a Punjabi Khatri has become CM of Haryana instead of a Jat? Then vote Congress. Are you angry that the CM of Gujarat is from the “microscopic” minority of Jains and not the numerically strong Patidars? Then vote Congress.

This is senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge, the de facto leader of opposition in the previous Lok Sabha, telling Home Minister Rajnath Singh on his face that he is an “Aryan who came from outside”.

Yesterday, Mallikarjun Kharge lost from Gulbarga, the first election he has lost in his life.

Lalu Yadav was convicted in a 1000 crore scam. They still thought he would be a big player in Bihar simply because of his last name. The people have spoken. RJD has won a grand total of ZERO seats.

That’s new India.

Let’s take an actual “liberal” value. Like gender equality. Or dignity for homosexuals. Do you think that a voter who defines their entire existence by their XYZ caste identity is more likely to believe in rejecting regressive views on the role of women? Obviously not.

So Indian “liberalism” is all about staying invested in a family and reaping the benefits. They support the family because they know it is the glue which keeps the party together. And they are right about that.

And in the new India, caste identities are getting progressively dismantled. This is what the BJP tapped into. That’s how the BJP managed to get 50%+ of the vote almost everywhere from Karnataka to Maharashtra to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Why not? What could stop them? The other side had no ideas, just caste arithmetic.

What keeps the BJP juggernaut together and drives it? Ideology.

This is not to paint some rosy picture of the BJP. Every party has problems. And when you are as big as the BJP, there are going to be big big faults.

What I am saying is that when you come down to the level of an ordinary BJP supporter, you will discover something very different from an ordinary “liberal”.

Ideology, not some narrow caste or regional identity. And new India cares about ideas and not your father’s name.

I’ll give you one more example. Remember how BJP supporters used to dominate social media? That’s when social media was small and most people didn’t realize it had serious PR potential.

Observe that at the time Congress had many many more voters than BJP, but it was the BJP supporters seeking out corners of the web and speaking their mind. Trying to get their ideas on any platform they could find. The comments sections on news websites. On Twitter and Facebook. Before there was Facebook, there used to be Orkut. BJP supporters formed groups on it and tried to spread their ideas. Most of it had little to no impact. But the ideological commitment kept them trying.

Eventually, the other side caught up on social media. When did that happen? After they lost 2014 and realized social media was going to be huge. Then they brought in the big money, founded a string of liberal “news websites”. All with similar genre of names too, as you would expect from sock puppets. They realized social media was needed to create hawa and so they installed blowers to create that hawa. From standup comedians to “journalists” imported from America, everyone needed to be paid big bucks to blow that hawa. Because where would the liberals find even one self motivated foot soldier, who without any organization or sponsorship, would freely contribute their time and energy for a cause?

This is not to say that BJP doesn’t have its own PR machines. Of course it does. Everyone has PR machines. But who has the volunteers? Because people vote. Machines don’t.

But there is this thing about new India. They were swept away with real ideas from real people, not blower ki hawa.

Not every Hindu hero ends up like Prithviraj Chauhan

It took 15 years. But in the minds of BJP supporters, that ghost of 2004 was alive and kicking and screaming till the very end.

I had structured my day somewhat like this, anticipating a win but absolutely terrified of celebrating too early.

8:00 – 12:00 : Try to hide somewhere with the phone turned off.

12:00 Provisional celebrations (watch Republic)

13:00 Official celebrations (watch NDTV)

Obviously, the first item turned out to be harder than expected. While I did manage to avoid looking at trends for ten to fifteen minutes at a time, I did keep returning to my phone at least once every half hour. By 10:30 or so, the evidence was so clear and so overwhelming that I advanced the formal celebrations scheduled for 13:00 by two full hours.

There are so many things to say right now that I am bound to forget at least a few of them.

First of all, I wish Atalji was alive to see this moment.

This nation made a mistake in 2004. In the process, we ended up electing the most corrupt government in the world.

But today, on May 23, 2019, we have buried the ghost of 2004. It’s a pity that Atalji is not here to see this.  He has become immortal.

There is a lot to learn today. The most important being that when you dedicate yourself to a cause and refuse to give up despite what “conventional wisdom” says, you might just make history.

And that is what BJP has done here: made history. In the process, they have shuttered the shops of those who were running factories of casteism and regionalism. I heard one ABP news anchor ask an “expert” something like this: “Is there a new votebank now? The more people try to talk about Yadav and Jatav and Jat, etc, the more the Hindus unite?”

Dear ABP news, give that man a cookie! He’s stumbled into the biggest idea of the election.

“They” said that a lot of things were impossible. They said that when you add the Jatavs with Mayawati to the Yadavs with Akhilesh and the Muslims who will go with anyone to defeat BJP, you have a combination that is unbeatable.

I remember Amit Shah said that the BJP is doing the “politics of 50%” in Uttar Pradesh. As of now, the BJP is leading 60 seats in UP and their voteshare is 52%!

Modi spoke of 300 seats. BJP leading 303 right now. I guess we have become so used to politicians putting out empty boasts that we don’t recognize the real stuff when it stares us in the face.

There are many jokers in this election, but Akhilesh Yadav is arguably the biggest of them. Rather than focus on squeezing out the BSP and turn Uttar Pradesh into a bipolar state (BJP vs SP), he ended up reviving them. As of now, BSP is leading 11 seats and SP is leading 5. Remember that SP won 5 seats (or more specifically, the extended Yadav family won 5 seats) even in 2014. So what was achieved with this Mahagathbandhan? A net negative, now that Mayawati is back in the reckoning.

We cannot move on from Uttar Pradesh without mentioning Smriti Irani’s triumph in Amethi. I was very certain the saffron tigress would win … but had a few second thoughts when Modi didn’t hold a rally in Amethi to support her campaign. Turns out it wasn’t needed.

Smriti Irani tried to enter the Lok Sabha in 2004. It didn’t work. In 2014, she tried again, taking on a formidable opponent. She lost again but kept fighting, kept nurturing the constituency. And now she will be entering both the Lok Sabha and the history books.

What a contrast between Smriti Irani and her spoiled dynastic opponent. In 2014, Priyanka Vadra had referred to her as “Smriti, who?”

Who’s laughing now? Life gives many humbling lessons, but hard work and patience can get you very very far. Smriti Irani is a glowing example. A lot to learn from her.

The next thing I must talk about is two champion CM picks by Modi early in his tenure who have both delivered big time. One is Khattar and the other is Fadnavis. At the moment, BJP is leading 9/10 in Haryana and at one point it was even leading in Rohtak, the stronghold of Bhupinder Hooda which his son was contesting.

Then there is Fadnavis (my favorite among all BJP CMs). What a performance… 41/48 at this moment. The man has been tested in every possible way: he didn’t even enjoy a clear majority in the Assembly. And having an ally like Sena is in many ways worse than having an enemy.  Remember that Fadnavis found himself in charge of the state BJP all of a sudden, owing to the sad loss of Gopinath Munde in a car accident. The Munde sisters and the other big senior leader from Maharashtra… indeed from Vidarbha (who I will not name) couldn’t possibly have been happy about it.

But Fadnavis negotiated all this skillfully and emerged a champion. What do we learn? Always be prepared for opportunity and when you get it, grab it with both hands.

We should also say something for Amit Shah here, for eating a bit of humble pie and cutting deals with egoistic allies in Bihar and Maharashtra. Those deals effectively shut out the Congress from both of these large states. 38/40 in Bihar and 41/48 in Maharashtra. Super.

Well, we all knew it would be 100% in Rajasthan and Gujarat, barring some anomalous seat here and there. No surprises.

It’s funny actually how Congress bungled up two big states they won in December: Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. In Rajasthan they played for little, with CM Ashok Gehlot looking sort of selfish in spending so much energy on saving Jodhpur for his son. It didn’t work and the party lost miserably all across the state. Another lesson not to be narrow minded in victory.

Perhaps the same could be said for Scindia, who I heard flew away to the US, with much of UP and MP still left to vote. I can guess he wanted to be CM and probably felt hard done by when he was passed over for Kamal Nath. Maybe he didn’t feel like giving his 100% to the party cause? Ok, but see the results now. He’s lost everything, including his stronghold of Guna.

Some hard decisions have to be taken in every party. And there are many who might legitimately feel hard done by. Remember the big leader from Maharashtra who I did not name? Would you not feel insulted if you were in his place? But despite all that, they cooperated for a common cause and see the results in Maharashtra. And see what happened to Scindia and Congress in Madhya Pradesh.

Lesson: Don’t be petty. If you are narrow minded to each other, you will all lose.

Just one word before I come to Bengal (finally!). Yesterday, I lavished praise on Sunil Deodhar, who may not be as well known to BJP supporters. I mentioned he had been sent to handle BJP in Telangana after delivering a historic victory in Tripura. In Telangana today, the BJP is picking up 4 seats out of 17! Who would have thought this possible?

This man Sunil Deodhar is a miracle worker. He is turning the BJP into main opposition in Telangana. Watch out for his career graph.

At one point, even Owaisi was trailing from his seat. As an aside, I must say a gleaming modern metropolis like Hyderabad deserves better than Owaisi. I understand that he will always control the part called “Old City”, but I really hope people who don’t live in the Old City will come up with a way to rescue the place from him.

Please… Hyderabad deserves better.

Oh Bengal 🙂

What to even say? There is so much emotion here.  A huge salute to the people for coming out against the dictatorship of the Trinamool in massive numbers and delivering a knockout punch.

Folks, it’s over for Mamata Didi. She might as well start drafting her resignation letter dated May 2021. The wave is here. She will be hard pressed to win 50-60 of the 294 Assembly seats in Bengal.

That map tells a story. The BJP wave came from the tribal regions bordering Jharkhand and the neglected areas of North Bengal.

In other words, the wave came from those parts of the state where the “subalterns” live. The Bengali “Bhadralok”  sitting in Kolkata wanted to impose their notion of “Bengaliyat” on them. The tribals of Medinipur and Purulia. And even the Bengali language on parts of North Bengal. Yes, there are many communities in Bengal that don’t speak Bangla. The racist Bengali elite in Kolkata see these people as “undesirables”. You should listen to how the racist Bengali elite talks about the Santhals in the eastern part of the state and the Gorkhas in the northern part. Their attitude is arguably worse than white supremacists in the 1950s trying to enforce a White Australia.

This is why I am not such a big fan of intellectuals. As a class, “intellectuals” are generally sold out to the establishment. In Bengal, they used to support the CPIM before Mamata Banerjee bought them over. It’s not a phenomenon limited to Bengal… the Indian elite used to support the British and then switched over to Nehru.

Two years ago, when BJP won Uttar Pradesh, I wrote a post explaining that intellectuals have an idiotic myth that the resistance to “nationalism” would come from empowering the oppressed communities. Ha! How could that be? It is the elite who swore loyalty to the British crown and to Nehru. You think a youth from an underprivileged community in eastern Uttar Pradesh shares your kind of nostalgia for the Pakistani noblemen whose kids were your classmates at Oxford?

Something similar happened in Bengal. Mamata had the elites under her control, preaching her version of Bengaliyat. Everyone else rebelled.

But then, every single politician who ran on casteism and regionalism has seen their dukaan closed in this election.

PM Modi has fought like a lion. Above all he has shown that not every Hindu leader needs to end up like Prithviraj Chauhan.

(PS: This post is already long enough and I need to enjoy some liberal tears online. There’s still a lot to say about Karnataka, Odisha and my home state of Jharkhand. And Chhattisgarh. Phew…it’s a big country. Impossible to sum up in one post. Wait for tomorrow).

After Amit Shah becomes a minister, who would run the BJP?

Well, I had to blog about something to pass the time today.

Okay, so here is a joke that I heard shortly after the 2014 election results. Modi sent Amit Shah to Uttar Pradesh asking him to fetch 40 seats. On reaching UP, Amit Shah was like, “But which 40 seats?” And so, being ‘Hanuman’, Amit Shah lifted the whole of Uttar Pradesh over his head and brought it over…

If someone has really made the difference between Atal ji’s term and Modi’s first term, it is Amit Shah. Installed as Party president after a swashbuckling innings in Uttar Pradesh, Shah has kept the BJP machine fired up like nothing else. Leading from the front, he pushed the BJP cadre to dream the “impossible” and keep turning it into reality. Turning the tables on the Sena in Maharashtra. Locking up Haryana, Assam and the North East. Even Tripura. And now they say he might even have changed the game in Bengal and Odisha. It’s not like everything succeeded. Take Delhi. Take Bihar. Take Karnataka or the three Hindi states in December. But he kept hammering away like a champion.

In contrast, Atal ji’s term saw “weak” party Presidents: Venkaiah Naidu, Jana Krishnamoorty and Kushabhau Thakre. All loyal and hard working RSS men, but perhaps none with the organizing capabilities of Amit Shah.

This could be the *real* big loss for BJP after these elections. Amit Shah entered the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat in 2017 and will now enter the Lok Sabha from Gandhinagar. From Advaniji’s old seat, which has huge symbolic value. There is a very high chance that he would become a minister, perhaps one of the big four.

In fact, if you ask me, Amit Shah might be Prime Minister one day. He is only 54 years old, which is quite young for a politician. Although folks like Fadnavis and Yogi have a few more years on him.

When I speculated about this on Twitter earlier today, all sorts of interesting reactions came in. In fact, this blog post is a sort of aggregate of those reactions.

The first thing is : imagine for a moment that Amit Shah is Home Minister. It’s a delicious thought. Dear Naxals, lights out for you guys…

But for the BJP, this would cause a vacancy that would be hard to fill. And this is a structural issue that could hurt the party very badly in the long run.

Although I am a huge fan of Amit Shah, we also have to be realistic. If Shah becomes a minister, he would not want to lose his grip over the party having done so much to build it. Don’t blame anybody. It’s human nature. What would you do in his place?

Would the BJP then return to an era of weak party presidents handpicked by the ones on top?

That’s something to think about. But not too much, because remember we are just killing time today.

So you tell me, who should succeed Amit Shah? A lot of people mentioned Himanta, who is a rising star in the BJP, definitely a junior Amit Shah. It’s hard to think of a more valuable leader acquired by BJP in the last five years. Among hardcore BJP supporters, I think his popularity surpasses that of most BJP leaders.

Obviously though, Himanta cannot become party president within five years of joining the BJP. But the sentiment is correct. The BJP is headed eastwards and the next party president should be someone who has done extensive work on the country’s eastern borders.

You know who that reminds me of? Sunil Deodhar.

I had never heard of this man until March, 2018 when the BJP won Tripura. I remember watching him on ABP news after the results. A Maharashtrian from Pune who now speaks multiple tribal languages from the North East. The way he spoke, sprinkling his words with deep analysis and anecdotes from the ground, left the entire ABP newsroom mesmerized. It was such a refreshing break from the gas balloons we see and hear on TV everyday. Only an RSS man who works on the ground could have spoken like this. I think Commie Abhay Dubey tried to trip up Sunil Deodhar, but Deodhar dismantled the rubbish so artfully and so gracefully that Dubey ended up paying him a compliment.

Somebody asked him if he would be Tripura CM. Deodhar answered that his job was done; he was going to pack up his belongings and leave. He would go wherever the party wanted him. And that’s exactly what he did. A week or so later, Sunil Deodhar left for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Even if you don’t like RSS/BJP, there is a lesson to be learned here from dedicated RSS members. Quite simply, no other party in India today has such people in its ranks. No wonder they are winning.

What does the Congress have? Paid column writers who will charge for every comma, full stop and blank space.

Last time, Amit Shah established his claim for the party president post by delivering a historic performance in Uttar Pradesh. Is the next party president going to be the one who creates history in Bengal? Honestly, I don’t know how far Deodhar was involved in the Bengal campaign, but I do know he is playing a role at least.

Bengal, Bengal, Bengal… what will happen in Bengal?

I did not say anything about Bengal the last two days. I just maintain my core thesis: once the wave begins in Bengal, it will be truly spectacular. No half measures in Bengal. Has the wave been triggered? Exit polls suggest it has. I must serve one warning : a similar thing happened after 2006 Assembly polls in Bengal when Mamata Banerjee was projected to win. So, wait. But remember that 2006 paved the way for Mamata Banerjee to sweep 2011.

Above all, remember what I always say: In every victory, there are seeds of defeat. In every defeat there are seeds of victory.

A true winner knows how to look for those seeds instead of pretending that the sun, moon and the EVMs are conspiring against them.

My next blog post is not far off now… We shall meet on the other side where there is no darkness.

Sleep well, mitron.

Last mile delivery : Decoding the Gujarat model that brought PM Modi to Delhi (and will keep him there)

Readers of this blog will know that I changed my “pessimistic” ~210 seats tone the day PM Modi spoke deliberately and emphatically of winning 300 seats on the last day of the campaign. This was followed by the Modi-Shah press conference, where PM Modi enjoyed tantalizing the press for nearly an hour by making them wait to see if he would take questions 🙂

The reason I took Shah’s words so seriously is because it was far more than the usual boast of politicians claiming to sweep elections. Amit Shah sat down on Friday afternoon to give everyone a peek into how he and Modi ran a winning election campaign. The logistics were stunning… both Modi and Shah traveled over one lakh kilometers and Shah actually traveled quite a lot more than Modi. While Modi did the flagship rallies, Shah was relentless, doing countless roadshows and smaller rallies to keep the BJP cadre enthused.

In the end Shah directly visited 312 Lok Sabha seats between January and May, did 160 rallies after announcement of polls, 18 roadshows and traveled 1.58 lakh kilometers. The corresponding numbers for PM Modi are about 33% smaller, although his events probably had more people.

I am saying this because I believe modern election campaigning is data driven and all about numbers. I wanted to understand what Modi-Shah were doing right.

Now, it is not easy to understand their strategies, but I think I finally have a few basics of how they go about bringing an incumbent government back to power.

First, let us note one thing. All over the world, incumbency is seen as a great advantage. The one who has the power calls the shots, sets the agenda and generally has the upper hand. In the United States, some 90%+ of sitting members of Congress get re-elected. The expression “anti-incumbency wave” is used more or less only in India. It is only here that incumbency is a burden.

It tells you about the piss poor quality of governance in our country that in every election the people go out and vent their anger at those who have done “nothing” in five years. And those that the people vote into power are the same folks who disappointed them five years ago. It’s just that people have forgotten who they were angry with five years ago. This is pathetic.

I think Modi-Shah have cracked the code. How to bring an incumbent back to power in India?

Simple: use those five years to reach out to people constantly

(1) Identify basic things that people are lacking. 

That’s not hard to do in India. Hundreds of millions of people did not have access to the most basic needs of life like gas, electricity and toilets, let alone bank accounts.

(2) Knock on every door with at least one basic thing they were lacking

This is the most important part. Har ghar dastak, i.e., knock on every door, with at least one thing.

There’s always leakages and inefficiencies, but Modi-Shah are counting on the fact that every poor person has received at least one direct benefit from the government. A gas cylinder. An electricity connection. A toilet.

Some of the luckier ones have actually received pukka houses.

And this is not just for the absolute poorest. A program like Jan Aushadhi Centers sells generic drugs at 25% of the brand prices. A middle class family taking care of an aging parent might spend Rs 2000 or Rs 3000 a month on medicines alone. If this comes down to Rs 700-800, who would not be relieved?

Again, not everybody will benefit from every scheme, but everyone gets at least one tangible thing. They made sure there was at least one direct contact between the government and the citizen. This matters.

For 70 years, we generally believed that govt “yojanas” were a joke of sorts. They came and went, like clouds that bear no rain. Modi and Shah changed that.

Even if you do not need a govt scheme to help you out, there is something like Swachcha Bharat. Who doesn’t get a good feeling out of keeping your surroundings clean? Modi “hacked” into this good feeling. Every time you see something clean and shining, you think of Modi. Every time you see a clean toilet at a railway station, you remember Modi.

If you look at the “Gujarat model”, that’s what it was. In 2007, conventional wisdom would have meant a sure defeat for BJP in Gujarat. The party had years of incumbency going against it. Most local BJP leaders of any stature had deserted Modi.

What made the difference then? It was “Jyotirgram”, the program that provided 24 x 7 power to every home in Gujarat. It was unthinkable at the time in India for the home to have 24 x 7 power. Something that voters could not possibly overlook.

 (3) Infrastructure projects and “visible” development

The voter doesn’t just want a toilet. They also want something to aspire to … and a sense that the country is chugging along.

There should be something outside the house as well. This is where the frenetic pace of road construction comes in. Along with other more ambitious projects like bullet trains.

Some of the benefits are very tangible, like the laborer who goes to their ancestral village to see it connected with a paved road for the first time ever. But the intangible is just as important. How many people really rode the Vande Bharat Express from Delhi to Varanasi? But when they saw it on TV and Youtube, they had a pleasant feeling. They associated it with Modi.

There are other ways to get “high returns” from the voter: Focus on better infrastructure in Hindu religious places. You can’t clean up every street in the country in five years. But you can clean the ghats of Varanasi. You can make sure the Kumbh Mela is sparkling. Some 4 crore Hindus go there. Huge returns.

(4) Tap every beneficiary right before the polls

In five years, you’ve made sure every voter has received at least one thing from the government. The final round is to send your workers out to knock on every door again and remind them of the benefit they received.

This is the final mammoth exercise, with Modi – Shah leading from the front. Amit Shah mentioned that BJP workers had held a “Kamal Sandesh Deepawali” to light a diya in the home of every one of 22 crore beneficiaries on the same day.

This is where organization comes in. You have people in every panchayat with local knowledge of who received what from the government. And then in the final round before polls, you go and remind them of that.

22 crore beneficiaries! Even if the BJP managed to actually reach half of what Shah is quoting : say 11 crore… the BJP is bound to win. In 2014, they got 17 crore votes. They will get a whole lot more this time.

This is my reading of how the Modi-Shah campaign machine works. Like “Coca Cola”, they focus on making sure their brand is everywhere. We barely notice it but it has seeped into the consciousness. Remember that every currency note has the logo of Swachch Bharat Abhiyan. You are always thinking of Modi. Even if you don’t use cash (like me), you always remember that PM Modi heavily supports cashless payments. With every click of Paytm or BHIM on your smartphone, you remember Modi.

There are some remarks to be made here. First, where is Hindutva?

Well, that’s the cherry on top. It is what puts the spring in the step of your voters and more importantly your cadres. You need your workers to go and reach out to every beneficiary in the country. How do you motivate them to reach 22 crore people? You need Hindutva.

Does this mean I am saying Modi sarkar does not really think about Hindutva beyond some grist to the campaign mill?

Of course not.

The Hindu nation is built by emphasizing that Hinduism is the mainstream of the country and that Hinduness is the identity of India. The 2019 election was India’s first completely Hinduised election. You can understand. I won’t say more.

The second thing to be said is this: does this model have any limitations?

Of course it does. The Gujarat model has limitations. And nowhere was this more apparent than in Gujarat itself.

What happens after a while when most people already have access to the basics? The Gujarat government built roads and gave 24 x 7 electricity, but what now? People in Gujarat have started taking these things for granted.

This is what you would expect. Have you heard Americans vote on the basis of who gave 24 x 7 power? No, because everybody in the US already has 24 x 7 power and cannot remember a time when that wasn’t the case. That’s one of the reasons BJP had so much trouble in Gujarat in 2017: young voters take power supply and good roads for granted.

But when you come to the all India perspective, we are still very far from everyone having electricity, toilets and good roads. Hopefully, we will one day take all these things for granted, but Modi might become a 3 term PM before that.