The Real TINA is Not “If Not Modi Then Who” but “If Not Hindutva Then What”

What is missing in the Opposition is a clear counter-narrative with a pan-Indian imagination.

Published in The Hindu  

There is ferment in the Opposition space on who will lead the Opposition in the upcoming 2024 election. Implicit in this ferment is the idea that there needs to be one principal challenger from the opposition to take on Modi.  This idea has some justification. With increasing complexity of governance and fragmentation of public discourse, personalisation of elections has become a way to simplify the available choices for the voter. It is felt that this principal challenger will be the Opposition’s answer to the question, “If not Modi, then Who”. However, this is only half the question. The more substantive question is “if not Hindutva then what?”. It is only by articulating a response to this question and crafting an electorally salient counter narrative, that the response to the question “if not Modi, then who” can emerge. 

The Opposition discourse has two discernable strands. The first is that the Modi Government is “killing democracy” by upending norms on Center-State relations, Parliamentary procedures while using predatory tactics against the Opposition by poaching MLAs, toppling governments through the misuse of central agencies and money. These arguments can be summed up as arguments against consolidation of power in the BJP under Modi and provide the impetus for the Opposition to come together. However, it is unclear that these issues - especially in their present articulation - are the basis of an electorally resonant agenda. Not only is there some preference for a strongman in our country, but the Opposition has also not been able to showcase that this predatory behavior is somehow unique to the Modi Government. The second strand is an aggregation of grievances - small and big - against the Modi Government. Inflation, unemployment, economic collapse and Covid mismanagement are all extremely important issues but the articulation lacks an overarching framework and the Opposition’s tendency to get in the weeds on a range of issues (some trivial) ends up as overall noise instead of undermining Modi’s credibility. 

What is missing in the Opposition is a clear counter-narrative with a pan-Indian imagination. This is a central contradiction in the Opposition ranks and among liberals. Other than welfare through levers of the state, the Opposition has no narrative of its own to catch the imagination of the electorate across the country. Infrastructure is too ideologically neutral to have special resonance. The problems with welfare as a national narrative are multifold: first, it is not adequately different from the BJP which is also mixing welfare with Hindutva. Second, the more grandiose the announcement, the less its credibility because the state has a poor track record of implementing its own mandate. Third, welfare is not aspirational. Young men and women who spend their time watching glamorous videos on social media cannot feel excited about an unemployment allowance of  Rs 3500 per month. Regional parties have been able to fight against the BJP juggernaut by doubling down on their regional identity but this makes it difficult for them to set a coherent narrative at the national stage. A strong cultural identity or a core caste base can be the basis of victory at the state level but does not have the carrying capacity for a national narrative. Nitish Kumar realised this and sought to use prohibition as a way to transcend Bihar’s borders but his own opportunism undercut his national aspirations. The AAP has a more versatile narrative - a welfare model driven by the proceeds of savings from honest governance. However this is not a narrative that can bring all the Opposition parties together since this requires positioning AAP as a uniquely honest party among its peers. Failing in its own national narrative, the entire Opposition is thus lapsing into an agenda set by the BJP - of overt Hinduism and hypernationalism. The Opposition may attempt to nuance within this framework set by the BJP but nuance neither lends itself well to mass communication and nor is it an electorally salient strategy - voters may end up being confused instead of persuaded. Most importantly, this strategy seems to concede that Hindus, as long as they are “good” Hindus, have some special right to rule India, instead of holding the line on the bare minimum that India belongs equally to all Indians, with citizenship conferred by birth (if parents are citizens) not religion. This brings us back to our original contention - the real TINA is not “If not Modi Then Who” but “If Not Hindutva then What”.

It is clear that the Opposition needs a coherent national narrative to mobilise public opinion. The national election is no longer an aggregate of different state elections. It is also facile to say that Modi only got 37% of the vote because BJP constructed its majority by securing over 50% vote share in 16 states and UTs. This underscores the limits of a plank constructed entirely around anti-BJPism because even if the Opposition had come together, it wouldn't have changed the outcome. The next step then is not backroom parleys to anoint the leader of the opposition but deliberation on Opposition narrative and collaboration on political programs. Public leaders lose legitimacy if they frame their personal ambitions without a broader appeal to public interest. In the absence of an expansive people’s agenda, this is a danger to the Opposition now. 

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