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The outcome of elections in the world’s largest democracy – India, should be a lesson to all other countries that are struggling to get better form of democracy in their country including the likes of Thailand.
The outcome (so far) indicates that despite all the odds stacked against the opposition, the opposition block led by the ‘grand old party’ – Congress, has managed to make inroads into the parliament where the opposition was cornered for the past 5-years by the iron fist rule led by the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and its strongman leader – Narendra Modi.
The BJP, which was by all polls expected to win in excess of 300 seats but has failed to even reach the half way mark – 272 seats, and is struggling to keep its pre-poll alliance partners from switching sides to the opposition block alliance called I.N.D.I.A. (Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance), which is the gathering of various regional parties along with the Congress party.
This result comes despite the heavy-handed approach by the BJP ahead of the elections whereby many of the key opposition parties leaders were jailed for various charges laid right before the polls and the bank accounts of many of the larger parties (including Congress) were frozen for ‘tax’ related issues in March right when the multi-phased elections were starting.
Despite all this the I.N.D.I.A. group has managed to gain the votes from the people who in any democracy has the final say.
A Lesson to Strongmen
The worse than expected showing by the BJP should be a lesson to the likes of Modi, a man who has managed to bring out all the things that do not belong in democracy to the forefront.
India, like Thailand, is a country where all religions are practiced, but in the past 10-years (2-terms of Modi) Hinduism has been at the forefront of everything.
Muslims, who account for 14% of the total of 1.44 billion people in India, have been nothing but marginalized. Their 5-times/day prayers using loudspeakers at the mosques have been ordered by the courts to be silenced, where Hindu temples continue to hold prayers with bells ringing and in the ritual areas loudspeakers used to let the neighbors know that there is an ongoing prayer at the temples.
Secularism, once the cornerstone of Indian democracy, has now been thrown out of the window under the Modi rule and just ahead of the 2024 elections the Lord Ram temple (built on the disputed land that once housed a mosque and is the land that has been claimed by Hindus as being the land where Lord Ram was born) in Ayudhya was unveiled in a live broadcast all across the country, a ploy to lure in the majority Hindu voters ahead of the polls that started in April and run until June 1st.
To BJP’s surprise, the party lost its constituency seats in Ayudhaya, where the last of the finale was held by Modi to lure the Hindu voters.
Even in his own constituency in Varanasi, the margin of victory by Modi was a mere 150,000 votes, against 479,505 votes victory margin he had in 2019 and 371,784 votes in 2014.
The sugarcane belt of Uttar Pradesh, once the bastion of BJP, saw the party lose miserably with Samajwadi Party making a comeback in ways not even dreamt by the BJP.
Biased Media
During my recent visit to India, I had the opportunity to notice things I had not seen in India. The entire spectrum of media outlets in the country were so biased against the opposition and pro-Modi that if anyone from outside the country visited the country, they would think that they have entered a country of a ‘strongman’ leader.
Media, which is supposed to be unbiased in its coverage, was seen being very pro-Modi and in a way trying to brainwash the population.
Media’s role in democracy is about being the check and balance, when all other institutions fail, but in India’s case even this institution had failed.
Most media outlets are either owned or indirectly controlled by big businesses who all had allied themselves with the government in power – BJP.
The 2024 general election results in India are also a slap on the face of the media outlets for their pro-Modi biased coverage over the past decade.
The media had failed to show how the so called ‘India shining’ model touted by Modi had failed to get job to new graduates, while the poor continued to struggle with average income on a decline as reported by various news agencies.
Unemployment, a key indicator of economic wellbeing of the people and the new graduates, continued to rise despite the claims by Modi in 2014 to create at least 20 million jobs each year (200 million in 10-years of his rule).
Latest data shows that the unemployment rate in India stood at 8.1% in April against 7.4% in March. This compares to 6% pre COVID-19 pandemic according to private think-tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.
To make matters worse the estimates of the government for January to March 2024 indicates that urban unemployment in the 15-29 years of age group stood at a staggering 17% from 16.5% in the previous quarter.
Modi like many other leaders has been touting India on the world stage and his way of doing business with the handful of big businesses, has finally been challenged by the people.
It is therefore no surprise that Modi miracle did not materialize in the polls as expected. The party that had 303 seats in the 2019 elections has failed to even reach the halfway mark of 272 as of current counting, and it seems with 60%+ voters’ turnout, the population has spoken that promises needs to be fulfilled to get their votes.
The outcome of the results in India should be a lesson for many countries in this part of the world where promises of creating jobs and economic wellbeing has been made but has seen little progress so far.
Countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia all are democracies that have leaders who have pledged to uplift their people’s standard of living but what they need to understand is that if they failed to meet those promises, their fates may also be in the doldrums like that of Modi where his ambition to be the 1st Indian Prime Minister to win a 3 consecutive elections (hat-trick) is going to be challenged by the opposition as it tries to muster enough support from smaller parties to challenge Modi’s ascend to power.
Modi has already staked claim to his third 5-year term in the office as the Prime Minister, and rightly so he should be given the opportunity to form the government, as his party is the single largest party in 2024 elections, but the failed promise to the population is likely to make him humbler in the next 5-years.