Elections 2024 are over, and we have been inundated with analysis of what went wrong for BJP. It needs to be acknowledged that BJP did win the third term albeit with a reduced majority, and is reliant on alliance to run the government, whereas the previous two terms they had a majority of their own. This, combined with the slogan of “Abki baar 400 Paar”, has contributed to most of us feeling that BJP actually lost.

The BJP lost votes and seats in the Hindi belt, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. On the other hand, it gained seats in Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, held on to its assembly election gains in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, did fairly well in Karnataka and Bihar, and gained vote shares in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. But the biggest setback was Uttar Pradesh, the BJP’s former crown jewel, and the backbone of its national dominance. Why did the party almost halve its number of seats from 2019, despite having given the people a Ram Mandir, some economic growth, and a strong administration under Yogi Adityanath? The answer is not simple.

In elections marked by the lack of any significant wave for or against some party (or parties), many things matter — from anti-incumbency sentiment to poor caste or candidate selections, or even religious polarization. The most persuasive among these is high food inflation and high unemployment among the youth, but one universal theme was that of arrogance from the BJP top brass. Culturally, Indians equate self-confidence with arrogance.

But I do not think that professional politicians, even from the BJP, were as overtly arrogant as critics of the party claim. I don’t find any of these reasons convincing enough.  It is hard to imagine why BJP voters would think some other party would enrich them or work better than other parties to get rid of these issues. This year’s electoral verdict, however, does have a punitive element to it. Intellectuals tend to venerate voters when the results go their way. So, it was not surprising that economist Raghuram Rajan complimented the intelligence of the Indian voter for diminishing the BJP. But we can understand elections without the myth of the voter’s pious soul.

In my previous blog I had mentioned that BJP has got support from the poor class as well as from middle and upper class. In fact, I accused them of taking the middle class, their most solid vote bank, for granted. We have been their staunchest supporter, and also their most vocal propogandist. We love to indulge in conspiracy theories and list out achievements of the ‘Modi Sarkar’. Every criticism of Modi leads to a litany of videos and statement on “WhatsApp university”, refuting the criticism or counter arguments against it. Congress bashing and Islam phobia are recurring themes. On the way we also love to make fun of Rahul Gandhi, making him a butt of all jokes.

Now I am not a congress supporter, nor do I support Rahul Gandhi (although I do feel sorry for him, sometimes) and I enjoy these Memes and Videos as much as any of us do. But I feel our behavior gives us an underrated clue to why the BJP lost 92 of the 303 seats it had won in 2019 (it won new seats to reach 240).

Apart from politicians and some paid actors, who are the BJP’s ambassadors? Upper middle-class people in propaganda, journalism, cinema and the culture business., mostly. There are others, like us who are not so prominent but are still ambassadors of the party. 

BJP most vocal supporters are among the urban upper class and upper middle class; they are employers of house-helps, drivers and gardeners. They are mascots of the BJP because they cannot stop talking about how everyone else should be. And they are the worst ambassadors a political party can have.

Why, you ask? When we understand what people dislike the most, I think we will understand what they do and why they do it. Generally, people do not share the ideology of those they despise. This is the reason why intellectuals find it hard to transmit wisdom. The problem is never that people are too dumb to see wisdom. People dislike wisdom if they dislike the mouth it comes from. When the BJP found its own upper-class ambassadors, it probably had an adverse effect on the party’s voter base. It was the middle class supporter who were full of bluster, who were truly arrogant. Millions of average voters who once voted for the BJP saw the cockiness of its most visible ambassadors and did not like what they saw. They were silent, not bothering to indulge in arguments with us or even refuting our claims. For them it was a simple matter of not accepting the message if they don’t like the messenger, even if the message was right.

In short in the eyes of millions in India, the BJP had probably become a party of sahibs and bullies. So, when the BJP deployed the political tactic of using law enforcement against inconvenient politicians, it came across as a corroboration of the cockiness of the party’s upper-class sidekicks, instead of long due justice and a matter of celebration, for us.

I admired one quality of the previous government in which the BJP had an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha. As a citizen, I felt that someone was in control of the country, and even its future, and that was unprecedented. One major reason was that before the previous government, the imprisonment of a politician in India was rare. There was probably a practical reason for that. It was political courtesy. Politicians in power knew that one day they would not be in power, and they expected new winners to extend the same courtesy. But there was a time till recently when it appeared that the BJP was not afraid of ever losing power at the Centre.

A diminished BJP may have to conduct more meetings and drink more sugary tea to push its economic agenda but would also need to be more considerate and tolerant to other views. But it is we who have to tone down our bombastic claims and continued blind support of BJP. And more than anything else we need to stop imposing our views on others. Just because the person in front of you is not speaking out does not means that he agrees with you. Our constant harping on past incident and islamophobia, needs to be toned down. More than BJP it is we who have to learn to be humble and likable, so that our views are accepted and maybe shared. BJP needs to introspect but so do we.