India’s Electoral Pilgrimage

India Election 2024 Voting Vote

Every five years, Indians go on a pilgrimage – visiting polling booths to pay respect to their respective political gods, pour their homage in the shape of votes into ballot-boxes, and pray that only those they have voted for should act as priests of their gods in the legislatures to lay down rules for the next five years. It is like the regular visits of Hindu devotees (who constitute the majority of the Indian electorate) to the temples of their choice to pay respect to their respective gods and goddesses – the Char Dham in the north, Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi, Meenakshi temple in Madurai, Kali temple in Bengal, Kamakshya temple in Assam and Jagannath temple in Orissa , to name only a few of the numerous pilgrimage spots that are spread all over India, like the polling booths that are set up in the remotest corners of the country during elections.

Of all the temples spread over India, the central and most powerful is based in the Indian capital, called the Lok Sabha. Every five years the devotees are required to select their candidates and send them there as high priests. Some among the devotees feel happy if their prayers are answered with the victory of their candidates and they celebrate their victory on the streets, while those who feel betrayed by the gods that they worshipped but could not make it to the temple of the Lok Sabha, sulk and retreat to their homes.

Just as religious pilgrimages, the size of the crowd of pilgrims at political temples varies from place to place, and year to year. For instance, one year there may be a larger throng at the Kashi Vishwanath temple, the next year may see a reduced number in Varanasi with the bulk of the pilgrims choosing to visit Kedarnath and Badrinath in the north. We observe a similar pattern in the electoral choice of our voters. In 2014 and 2019, they thronged the various temples of Narendra Modi in the constituencies. In 2024 however, the number of devotees at his temples diminished. Even his main temple in UP looks deserted, with his erstwhile devotees shifting their loyalty to his rival – a young dashing god Akhilesh Jadav who is presiding over a temple called Samajwadi Party.

The pilgrims have drifted in different directions looking for new gods. Some have found solace in the temple of a multi-faced deity called INDIA. Some in different regions are resorting to the temples of their local divinities – like Trinamul Congress in Bengal, DMK in Tamilnadu, TDP in Andhra Pradesh. Some in central India appear to prefer their political gods according to the beliefs of their respective sects – known as OBCs, SCs and STs.

Restoration of the `Trimurti’ in the Lok Sabha temple

Their latest pilgrimage to the main temple of the Lok Sabha in the 2024 general elections has rewarded them with a blessing in the shape of a re-incarnation of their traditional object of worship – the divine three-faced image called Trimurti.’ It depicts the divinities Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva reincarnated as Narendra Modi, Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar. This Trimurti’, is expected to rule over their destiny during the next five years. Of these three divinities in Hindu religion, Brahma is the god of creation, Vishnu ensures stability , and Maheshwar (also known as Shiva) takes on the role of the destroyer. Let us see how the three political incarnations of this `trimurti’, which have been installed in the Lok Sabha temple, carry out their respective tasks. To start with, of them who is assigned to which role ? Is Narendra Modi’s BJP the god of creation, Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP the god of stability, and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) the god of destruction (given his past record of destroying every political alliance) ?

The tortuous journey of India’s electoral pilgrims – paralleling their religious counterparts

Meanwhile, let us have a look at the experiences of the electoral pilgrims. The precarious uncertainties that the voters face on their way to their pilgrimage to the polling booths, as well as on their return from those booths, resemble the uncertain and often dangerous fate that our religious pilgrims face when going to and returning from the holy temples like the Char Dhams in the north and Sabarimala in the south. These temples look like religious polling booths, where the devotees come to cast their votes by donating money into their treasuries, while praying for solution of their various problems. But even after receiving blessings from the priests, the devotees are quite often betrayed by their gods. For instance, in January 2011 in Kerala, more than 100 pilgrims got killed, when they were returning from the hill shrine of Sabarimala where they had gone to pray and received blessings from the presiding priests there. They lost their lives in a stampede caused by the plunging of a vehicle, whose driver lost control. The blessings did not work ! The deities let them down, like the politicians who betray them after getting elected.

In 2023, some 200 pilgrims died during the Char Dham yatra on the Kedarnath route after a boulder fell on them. Why couldn’t their gods protect them from such natural disasters ? In July the same year, during the Amarnath Yatra, twenty seven pilgrims died due to accidents. What is even worse is that Amarnath could not even protect eight CRPF personnel (otherwise well- protected by the government in their professional duties) who also joined those pilgrims to offer prayers at the cave shrine. They suffered serious injuries, and had to be transported to hospitals – far away from the temples where they went to pray. Like their gods, the god men whom the devotees worship also betray them. On July 2 this year, in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, a religious preacher called Bhole Baba drew such a huge crowd of devotees that it caused a stampede, killing 116, mostly women and children and injured over 300. Quite predictably, after the stampede, the Baba absconded along with his clique of close companions.


Political electoral parallels to journeys of religious pilgrims

We find parallels in the fate that voters in many states face on their way to their places of political pilgrimage – electoral booths. Like boulders falling on pilgrims on the way to Kedarnath, or fires breaking out in holy temples, in the electoral context too, gangs of rival political parties pounce upon them, hurling bombs on those whom they suspect of favouring their opponents, or kidnap these suspects to prevent them from casting votes. Such acts, widely reported in newspapers, dominate the electoral scene in many states of modern India – an India which claims to be the world’s largest democracy ! Irrespective of the political parties which rule these states – whether in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, or states where Congress is in power, or in Bengal ruled by the God Mother of gangsters, Mamata Banerjee – the common voters are subjected to the same pressures that resemble the ancient threats of retaliation against those who disobeyed the ruling order. Those socio-religious threats in the past were carried out under the diktats of Manusmriti against the Dalits and dissidents within the Hindu community, who used to be ex-communicated. Similarly today, during elections, under the diktats of political parties, their candidates while wooing the voters also warn them that if they do not vote for them, they can be identified and will have to face consequences.

But once getting elected by luring the voters with promises, these political leaders leave them in the lurch. Like the religious devotees who are betrayed by their gods who, even after being appeased by regular rituals of homage, remain silent witnesses to the fatal accidents that ruin them, in the political scene also the electoral pilgrims are betrayed by their political gods and goddesses, who after being voted to occupy positions of high priests as rulers in the temples of Parliament and state legislatures, forget those promises, and turn deaf ears to their complaints. Even worse, if some among these electoral pilgrims dare to remind them of the failed promises and demand their fulfillment, these high priests immediately ostracize them as `urban Naxals’ – in the same manner as their guru Manu in the past branded Dalits as untouchables.

Experiences of the electoral pilgrims of 2019

The electoral pilgrims, who heaped their floral offerings as votes at the feet of Narendra Modi in 2019, became a disappointed lot. Their god failed them. In the rural areas, many farmers committed suicide due to the distress caused by the Modi government’s policies which denied them fair remunerative price for their crops, and instead favoured corporate houses to set up industries on their agricultural land. As for the youth, after having been let down by Modi who failed to provide them with jobs within India, they were compelled by Modi to migrate to dangerous states, even at the risk of losing their lives. He sent them as labourers to the unsafe territory of Israel, and allowed them to be employed as mercenaries for the Russian invaders in Ukraine. The scenes of dire poverty on the streets, and news of suicides by farmers, to which we were exposed every day, were documented in terms of hard and cold statistics by international reputable research institutions. Their findings demolished the myth of prosperity that Narendra Modi spread through his election speeches. In fact, he made India stink in world public opinion – by his poor performance in every sector. Internationally reputable research
institutions carried out investigations that exposed the disastrous effects of his policies. The Paris-based World Inequality Lab, while narrating the history of inequality from the colonial times till the modern days, significantly entitled its latest report as Income and Wealth Inequality in India 1922-2023: The Rise of the Billionnaire Raj. It revealed: “By 2022-23, top 1% income and wealth shares…are at their highest historical levels.” It then observed: “…billionaire raj is more unequal than the British colonial raj.” There were many reports by such global institutions which confirmed the above findings.

Our External Affairs Ministry dismissed those reports as biased, and attributed them to Western colonial mindset of these global researchers. But then, the findings of a widely respected and credible domestic group of Indian researchers not only confirmed the allegations about inequality leveled by international agencies, but also fleshed them out in terms of cold statistics based on its investigations at the ground-level. A pre-poll survey carried out by Lokniti and CSDS (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies) between March 28 and April 8, 2024 revealed some interesting popular perceptions. Unemployment and price rise were the main threats that they faced. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed across localities stated that getting jobs had become difficult – the highest among cities (65%), followed by those living in villages (62%) and mofussil towns (59%).. As for those affected by price rise, the number was 76% among the poor, 76% and 75% among Muslims and Scheduled Castes respectively. (Re: THE HINDU, April 11, 2024) .

These are the people who constitute the majority of the Indian electoral pilgrims. In the electoral pilgrimage in 2024, some among them put faith in their old god Narendra Modi, while some rejected him, feeling betrayed by his un-kept promises. The latter turned to another multi- faceted deity – the INDIA – which promised them a better future by rescuing them from their present plight.

The pilgrims’ journey to reinstall Narendra Modi

The above illustration is by the 18th century Spanish artist Francisco Goya, describing the journey of pilgrims to a holy site in his country. Like them, our political pilgrims revisited the temples of voting booths, and installed Modi as the prime minister again – albeit with less seats. Like the religious pilgrims who continue to retain their faith in their deities despite disappointments and fatalities, a large number of the electoral pilgrims continue to repose their trust in their deity Narendra Modi, despite plagues of poverty, price rise and unemployment that they are
suffering from.

The Lokniti-CSDS survey quoted above also reveals that these same interviewees who complained about unemployment and price rise, when asked about their electoral choice opted for Narendra Modi and the BJP. 42% of the respondents chose him because of the good work’ done by his government, 18% because they were content with his welfare schemes, and 10% due to his personal charisma. Apparently, promises showered upon them for their future well-being andgood deeds’ like the colourful inauguration of the Ram temple, distracted them from their immediate problems and mesmerized them with spectacles. They were like the audience of Bollywood films who are soothed for the time being by the spectacles on the screen, that take them away from their current distress.

This pre-election mood of Indian voters which has been confirmed by the post-election results (bringing back Modi to power, although with a small margin), reflects a much deeper crisis in India’s socio-political scenario, where popular opinion appears to lean increasingly towards authoritarianism, and shed democratic values. This mood has been captured and confirmed by the US-based independent think tank Pew Research Centre through a survey that it carried out in 2023 by interviewing people in different parts of India. The findings revealed that 85% of the respondents favoured authoritarian rule, and 72% endorsed military rule. 79% of them held a favourable view of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Yet, the Lokniti-CSDS report quoted earlier, records the frustration of the electorate, nearly half of whom complained of unemployment and price rise. How does one explain this schizophrenic mood of the voters – torn between their daily experience of frustration at one level and their actions on another level, that re-elect the same ruling party that is responsible for the causes of their frustration – unemployment and inflation ?

Popular devotion to criminal politicians

To seek an answer, we have to go back to the argument with which I started this article – the parallel between the blind but self-serving faith of religious pilgrims in their deities on the one hand, and the open-eyed opportunist faith of the Indian electoral pilgrims in their leaders on the other. If the electorate prioritized fundamental ethical values over their selfish amoral interests in their choice of candidates, they would not have surely elected legislators who have been officially arraigned for criminal and corrupt activities – allegations that were available in the public domain during elections. According to the findings of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 251 of the newly elected MPs (constituting 46% of the Lok Sabha members) face criminal charges, some serious like murder and rape. Incidentally, of them 240 belong to the BJP.

Apparently, the voters preferred them over other candidates, who had a cleaner record. It is this popular support for criminals – bahubalis or musclemen and gang lords in their constituencies that encourages them to stand for elections. The voters worship them as heroes out of fear of their muscle-power, as well as their ability to deliver goods and protection whenever they need. In other words, these candidates have created their own fiefdoms in these constituencies, which ensure them regular entry into state assemblies and Parliament. As for their political affiliation, most of these candidates are set up by the ruling BJP – which takes advantage of their control over the voters in their constituencies (that ensures its victory in elections), and in exchange provides them with protection against any prosecution for their misdeeds.


Popular attraction for bribes

Electoral campaigns are regularly marked by promises of all sorts – economic, social, religious and what not – by political parties ! Promises of economic benefits are the best to appeal to the poorest among the voters. They are like a transactional understanding – `vote for me, and I’ll give you the freebies.’ Most of the times, even before the voting takes place, candidates carry. out their promises by wooing the voters with liquor, distribution of cash and through other means – sometimes in public, and mostly behind the scenes. These lollypops seduce large sections of the people to vote for them. Thus these candidates manage to gain entry into legislatures – both in states and Parliament – through bribery.

Like crime, which is not a mere seasonal phenomenon confined only to the electoral arena, but widely established all over society and the political scenario all through the years, bribery also is a permanent feature of our daily life and political activities which is accepted by our citizens as a necessity like many other needs to survive in the present times. If you want to get a benefit which is due to you under the law, you have to bribe the local government official to get it. If a criminal wants to escape punishment, he can get away by bribing the local police. Both are normalized. It is interesting to observe how our voters reconcile these two amoral tendencies in their actions , while at the same time claim to occupy moral heights in the rhetoric of their prayers to their respective divinities.

In this electoral scenario – dominated by the twin powerful forces of crime and bribery (the former coercing the voters with threats, and the latter seducing them with promises) – the BJP among all the contestants, is in the most advantageous position, since as a ruling party it can claim to have carried out such promises. According to its claim, it is offering free food every month to some 880 million (55% of the population). They are thus living on doles, and the eligible voters from them will naturally express their gratitude by overwhelmingly voting for Modi. Here is a constituency which is already bought over by bribes.

Personal self-interest over impersonal concerns of a wider nature

Immediate benefits for one’s own self prevails over concerns about long-term and far-reaching problems of a social nature that affect the wider spectrum of our society. These selected beneficiaries of freebies do not bother about the wide spread unemployment that engulfs vast sections of our youth, or rising inflation that leads to starvation and suicides among the poor – since they are far removed from these uncomfortable and distressing situations. They prefer to selectively use or discard rational thinking according to their interests. If they use their grey cells (known as bheja in popular parlance) to prioritize social needs of the people over their own individual self interest, it should lead them to discern between candidates who have a record of social service for the wider masses on the one hand, and candidates who promise benefits to them as individuals only on the other. They choose the latter. Since rational thinking may make them doubt the justification of the status quo that should lead them to challenge it thus upsetting their safe living style, they prefer to discard it and prefer investment in faith in the ruling regime.

When we turn to the other sphere – the scenario of civil liberties and human rights – India under Modi has again raised stink in the world by his despicable record. In the area of press freedom, India is at 161 on the world press freedom index of 180 countries. According to the Freedom House survey, the index of civil liberties in India fell from 9.12 out of ten in 2016 to 5.59 in 2020. Yet, very few among the educated middle class voters pay heed to these concerns. The BJP vote share in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls has gone up to 40% in the urban areas – where these educated voters hold sway over the electorate.


The future of the present Trimurti’ in New Delhi

In Hindu mythology, there are tales of perpetual conflicts among the three gods ofTrimurti’. Once, when the four-headed Brahma uttered some insult against Shiva, the latter hurled fire from his third eye which destroyed one of Brahma’s heads. When Shiva, after the death of his wife Sati, carried her body on his shoulders, Vishnu with his Sudarshanchakra weapon cut the body into 52 pieces, and threw those pieces all over India. The spots where they were believed to have been thrown, are still worshipped as pilgrimages by the followers of Shiva. The devotees of the three Hindu gods are known respectively as Brahmins (worshippers of Brahma), Vaishnavites (followers of Vishnu) and Shaktas (who pray to Shiva and his consort Parvati, who are believed to be sources of Shakti or power). These three sects continue to fight among themselves, even today.

Let us see how the modern political triangular replica of the Hindu `Trimurti,’ consisting of BJP, TDP and JD(U) which has come to power in India, be able to overcome their past bitter sectarian rivalries which resemble the tradition of conflicts among the three gods – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Sumanta Banerjee is a political commentator and writer, is the author of In The Wake of Naxalbari’ (1980 and 2008); The Parlour and the Streets: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta (1989) and ‘Memoirs of Roads: Calcutta from Colonial Urbanization to Global Modernization.’ (2016). 

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