Newsreel Asia Insight #244
June 7, 2024

The mood is sombre among the members and supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) despite their “victory” in the national election. Although they won, the party did not secure enough seats to form a government without relying its coalition. The outcome fell short of their expectations and claims of overwhelming popularity. And the voters who provided a reality check on their actual popularity primarily reside in rural areas, as indicated by the election results. These individuals, who constitute the majority of the Indian populace, were anticipated by the BJP to remain mere spectators to India’s projected economic advancements.

Until the election results, many ordinary Indians in cities and towns often pointed to signs of progress, attributing them to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership. They spoke about India’s national highways, GDP growth and the nation’s alleged enhanced stature among the world’s powerful countries. However, when pressed about their personal experiences with these highways, whether their income gains matched inflation or specifics about which countries were acknowledging India’s rise, the conversation would shift. They would then pivot to topics like the Ram temple and Kashmir, although they might not have visited either.

However, Hindu nationalism, which essentially involves identifying with a perceived Hindu nation that is strong in economic and military might and taking pride in that identity regardless of one’s financial hardships, is a luxury that most Indians cannot afford. For them, the priority is putting food on the table for their families. Welcome to rural India, home to 65% of the country’s population.

Few political analysts, members of Parliament, Union ministers, or journalists had a clear understanding of the political mood in regions where the majority of the population resides. After all, who visits them? When they did visit during the election, they were taken aback by what they found—this caused considerable nervousness within the BJP, as evidenced by the speeches of their leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which targeted the Muslim community. Some of these speeches verged on the absurd, with claims that the opposition Congress party would hand over half of everyone’s possessions—including buffaloes, goats, and tractors—to Muslims. If this seems too egregious to be true, you might want to check out this Newsreel Asia Insight or watch an ad by the BJP, which are just a few of the many examples available.

Those who could afford the “luxury”—voters in cities like Delhi, Bengaluru and Pune, where educated and well-off Indians reside—opted for the BJP or one of its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Voters in cities and towns appeared unconcerned by the BJP campaign’s near silence on the plight of farmers. In fact, the BJP has been perceived as a party opposed to farmers, as evidenced by their crackdown on the ongoing farmers’ protests in Punjab and Haryana. The farmers’ movement was triggered by the their demands for a legal guarantee of Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for their crops, more comprehensive governmental support and the fulfilment of previous promises made by the government, including debt waivers and increased income guarantees.

However, the Congress party, leading the opposition INDIA alliance, consistently addressed these concerns in its election campaign. About 58% of India’s population relies on agriculture—including direct farming and other agriculture-related activities—for their livelihood.

Further, about 80 million workers have been removed from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS, or a social security scheme in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every household) in the past two years, according to a recent report by LibTech India and NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, as reported by ThePrint. The report shows a sharp increase in the rate of worker reduction—from 1.83% in 2019-2020 to 20.47% in 2022-23—with only 4.24% new registrations in the latter year.

By ensuring employment, MGNREGS plays a vital role in providing income security to rural families, especially during lean agricultural seasons or times of economic hardship. In 2022, more than 11,280 individuals involved in the farming sector died by suicide, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

Furthermore, India’s recent economic growth has led to a pronounced increase in income and wealth inequality, surpassing levels observed during British rule, according to a recent study by the World Inequality Lab and as reported by Article 14. The research indicated that the concentration of wealth in India was now more severe than in countries like the United States, Brazil and South Africa, with the top 1% of the population holding a disproportionately large share of the nation’s wealth.

What’s more, nearly 74% of Indians could not afford a healthy diet in 2021, according to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023 report. In late 2021 and early 2022, 80% of respondents in a survey conducted by the Right to Food Campaign reported facing food insecurity, with almost half having run out of food the previous month.

Not surprisingly, India is home to 270 million hungry people, making it the country with the highest number of undernourished individuals globally, said a recent report by DownToEarth. 

Understandably, as noted by Pulaha Roy, a reporter for DownToEarth, on the publication’s account on the social media platform X, voters in 159 of the 344 rural constituencies opted for change—that’s nearly 50%. And, as Business Standard reported, “The INDIA bloc has demonstrated its prowess in the rural regions, capturing the majority of votes in the countryside (barring Odisha, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh).”

The message from voters in the 2024 Indian elections is clear: a ruling party must not ignore the suffering of the majority of its citizens, nor should it allow this suffering to be eclipsed by non-inclusive projections. Efforts to impress the international community do not translate to popularity at home.