'They have to be seen as being responsive to the employment woes and economic stagnation afflicting many young people.'
"I would expect that they will invest a lot of energy in ensuring that young voters do not defect from the party. How they will do this, I do not know," says Milan Vaishnav, director and senior fellow, South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
One of the most incisive commentators on India, Dr Vaishnav's primary research focus is the political economy of India. He examines issues such as corruption and governance, state capacity, distributive politics, and electoral behaviour.
In a detailed e-mail interview from Geneva with Rediff.com's Archana Masih, Dr Vaishnav says the real question is whether the Opposition can champion a principled secularism that acknowledges the missteps of the past and articulates a new vision that goes beyond the binary of Hindu supremacy or minority appeasement.
The concluding segment of an eloquent interview:
What would it take by the Opposition parties to defeat the BJP? Does it have the ability to wean away a part of its Hindu support base by espousing a lite version of Hindutva?
I've said elsewhere that the Opposition's success rests on it being able to locate answers to three large, but important questions.
First, what is the appropriate relationship between the State and religion? There's a temptation to offer a lite version of Hindutva, but that's like offering a knock-off version of Coca-Cola when consumers would rather buy the real thing.
I think the real question is whether the Opposition can champion a principled secularism that acknowledges the missteps of the past and articulates a new vision that goes beyond the binary of Hindu supremacy or minority appeasement.
For instance, could the Opposition envision a progressive uniform civil code that actually resonates with voters?
Second, what is the optimal design of the welfare State? There's no doubt that the BJP has done a fabulous job in perfecting the public delivery of private welfare goods like toilets and gas cylinders. But it has had very little to say on public goods.
And public goods, like health and education, are what are needed for a society to be prosperous in the long run. This is where the AAP has had some notable success in Delhi. Rather than mimicking the BJP's schemes -- which have more credibility, more name recognition, and are boosted by considerable non-governmental (RSS) support -- can the Opposition actually go beyond them?
Third, I think the Opposition has to figure out the correct balance between caste versus class mobilisation. Social justice for social justice's sake has run its course in most parts of India.
The BJP has successfully picked up on a formula that its coalition partner Nitish Kumar (of the Janata Dal-United) in Bihar successfully pioneered -- which is to link social justice to economic empowerment. Caste matters in today's Bihar, but there is a marked difference with the past.
As a journalist once remarked, caste is in the subtext of everything Nitish does, but for Nitish's predecessor Lalu Prasad Yadav, it was the text and the subtext. Look at how the BJP has been able to pick up votes from non-dominant Other Backward Class (OBC) and Dalit jatis who feel left behind.
They've figured out how to fuse caste grievance with class appeals. But they have done so without creating the perception that they care only about caste identity. There's a lesson there for the Opposition.
After its win in UP and three other states, where does the BJP go from here? The combination of Hindutva, women support and welfare schemes served as BJP's trump card in this election -- what other groups is the BJP likely to target in the run up to 2024?
The BJP will not be content to rest on its laurels. It is going to continue its expansion into eastern and southern India with renewed vigour.
The BJP has struggled when it has gone head-to-head with regionalist parties in Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and so on. It has made important inroads in several of these states, but it is still a bit player in many of them.
I think the BJP is also feeling somewhat insecure about the youth vote. Remember, young voters overwhelmingly favoured the BJP in 2014 and 2019. But Axis-MyIndia polling data suggests that in Uttar Pradesh the BJP enjoyed the smallest advantage among young voters -- a reversal of past trends.
I would expect that they will invest a lot of energy in ensuring that young voters do not defect from the party. How they will do this I do not know, but they have to be seen as being responsive to the employment woes and economic stagnation afflicting many young people.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
