First Published on 06 Apr 2019

India faces a general election within the next weeks, the first election after a majoritarian government was sworn in on a 31 per cent vote in May 2014. The last five years have seen an unusual and aggressive tussle. The tension is between an ideology that militates against India’s Constitution, and representatives of that worldview occupying powerful positions in government, and the requirements of constitutional governance. The Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) who rules –the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is but its parliamentary wing–is committed to an overthrown of the Indian Constitution.

I still recall the numbing sense of shock as the results poured in on May 16, 2014. Through the sense of despair rose a steely resolve echoed so beautifully echoed by BERTOLT BRECHT wrote the brief poem Motto about Germany in the late 1930s:

“In the dark times/
Will there also be singing?/
Yes, there will also be singing/
About the dark times.”
 
(Hindustani translation by Safdar Hashmi:
Kya zulmaton ke daur par geet gaaye jayenge?
Kya zulmaton ke daur par geet gaaye jayenge?
Haan, zulmaton ke daur par geet gaaye jayenge
Zulmaton ke daur ke hee geet gaaye jayenge)
 
These are the lines I posted on my facebook post that day. One of the first calls I received was from friend and soul mate Gauri Lankesh, worried and concerned. As we spoke, it was she was burst into tears, bawling, “What will happen to you, my Teesta?” As the days passed,  her words would come back to haunt me. It is a very special and unique place to me, when you are treated as Target Number 1 of the country’s prime minister. You are marked out, almost ostracised, associates of previous years and institutes and organisations with which you worked, discreetly cut you out, agencies and law enforcement are misused. Even international support ebbs and flows with the tides of adjustment and opportunism. In the balance, however the overwhelming support from hundreds, even thousands of others that despite everything, has kept us going. Do we look at the glass half empty or half full?
 
Over the past years we have continued our battle for justice and equity even expanding our concerns to the battle for implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 in Sonbhadra and citizenship rights for the marginalised in Assam. Our organisation is battling a vicious bureaucracy and an inhuman state as over 40 lakh persons were rendered ‘non Indians.’ CJP with its unique intervention has helped over 10 lakh persons in Assam. Our campaign for a #HateFreeElection and the launch of the #HateHatao APP is also unique. Nothing more fuels the anger of the powers that be than the fact that we have carried on, undeterred.
 
The Zakia Jafri Case has now reached the Supreme Court. The highest court in the land will now deliberate on the issue of whether –in the face of the most rigorously gathered and damning evidence–justice in cases of mass crimes can ever be meted out. Meanwhile powerful convicted persons like Maya Kodnani have been aquitted by the Gujarat High Court (April 2018) and Babu Bajrangi granted bail –CJP was the lone voice that opposed this –by  the Supreme Court.
 
On June 4, 2014,  within eight days of the swearing in of the prime minister and his cabinet, a young technocrat, Mohsin Shaikh was beaten to death with sticks by members of the Hindu Rashtra Sena (HRS). His murder (lynching is the new word we use now for this targeted crime!) has gone unpunished. Dhananjay Desai who heads the outfit is notorious for inciteful speech was released on bail following a controversial judgement of the Bombay high court.  Our authorities and statutory bodies, courts included have been tardy in prosecuting such crimes.
 
Mohsin’s killing was nothing short of a signal to India and India’s Muslims as the first heralding notes of a Hindu rashtra in action were sung. While the later lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq had drawn Indian artistes out of the numbing silence that had enveloped Indian ‘civil society’ since May 2014, the shadows and silences around Mohsin’s killing is a stark reality to which we all need to answer. Activists like me were also stymied by the issues surrounding us, unable to step in and demand justice, with the rigour that we otherwise could have brought. On December 18, 2018, his father Sadiq Shaikh died of a heart attack, a broken man as the Maharashtra government did not even honour the promise made to his family, to pay compensation.  A facebook post on Shivaji (that in no way can be traced to him) was the ostensible ‘reason’ behind this hate crime. Leave alone justice and reparation, even basic compensation was denied to the family. We have lived a new, bitter reality under regimes with this majoritarian tilt. Maharashtra, too had, in August 2014 voted in a RSS-BJP regime though the vote share of the saffron combine had diminished.
 
“Social media platforms” –especially facebook, have been used brazenly by perpetrators of hate crimes to mobilise support for inciteful hate crimes, gloat on the cruelty of the killings and build a voyeuristic support base. This while this US-based multi billion dollar marketing enterprise has been found in investigations to sway to the dictates of the Modi regime. Hence, while the social media has certainly broken the hold of commercial television and newspapers, increasingly pressurised by a rapacious regime to ‘toe the line’ and withhold criticisms of the government policies, individuals like me have been special targets. Both face book and twitter, despite repeated, official requests for a ‘blue tick’ to authenticate my accounts and that of the organisations I represent have been evasive and shifty. Numbers of pour supporters have been (from the back end) kept lower than is natural. There are costs that you pay when you are ‘target number one’ that go beyond the raids, the attempts and public humiliation and efforts at incarceration.
 
Mohsin was beaten to death by a mob of ideologically brainwashed men simply because he looked and dressed like a Muslim. Then there was Mohd Akhlaq from  Dadri village which is still called the ‘first lynching’ even as a north and Delhi centric media and citizenry blurs out the beating to death of Mohsin. Akhlaq’s killing –over the alleged dreaded possession of beef –shocked a paralysed citizenry into action and writers and film makers –previous recipients of national awards returned them in protest.
 
The lynchings did not stop. Zahid Bhat from Srinagar (October 2015) Mohammad Noman from Himachal Pradesh (October 2015), Majloom Ansari and Imtiyas Khan Ansari in Latehar Jharkand (March 2016),  Pehlu Khan lynched in Alwar Rajasthan (April 2017), Zafar Khan was brutally assaulted to his death when he objected to open defecation in Pratapgarh Rajasthan (municipal employees were photographing the killing in June 2017), Junaid (15 years old) was stabbed to death on a train bound from Delhi to Mathura after he and his brothers were returning to Mewat after Eid shopping (June 2017), Alimuddin Ansari was beaten to death by a mob in Ramgarh, Jharkand (June 2017),  Anwar Hussain killed for allegedly transporting cows (August 2016), Ummar Khan lynched and his death covered up in Dausa, Govindgarh, Rajasthan (November 2017), Farzan Saiiyed attacked to his death in Chhatral, Gandhinagar  simply because he and his mother did not abide by the Bajrang Dal ‘rule’ that they should not be seen and remain indoors (March 2018), Mukesh Vania a Dalit rag picker beaten to death in Rajkot, Gujarat (May 2018), Two Muslim men brutally beaten (one to his death). 

There are more such violent incidents that have dotted India’s landscape over the past five years:

Rafiq and Habib from Mainpuri, UP (October 2015), Mohd Hussain and Naseema Bano (assaulted at Kirikiya railway station in MP (January 2016), floggings in Una, Gujarat, (June 2016), four Muslim women slapped in Madhya Pradesh again over allegations of carrying cow meat (July 2016), brute assault and gang rapes of Muslim family in Mewat Haryana (August 2016), three Muslim Boys beaten in Imphal (April 2016), two forced to eat cow dung for allegedly eating beef Manesar highway (June 2016), Members of a shepherd tribe attacked in Jammu (April 2017), DYSP Ayub Pandit lynched outside his home in Srinagar (June 2017), Waseem Ahmed Tantray a mentally challenged man was tied to a tree and flogged in Sopore, J and K (October 2017), Mohd Faisal, a migrant labourer thrashed by a mob in Jaipur over false allegations that he had kidnapped a girl.  

Meghalaya man Poding Momin lynched on allegations of practising witchcraft (April 2018), MP man Siraj Khan and associate attacked in Satna, MP for allegedly slaughtering a bull (May 2018), Nilotpat Das and Abhijit Nath lynched in Assam over allegations of being child lifters, (June 2018), two Muslim men, Jirafuddin Ansari and Mustafa Mayan, lynched for allegedly stealing buffaloes in Godda, 300 kms from Ranchi, (June 2018), Two Muslim men Qasim and Samyuddin brutally beaten in Hapur over cow slaughter rumours, Qasim died (June 2018), woman beggar lynched in Ahmedabad over child lifting rumours (June 2018), Jahir Khan, Guljar Ahmed and Khurshid Khan lynched in Tripura over child lifting rumours (June 2018), 5 men lynched in Dhule over child lifting rumours (July 2018), Qatar techie Mohammed Azam lynched in Bidar (July 2018), Rakhbar Khan lynched in Alwar on cow smuggling allegations (July 2018), Kapil Tyagi lynched in UP on theft allegations (August 2018), Shahrukh Khan lynched in Bareilly over buffalo theft allegations (August 2018), Farooq Khan lynched in Manipur on bike theft allegations (Sept 2018), UP man dragged out of police vehicle and lynched (Nov 2018).
 
The brutality is stark. The celebration of the targeted violence by the ideological storm troopers of the regime, because the victims are ‘enemies’ of the re-fashioned nation, sickening. There has been none, or little of condemnation of such violence by the powers that be. What is most telling is however the reactions from the political opposition to this violence. There have been sharp reactions and speeches on occasion but mostly the opposition has been sporadic. It was in July 2018 that Congress president, Rahul Gandhi sharply criticised Pehlu Khan’s brute murder, calling this “the brute new India under Modi”,  a statement that predictably drew the ruling party into a slugfest with the ruling party that pointed out the incidents of mass targeted violence in the past while Congress was the party in power. It is this defensiveness of the ruling opposition that is unable to admit to its own failures of constitutional governance in the past that is a constant stumbling block for the issue of mass, targeted violence against India’s minorities becoming the subject of sustained political condemnation and campaigns. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo, Mayawati –not a favourite with either the extreme right nor the ‘liberal secular forces’ –threatened a walk out from Parliament if she was not allowed to speak on Dalit atrocities. She resigned her parliamentary seat in 2017 over the issue of not being allowed to speak. She had spoken forcefully on the attacks on Muslims and Dalits under the BJP regime.

The Communist Party of India (M) has been proactive at least after Junaid’s killing with party delegations visiting the bereaved family and the party thereafter demanding a law against this growing violence. The real challenge in the future will be for India to be able to restore its moral, constitutional balance and ensure that public debate allows a free and fair discussion on issues related to all sections of Indians.
 
It was a rare evening, September 5, 2017 that I was home at a reasonable hour after a day’s work. The chilling news came from my lawyer friend, Aparna Bhat who also hails from Bangalore. She called me from Delhi. She sounded hesitant and cautious when she called, skirting around the subject, hinting at what she had just seen flashed on a Kannada television channel. Desperately, I made calls: Shiva Sundar, Dinesh Matoo, Kavitha Lankesh. Yes, Gauri Lankesh had been shot dead, outside her home. Four bullets had been ploughed into her frail frame as the killers of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and MM Kalburgi now got their fourth target. Sanatan Sanstha a rabid and well heeled organisation with discreet and not so discreet connections with the spawning family of outfits wedded to a Hindu theocratic state and who represent the violent and supremacist Hindutva right, has been found after investigations, to be responsible for the killings. While the investigations into the Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi murders have been at best tardy, and at worst complicit, the SIT appointed by the Karnataka government within days of Gauri’s killing has been meticulous. The agency has found clear linkages between the killers of Gauri Lankesh and two Hindutva organizations, the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) and its sister concern, Sanatan Sanstha.
 
Rage, anger and outrage spilled over in Karnataka, the rest of India and even the world after Gauri’s killing. The protests were creative and unprecedented. The black void of nothingness caused by her loss was redeemed slowly by a strengthened sense of community and family as young Komu Souharde Vedike activists, Kavitha Lankesh, darling Esha and Prakash Raj and me bonded, again, together. Kavitha’s abiding and gnawing sense of loss is reflected in her poems dedicated to her sister. Last year, on September 5, 2018, a year after our Gauri left us, we presented these in a booklet dedicated Kavitha and her one year’s of painful struggle with the pain.
 
The ugliness in our midst however refuses to go away. What is even more sinister than this darkness and violence is the linkages to the most powerful. Narendra Modi has been a patron of  HJS. When HJS organized second all India Hindu Convention for making India a Hindu rashtra between  June 6-10, 2013, Modi who was then chief minister of Gujarat, sent a message of felicitation to this conference which aimed at replacing the democratic-secular polity and Constitution of India with a theocratic and autocractic ‘Hindu’ state.  It is a sobering thought, and a challenge as we go to the polls now to remember the worldviews of the men and women in power at this juncture. There is more. Along with the love and outpouring of protest, hate mongers too had their field day after Gauri’s killing. Nikhil Dadhich, who is followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the microblogging site, abused Gauri Lankesh in his post that was later deleted. Several Twitter handles suggested that she deserved her fate. At least four such accounts are followed by India’s present prime minister Modi. These are the forces we battle this election.
 
From brazen moves to amend the state laws related to land acquisition and compensation (after attempts to dilute the central law brought in by UPA II through an ordinance failed), to criminalising of student’s protest and dissent, to an attack on the Forest Rights Act of 2006 –a long overdue legislation that finally recognises the inalienable rights of forest dwellers, forest workers and adivasis –this government has all but actually declared a war on its own people. The idea seems to be to create a constant state of social strife and fear and distrust between people and thereafter craft a support based on the interest groups that are favoured by this hatred and those towards him public largesse is redistributed.
 
Workers, farmers, democrats, liberals, lawyers, activists, all have come under target and fire. It’s resort to the politics of hate mongering and othering –including the hate crimes detailed above –is as serious as the structural changes it has wrought and the institutional damages wrecked. If political change comes after this election, and such change is crucial, the restoration of constitutional values and norms will not be easy, flushing out ant constitutional elements from within the agencies and structures of governance will also pose a serious challenge. Indians need to look at these elections and cast their vote carefully. These elections must be viewed as a three step liberation process: short term goals to vote the proto fascists out, middle term to build democratic and creative campaigns around issues central to the deepening ofdemocracy and finally the long term goal of getting an ideal politics in!
 
It is not possible to reflect on the past five years without a searing sense of anger and loss at the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula, the criminal targeting of JNU student Najeeb and the overall attempt of the regime to criminalise students protest and dissent. This is even as bright lights on the our youthful horizon like Richa Singh, Jignesh Mevani, Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Shehla Rashid and Chandrashekhar Azad signal dissent and hope. Even as copies of the Indian constitution were periodically burned under the watch of this regime (and none from the central government spoke up in condemnation), scholarships to students for higher education were slashed and a democratisation process set in place over decades of struggle, pushed back.
 
We are at the threshold of a sense of uncertainty laced by an eternal sense of hope. Not yet knowing what the results to this elections will bring, we can only re-dedicate ourselves to the struggle for sanity, the resistance against wrong doing and constitutional erosion even realising the consequences to us all if this regime is voted back: the human and material costs that we will all have to pay, will be massive, and possibly insurmountable.
 
Teesta Setalvad
Mumbai
April 5, 2019

Reference Notes;
RSS+Supremacist
https://cjp.org.in/lynching-timeline/
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/muslim-techie-beaten-to-death-in-pune-7-men-of-hindu-outfit-held/
https://sabrangindia.in/article/mohsin-sheikh-lynching-father-dies-waiting-justice
https://www.newsclick.in/part-1-facebook-india-truly-independent-political-influence
https://www.newsclick.in/bjp-watching-and-waiting-block-you-social-media
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/bulandshahr-cop-killed-in-cow-slaughter-clashes-probed-akhlaq-lynching-in-2015-1401709-2018-12-03
 

The post This government has all but actually declared a war on its own people: Teesta Setalvad appeared first on SabrangIndia.

BEL unit, Bengaluru

Readers may remember reading my despatch from September 2019 in which I had explained how Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL) did a volte face under The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) about supplying information relating to Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verified Paper Trail Units (VVPATs) deployed during the 2019 General Elections to the Lok Sabha.

After demanding copying charges of Rs. 1,434, the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) returned the money claiming that BEL did not hold some of the information and that disclosing names of Engineers deputed to provide technical support for these machines at the constituency-level, would endanger their lives. The CPIO also refused access to operational manuals relating to these machines. The CPIO of Electronics Corporation Ltd. (ECIL) which also supplied EVMs and VVPATs for use during the same elections had also denied information sought in an identical RTI application.

Now in a welcome turnaround, ECIL’s First Appellate Authority (FAA) has upheld my first appeal and directed its CPIO to provide access all information which he had denied earlier.

Meanwhile BEL’s FAA directed the CPIO to transfer the queries relating to the number of EVMs and VVPATs deployed during the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections to the Election Commission of India (ECI) but upheld his decision to reject information about Engineers and operational manuals used.

After being rejected by BEL and ECIL, I had submitted an identical RTI application to ECI’s CPIO. He did not bother to send a reply for more than 40 days. Now I have filed a first appeal and am waiting for the FAA’s decision in this case. ECI’s CPIO is also required to reply to similar queries transferred to him by BEL’s CPIO.

A tale of three RTI Interventions

After closely scrutinising some of the election-related information and statistics that ECI published, on 17th June, 2019, I decided to file two identical RTI applications seeking the following information from BEL and ECIL which neither they nor the ECI have placed in the public domain:

“I would like to obtain the following information pertaining to the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) and Symbol Loading Units (SLUs) supplied by your company for use during the recently concluded General Elections to the Lok Sabha, under the RTI Act:

1) The maximum number of votes recordable on each EVM supplied for use in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections,

2) The maximum number of votes printable on each VVPAT Machine supplied for use in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections,

3) The district-wise number of Control Units of EVMs transported across India for use in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections,

4) The district-wise number of Ballot Units of EVMs transported across India for use in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections,

5) The district-wise number of VVPATs transported across India for use in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections,

6) The district-wise number of thermal paper rolls used in VVPATs transported across India for use in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections,

7) A clear photocopy of the List of Engineers with name and designation, deputed for carrying out tasks relating to the preparation of EVMs and VVPATs that was sent to every District Election Officer in India for the purpose of the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections,

8) A clear photocopy of the List of Senior Level Engineers with name and designation, deputed for supervision and coordination during the preparation of EVMs and VVPATs that was sent to every District Election Officer in India for the purpose of the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections,

9) The total number of SLUs used by your Team(s) of Engineers during the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections,

10) A clear photocopy of the official document handed over to every District Election Officer during the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections containing details of every SLU allocated to your team(s) of Engineers,

11) A clear photocopy of the User Manual prepared by your company, pertaining to the VVPAT machines used during the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, if any,

12) A clear photocopy of the User Manual prepared by your company, pertaining to the SLUs used during the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, if any,

13) A clear photocopy of the application filed with the Office of the Patent Controller for securing a patent on VVPAT, if any, along with the postal address of such office, and

14) A clear photocopy of the application filed with the Office of the Patent Controller for securing a patent on SLU, if any, along with the postal address of such office.”

ECIL CPIO’s RTI reply:

ECIL’s CPIO did not bother to send me a signed reply. Instead he uploaded some text on the RTI Online Facility without a signature replying as follows:

1) RTI Queries 3, 4, 5 & 6: ECIL’s CPIO claimed that information about EVMs and VVPATs despatched to the Lok Sabha constituencies and the number of thermal paper rolls used for printing the ballots is not readily available and they will be sent as soon as they are received.

2) RTI Queries 7 & 8: The CPIO denied access to the list of Engineers who were stationed in the constituencies to do prepare the EVMs and VVPATs for polling and their superiors who supervised the whole exercise claiming that it was personal information exempt under Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act.

3) RTI Queries 10 & 12: The CPIO rejected access to the User Manual of the Symbol Loading Units and the official document related to them, handed over to the district administration after the candidate information is loaded on the EVMs and VVPATs. The CPIO says that it is classified information and attracts Section 8(1)(a) and 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act. Section 8(1)(a) exempts information which will prejudicially affect security and strategic interests of the State. Click HERE for the ECIL-related RTI application and reply.

First appeal sent to ECIL and the FAA’s order

Aggrieved by the ECIL CPIO’s unsigned reply, I submitted a first appeal with the FAA in September, 2019 arguing as follows:

1) ECIL’s CPIO had committed an procedural error by not sending a signed reply;

2) As more than three months had passed since the completion of the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, information relating to RTI Queries 3-6, that is, constituency-wise deployment of EVMs, VVPATs and thermal paper rolls used in VVPATs should now be available for disclosure;

3) The List of Engineers deployed by ECIL at the constituency-level cannot be treated as personal information whose disclosure would violate their privacy because they were performing public duties;

4) The VVPAT and Symbol Loading Unit User Manuals and VVPAT patent application are also information that must be in the public domain and that the CPIO had not issued a speaking order justifying how the exemptions were attracted.

ECIL’s FAA examined the issues raised in the appeal and directed the CPIO to collect all the information and supply it under the RTI Act. However, the FAA has not specified a time limit for compliance. Click HERE for the 1st appeal and ECIL FAA’s order (1st attachment).

First appeal sent to BEL and the FAA’s order

Aggrieved by the BEL CPIO’s decision to reject access to the information sought in a similar RTI application, despite demanding additional fees initially, I had submitted a first appeal with the FAA in September, 2019 arguing as follows:

1) It is difficult to understand as to why the CPIO who initially charged additional fees calculating the exact number of page for every RTI query, later on claimed that he did not hold the information about the constituency-wise deployment of the EVMs and VVPATs;

2) It is not clear as to how the disclosure of details of Engineers deputed would endanger their lives; and

3) The CPIOs’ revised reply denying access to most of the information which he was prepared to disclose initially indicated that he was under pressure from some internal or external agency to change his stance.

BEL’s FAA upheld the CPIO’s refusal to supply information relating to the Engineers deployed, the operating manuals relating to VVPATs and SLUs and the application submitted for claiming a patent on the VVPATs. However, she directed the CPIO to transfer the first part of the RTI application to the ECI to answer queries relating to the constituency-wise details of deployment of EVMs, VVPATs and thermal paper rolls used in VVPATs.

Click HERE for the 1st appeal and BEL FAA’s order (2nd attachment).

ECI’s treatment of the RTI application for similar information

As both BEL and ECIL had initially rejected my request for information about EVMs and VVPATs deployed during the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections and the list of Engineers deputed to render technical support, I submitted an RTI application with the ECI seeking similar information. ECI’s CPIO did not bother to send a reply for more than 40 days. So I have filed a first appeal. Now ECI has to make a decision not only on this first appeal but also make a decision on the RTI application transferred to it by BEL, in accordance with the FAA’s orders.

Click HERE for the RTI application and the first appeal submitted to ECI (3rd attachment).

Lack of uniformity of treatment of similar RTIs

Even after 15 years, the implementation of the RTI Act in many public authorities is not predictable. Identical RTI applications yield diverse responses. This is a clear indicator of the failure of the system to make the transformation from secrecy to transparency as envisaged in the preamble of the RTI Act. The political leadership which only pays lip sympathy to the democratic values of transparency and accountability, the lack of seriousness and commitment from the bureaucracy to making this transformation and the clearly demonstrable weaknesses of the oversight mechanisms such as the FAAs and Information Commissions are to blame for this state of affairs.

However, the ECIL FAA’s order provides the proverbial silver lining to the dark clouds of poor implementation. The FAA appears to have recognised the imperative of transparency in all matters relating to elections (except voters’ choices) and directed the CPIO to disclose all information. As there is no time limit in his order, I will wait for a month before I explore the need for approaching the Central Information Commission (CIC). As for the BEL, I will challenge the FAA’s order upholding rejection of a part of the RTI application, before the CIC. Meanwhile, the wait for ECI’s response to my first appeal and the RTI application transferred from BEL continues.

—

*Programme Head, Access to Information Programme, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi

Courtesy: /counterview.org

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Nationwide, NOTA recorded 6.5 million votes–more than the population of Ahmedabad, or 1.06% of all votes polled in the 2019 general election. This was lower than 1.08% (6 million) polled in 2014. Bihar saw the highest vote-share (2%) for NOTA this year, followed by Andhra Pradesh (1.49%), Chhattisgarh (1.44%) and Gujarat (1.38%).

Source: Trivedi Center for Political Data, Ashoka University

The option to choose “none of the above” was put in place by the Supreme Court in its 2013 judgement following a writ petition by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, a human rights body. NOTA was envisaged to help voters express dissent while still maintaining the secrecy of their ballot to help achieve greater participation in the exercise of democracy.

“When the political parties realise that a large number of people are expressing their disapproval with the candidates being put up by them, gradually there will be a systemic change and the political parties will be forced to accept the will of the people and field candidates who are known for their integrity,” the then Chief Justice P Sathasivam wrote in the judgement.

On October 29, 2013, the Election Commission of India announced that even if the NOTA votes were higher than any other candidate in a constituency, the candidate with the most votes will be declared the winner.

“This provision made the NOTA option almost redundant,” Jagdeep Chhokar, founding trustee of the Association for Democratic Reforms, wrote in this December 2018 comment in The Hindu. “…the provision clarified that a NOTA vote would not have any impact on the election result, which is what interests candidates, political parties, and voters. Soon after this, candidates began campaigning against NOTA, telling voters that choosing the option meant wasting a vote.” 

To look at the impact of NOTA on the 2019 election result, we compared the winning margin in a constituency against the NOTA vote-share. Twenty-six of 543 constituencies saw a higher vote-share for NOTA than the victory margin. That is, if those who voted for NOTA had chosen the runner-up in a constituency, he/she would have won the race.

NOTA will also help “wide participation of people”, the Supreme Court had said in its 2013 judgement. However, election data do not show such correlation: Of the top 10 constituencies with the highest NOTA vote-share, three recorded a turnout greater than the national average.

“So NOTA remained a toothless tool,” Ajit Ranade, economist, political analyst and a founding trustee of ADR, wrote in December 2018 in the Pune Mirror. “The NOTA button is a vote of discontent and must have teeth.” He cited the Maharashtra state election commission’s decision, applicable to local body elections, as an example. Under the order, if NOTA got the most votes in a constituency, the election would be cancelled and a fresh election would have to be conducted.

Reserved seats saw higher NOTA vote
On average, reserved seats recorded a higher NOTA turnout, as we said, than general seats in 2019: 1.76% of voters in all ST seats and 1.16% in SC seats chose NOTA, compared to 0.98% in general seats.

This is in line with earlier elections, according to this June 2019 analysis by Factly.in, a data journalism portal, which studied from 43 different elections and 6,298 constituencies (both Lok Sabha & assembly) that went to polls after the introduction of NOTA in 2013.

Source: Trivedi Center for Political Data, Ashoka University

Anecdotal evidence from Gadchiroli in Maharashtra and Bastar in Chhattisgarh suggests a mobilisation of Other Backward Classes (OBC) vote favouring NOTA against the ST candidates, according to this August 2018 paper in the Economic and Political Weekly.

In Bastar, OBCs formed the Pichda Varg Kalyan Manch (Backward Class Welfare Front), to protest against ST candidates, who according to them were getting unfair rights due to enforcement of the fifth schedule which grants special rights to tribal communities.

Areas with left-wing extremism saw higher NOTA vote-share
Since the inception of NOTA, areas affected by left-wing extremism have, on average, seen a higher NOTA vote-share as compared to other parts of the country, our analysis showed.

Of the top 10 constituencies with the highest NOTA vote in 2019, six are in areas affected by left-wing related violence, according to our analysis. This includes Bastar in Chhattisgarh where 4.56% of votes cast were for NOTA–second only to Gopalganj which recorded a 5.04% NOTA vote.

Paschim Champaran (4.51%), Jamui (4.16%), Nabarangpur (3.85%), Nawada (3.73%) and Koraput (3.38%) also saw high NOTA vote-shares.

Source: Trivedi Center for Political Data, Ashoka University

State-wise data also support this trend: Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, affected by left-wing extremism, all saw a higher proportion of NOTA vote-share.

The high NOTA vote-share in the areas affected by Naxal and Maoist insurgencies points to a possible use of NOTA as a means to protest against state machinery.

The outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) used NOTA to “buttress their assembly election boycott call in Chhattisgarh” ahead of the 2013 state assembly elections, according to this October 2013 Times of India report. The rebels conducted training camps with dummy EVMs in Bastar to acquaint voters with NOTA and explain its significance as a tool to “protest against the government’s oppression and exploitation,” the report said.

More voters pick NOTA in bi-polar contests
States which saw a direct bi-polar contest between the two main national parties–the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party or their allies–saw a higher NOTA vote-share as compared to states where there was a third alternative, our analysis of 2019 election data showed.

Gujarat, which had a direct contest between the BJP and the INC, saw a NOTA vote-share of 1.38%. Bihar, which saw a bi-polar contest between the BJP-Janata Dal (United) alliance and the INC-Rashtriya Janata Dal alliance, had a NOTA vote-share of 2%.

Similarly, Andhra Pradesh, which saw a contest between the two regional parties–the Telugu Desam Party and the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party–polled 1.49% NOTA votes.

Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, which saw three-way contests, recorded 0.84%  and 0.53% NOTA vote-shares, respectively. While Delhi had the third alternative of the Aam Aadmi Party, Uttar Pradesh saw the alliance of the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party as an alternative to the national parties.

(Bansal and Marathe are students at Ashoka University.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

The post Most NOTA Votes In Areas Of Left-Wing Extremism, Reserved Seats, Bipolar Contests appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The committee, set up by the ECI in January 2018, comprised several officials of the commission itself, together with representatives of the ministries of Information & Broadcasting, Law & Justice, and Electronics & Information Technology. Also, in the panel were representatives of the quasi-judicial Press Council of India (PCI) and the self-regulatory organisation of private television news channels, the News Broadcasters Association (NBA).

During the consultation process, over a series of meetings that took place through 2018, the committee invited the views of the country’s national and state political parties, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and social media companies: Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Google. Its report was submitted to the ECI in January 2019. But the contents of this report were not known till July 12 after it was obtained through a right to information (RTI) application by Srinivas Kodali, an independent researcher and analyst based in Hyderabad, who then made it public.

Curiously, while Kodali was able to obtain the report via his application, another RTI application made on 25 February by an activist named Aditya Kalra (that was reviewed by these authors) seeking a copy of the same report was denied by the ECI on May 20, three days before the results of the elections were announced. The reason why the ECI denied Kalra the report was that the third parties involved in the consultations, namely, the social media companies, were not in favour of disclosing the report on grounds of “confidentiality.” 

Too Little, Too Late

On March 5, 2019, the election dates were announced and the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into effect. A fortnight later, on March 19, the ECI called a meeting of representatives of social media and other online “intermediary” companies, following which, the commission issued a set of guidelines for social networks and updated an application for citizens to report violations of the MCC. A day later, on March 20, the IAMAI put out a “voluntary code of ethics” that was intended to “safeguard [social media platforms] against misuse to vitiate the free and fair character of the 2019 general elections.”

The newly released ECI committee’s report makes it clear that the IAMAI’s code of ethics was derived entirely from the recommendations made by the committee and was essentially a list of measures suggested by the IAMAI itself to the committee. As we shall see, the committee was functioning during a period that had witnessed high-profile battles among different stakeholders in the internet space over proposed changes to the Indian law on online intermediaries.

It can, hence, be argued that in the absence of a clear legal framework and being caught in the middle of a highly polarised debate, the ECI committee had a very few options before it in its attempts to put in place a stronger enforcement structure for online news relating to the election campaign. It had bitten off far more than it could chew. A statement released by a group of civil society activists and retired civil servants soon after the code of ethics was issued, raised a number of questions on the process followed by the ECI.

Over and above the issues relating to online communications, a significant recommendation of the committee related to amending Section 126 of the RP Act to include the print medium within the ambit of the prohibited media that could be used for campaigning during the 48-hour silence period. In order to implement this recommendation, the law would have to be amended. This suggestion was favoured by representatives of all political parties consulted by the ECI committee barring one, and that was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Committee’s Proceedings
The “task of the committee,” according to the report, was to “initiate a multi-stakeholder engagement process to take stock of the critical gaps in the extant Section 126 of the Representation of People Act, 1951” and “examine the challenges in its implementation and enforcement and suggest suitable measures”. Headed by Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha, the committee included eight other officials of the ECI along with nominated members from the various ministries listed earlier besides representatives of the PCI and the NBA. Other stakeholders were special invitees.

In its initial discussion, the committee examined Section 126 of the Representation of the People Act, which, in its initial form in the 1951 Act, prohibited the convening, holding or attending, joining or addressing any public meeting or procession in connection with an election during the period of 48 hours prior to the close of polling. This section was amended in 1996 to include prohibition of display of election matter by means of television, cinematograph or similar apparatus.

The committee noted that more than two decades after the 1996 amendment, advancement in communication technologies had raised issues in the context of the implementation of Section 126, particularly due to the presence of 24×7 news channels beamed nationwide using cable and direct to home (DTH) satellite technology, and the ubiquitous presence of online social media platforms or “intermediaries.” The panel first examined comparable “silence periods” in different election systems across the world and how various attempts had been made to tackle the unique challenges posed by online media.

The committee identified three areas where there are frequent violations of election rules – television coverage including live coverage of political events and interviews of political leaders by broadcasters during the silence periods, the “systematic and organised” use of social media platforms by political actors to “manipulate and deceive the voting public, and ­undermine electoral verdicts,” and the anomaly in Section 126 introduced by the 1996 amendment, whereby campaign prohibitions during the silence period extended only to electronic media and did not include the print medium. The committee’s view was that all media should be treated as covered by Section 126, and towards achieving this end, it suggested that the law be amended to include print media, and a framework devised to govern social media platforms or online “intermediaries.”

In this context, the committee examined guidelines on “norms of journalistic conduct” issued by the PCI, comparable “guidelines for election broadcasts” issued by the NBA, and the 255th report of the Law Commission of India on electoral reforms that had recommended that the print medium be added to Section 126 of the RP Act, and the terms “television, cinematograph or similar apparatus” be replaced by “electronic media” – that would be taken to mean internet, radio and television including internet protocol (IP) television, satellite, terrestrial or cable channels, mobile and other such media”.

Responsibilities of Intermediaries
At this stage itself, the contours of the legal terrain that the committee was entering was rather unclear. This was made evident by the fact that the committee included in its record the fact that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) had issued in 2018 a draft Information Technology [Intermediary Guidelines (Amendment)] Rules, meant to create a mechanism for time-bound communication between government agencies and online intermediaries, to ensure, among other things, that these platforms were not used to violate the law. In order to achieve this goal, the rules originally issued in 2011 would have to be amended, rules under which intermediaries were duty bound to observe due diligence and observe guidelines as prescribed by the Union government.

At the committee’s first meeting, on February 9, 2018, all the stakeholders concurred with the ECI’s view, namely, that the guiding principle to be followed was that both “print and digital media should also be covered under Section 126”. The report describes a “general consensus that the restrictions surrounding the 48-hour period were not to be compromised and that a general code of conduct for all media during elections could be developed.” The member representing the NBA specifically suggested that “electronic and digital media” be defined to include websites, web channels, blogs, vlogs (or video logs) and so on, and the provisions of Section 126 should be uniformly applicable on all media and stakeholders.

This is where the principal difference between print and television and online media or “intermediaries” first came to the fore. While MEITY agreed that Section 126 could be interpreted as covering all media, its representative Rakesh Maheshwari submitted that intermediaries only provide the wherewithal for uploading content and did not have control on the content uploaded. In the absence of bodies like the PCI or the NBA, as far as online intermediaries are concerned, they are governed by the Information Technology (IT) Act. Section 79 of the Act provides immunity to media intermediaries on condition that they issue rules and regulations for users and take down content which is violative of any law in force. Maheshwari expressed the view that the commission could consider issuing advisories to intermediaries and to political parties and candidates.

Despite the structural difference between traditional media and online media though, the ECI committee continued to entertain the hope that a “code of ethics” could be developed for intermediaries and users using base documents of the PCI and the NBA.

At the committee’s next meeting, on May 1, 2018, the MEITY representative agreed to this idea, submitting that the ECI could consider issuing an “advisory to intermediary sites about the specific requirements of election law which are to be observed by users and in particular, political parties and candidates with verified accounts”.

At its next meeting on June 4, 2018, the committee was joined by Snehashish Ghosh, associate manager for public policy in Facebook India. In his presentation, Ghosh informed the committee that Facebook has a mechanism in place for reviewers to attend to complaints about the content posted by users. He said Facebook India had employed about 7,500 individuals as reviewers, a number that could be augmented for the election period. While complaints made by individual users were reviewed against Facebook’s “global community standards”, complaints by the ECI would be treated differently against not just Facebook’s standards but the law of India as well. Stating that “there is already a policy of taking special care during elections”, Ghosh assured the committee that prompt action would be taken on any complaints by the ECI.

The committee made certain specific requests to Facebook through Ghosh, which were:

(a)whether it would be possible to increase the number of reviewers;
(b) whether it would be possible to provide a mechanism within the platform for the election machinery to flag complaints about violations;
(c) whether it would be possible to block posting of election advertisements during the 48-hour silence periods; and
(d) whether it would be possible for Facebook India to collect details of expenditure on political advertising to enable the Election Commission of India to monitor expenses in this regard.

Stating that these requests would be considered, Ghosh also suggested that the committee consult the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), an industry body for intermediaries and online businesses.     
                                                                
At this meeting, for the first time, the structural difference between print and television on the one hand, and digital media on the other, was spelt out for the committee. Vikram Sahay, joint secretary, Policy Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting informed the panel that there is no regulatory authority for intermediaries akin to the PCI or the NBA, and that the IT Act was the only legal framework to regulate online intermediaries. He informed the committee that in April 2018, the I&B Ministry had set up a committee to formulate regulations for registration of intermediaries. In July that year, this committee was merged with a broader inter-ministerial committee on “investment in critical national infrastructure, digital broadcasting and related issues”.

More on this a little later in the article.

“Subsequently,” the ECI committee’s report states, “a series of consultations took place with intermediaries like Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and IAMAI.” However, the report only discusses the inputs by IAMAI. A letter sent by IAMAI President Subho Ray, “suggested a co-ordination mechanism” for the ECI to report violations for the online platforms to act upon. It was this letter that later found its way into the committee’s recommendations and became the “voluntary code of ethics” issued by the IAMAI. The suggestions were broadly the following:
 

1. The ECI should designate an officer for reporting violations under Section 126 of the RP Act to relevant online intermediaries.
2. Online intermediaries would endeavour to provide a priority electronic channel to this designated officer; the designated officer could use this channel to notify the respective online intermediaries of content that the ECI believes violates Section 126 of the RP Act.
3. In order to ensure a prompt response, specific links to the content that violates the Section along with any accompanying reason and context should be included with any request made by the designated officer.
4. Relevant online intermediaries would be committed to promptly responding to such notices regarding content, when notified by the authorised officer.

An expanded version of these suggestions formed the committee’s recommendations as far as digital intermediaries were concerned.

Consultations with Political Parties
Parallel to the consultations with government departments and digital intermediaries, the ECI committee solicited views of all the recognised national and state political parties. While many did not respond initially, a meeting conducted on August 27, 2018 saw representatives of most parties attending and placing their views.

On a number of issues, most parties had identical demands and suggestions. On the inclusion of print media within the prohibitions contained in Section 126 of the RP Act, all parties aside from the BJP expressed support. These parties included the Indian National Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Aam Admi Party, the All India Anna Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam, the All India Forward Bloc, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, the Indian National Lok Dal, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, the Shiv Sena, the Telugu Desam Party, the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam, the All Jharkhand Students’ Union, the Naga People’s Front, among others.

Whereas certain political parties did not offer a specific view, the BJP was the only party that expressly called for the print medium not to be included in the ambit of Section 126 of the RP Act. This suggestion, despite the opposition of the BJP, found its way into the committee’s final recommendations. However, to implement the recommendation, the RP Act would have to be amended and so far the Narendra Modi government has shown no indication that it will do so.

Aside from this issue, four other subjects that found regular mention in multiple parties’ submissions were:

(a) the phenomenon of paid news,
(b) the “menace” of fake news,
(c) pervasive campaigning via the social media, and
(d) the ineffective nature of the silence periods during which time television channels broadcasting across the country regularly featured interviews with political leaders.

On the issue of paid news, which was not under the committee’s remit, this issue had earlier been examined in a detailed report of a sub-committee of the PCI, of which one of these authors of this article was a co-author. That report, since its completion in 2010, is yet to be acted upon.

Significantly, two parties – the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam and the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference – demanded that a wider consultative process be conducted to deal with the issues under the committee’s remit.

Intermediary Liability Tussle
While the committee finished its work and quietly submitted its recommendations to the ECI on January 10, 2019, it did so against a backdrop of a high-stakes battle that was playing out regarding the regulation of online intermediaries under Indian law. There was debate on the question of intermediary liability, in the context of the government seeking to come up with a regulator for online intermediaries. There was no visible action on the ECI committee’s recommendations until March after the MCC was already in effect.

Intermediary liability is a legal concept which governs the responsibility of online platforms for user-generated content. India has so far adopted what are known as “safe harbour” protections in its regulation of online intermediaries through the IT Act of 2000. Section 79 of the Act provided an expansive version of safe harbour protection in its original version. Intermediaries were not liable for third party content as long as they had no knowledge of its illegality and exercised due diligence.

The IT Act was amended in 2008, bringing in a new, more detailed Section 79. This amendment, along with rules issued under it in 2011, required intermediaries to exercise due diligence, and set up a notice-and-take-down mechanism, in order to avail the safe harbour protection. This meant, in practice, that as long as users were notified that they are not supposed to post illegal or harmful content, and the intermediaries took down any infringing content reported to them within 36 hours, the safe harbour protection applied.

In the Shreya Singhal case in 2015, in which the Supreme Court famously struck down Section 66 (A) of the IT Act, it also read down the notice-and-take-down requirement of the safe harbour provision, restricting it to only those cases where a court order for a takedown had been served on the intermediary.

The Modi government felt a need to make the safe harbour provision even more stringent, or even, to reimagine intermediary regulation altogether. Union Electronics and IT Minister (who is also the law minister) Ravi Shankar Prasad said in Rajya Sabha on July 26, 2018 that “rising incidents of violence and lynching in the country due to misuse of social media platforms” necessitated a change in how online intermediaries were governed. He even suggested that if intermediaries “do not take adequate and prompt action, then the law of abetment [would also] apply to them”.

The draft amendments to intermediary guidelines were released for public comment by the government in December 2018 leading to a huge hue and cry. In those guidelines, the government lurched heavily to the other side of the line of safe harbour – proposing to make it mandatory for online platforms to “proactively” seek out “unlawful” content and break end-to-end encryption in those cases, to enable the law enforcement authorities to trace the content’s origin.

The draft amendments also proposed that intermediaries would have to retain all data for 180 days, double the prevailing 90 days, and inserted a monthly requirement to inform users about legal requirements. In addition, the draft rules proposed that any intermediary with more than five million users would be required to incorporate itself in India, even if the company was based abroad.

These draft amendments led to a controversy, both among a section of intermediary companies, and among global advocates for a free and democratic internet, but for different reasons. The New York Times called it “Chinese style censorship” and Medianama’s Nikhil Pahwa, one of India’s pre-eminent activists on digital rights issues, described them as “a serious and imminent threat to the open internet in India”

Organisations such as the Internet Democracy Project, the Global Network Initiative, and the Internet Freedom Foundation all issued public statements against the draft rules and sent their submissions opposing it to the government. A number of intermediary companies themselves and their representative bodies including the IAMAI also came out against the draft rules, and sent submissions to the government.

Interestingly, some Indian intermediaries supported the proposed rules, and stood by the government. These included companies such as Reliance Jio, Sharechat, Hike, Ola and MakeMyTrip.

It was in this fraught atmosphere that the committee’s recommendations, seeking precisely a solution to the question of how to deal with content on online intermediaries, reached the ECI. No action appeared to have been taken on it till March 19 – that is a fortnight after the election dates had been announced and the MCC had come into force.

IAMAI’s “Voluntary Code of Ethics”
On March 19, the ECI called in representatives of social media companies for a collective meeting, and on the same day, issued a set of guidelines for social networks and updated an application for citizens to report violations. This set of guidelines was nothing but the recommendations of the committee report, which consisted of the following:
 

1. Intermediaries should voluntarily undertake information, education and communication campaigns to build awareness for their users about unlawful conduct during election and, in particular, during prohibited period of 48 hours.
2. Intermediaries should work with the ECI to evolve a notification mechanism by which the ECI may notify the relevant platform of potential violations of Section 126 of the RP Act. The ECI shall appoint an officer as the designated officer to liaise with the intermediaries.
3. Intermediaries should open a special grievance redressal channel for the ECI and appoint dedicated persons/teams during the election period to interface with and take expeditious action upon receipt of an order from the ECI.
4. Intermediaries should send a report to the ECI on the measures taken by them to prevent abuse of their platforms. Publicly available transparency reports that detail the actions taken by intermediaries on content blocking, could be one form of such regular reporting as they are updated frequently to improve transparency and ensure accountability.
5. No intermediary shall host any political advertisements without the prior approval of an ECI appointed Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC), and should endeavour to deploy their political advertisement transparency tools in India. They must facilitate transparency with regard to political advertisements by maintaining a repository of political advertisements with information such as the sponsor, expenditure, and targeted reach of such content in an aggregated manner.
6. Intermediaries must commit to facilitating transparency in political advertisements by clearly distinguishing/labelling political advertisements, including utilising their pre-existing labels/disclosure technology for advertisements in general.
7. The IAMAI should coordinate with intermediaries and should periodically monitor the cases of violation and promptness of the action taken by the intermediaries.
8. The IAMAI may be asked to setup a monitoring committee to periodically study the actions of intermediaries with regard to their conduct regarding election matters.

The very next day, on March 20, 2019, the IAMAI released a “voluntary code of ethics” for the intermediary companies to follow during the general election. Under this code, the intermediary companies stated they would:
 

1. Endeavour to, where appropriate and keeping in mind the principle of freedom of expression, deploy appropriate policies and process to facilitate access to information regarding electoral matters.
2. Endeavour to voluntarily undertake information, education and communication campaigns to build awareness including electoral laws and other related instructions, and to impart training to the nodal officer at the ECI on the mechanism for ending requests as per procedure established by law.
3. The intermediaries and the ECI would develop a notification mechanism by which the ECI can notify the relevant platforms of potential violations of Section 126 of the RP Act and other applicable electoral laws. Valid legal orders would be acknowledged and/or processed within three hours for violations reported under Section 126 and expeditiously for all other valid legal requests.
4. The intermediaries would create a high priority dedicated reporting mechanism for the ECI and are appointing dedicated person(s)/teams during the period of the general elections to interface with and to exchange feedback and may assist with taking expeditious action upon receipt of a request from the ECI.
5. The intermediaries would provide a mechanism for the relevant political advertisers, in accordance with their obligations under law, to submit pre-verification certificates issued by the ECI and/or the MCMC of the ECI, in relation to election advertisements that feature names of political parties and candidates for the 2019 general elections. Further, they would expeditiously process and take action against paid political advertisements lawfully notified to them by the ECI that do not feature such certification.
6. The intermediaries would commit to facilitating transparency in paid political advertisements, including utilising their pre-exiting labels/disclosure technology for such advertisements.
7. The intermediaries would, pursuant to a valid request received from the ECI via the IAMAI, provide an update on the measures taken by them to prevent abuse of their respective platforms.
8. IAMAI would coordinate with the intermediary companies on the steps carried out under this code and IAMAI as well as its participant organisations would be in constant communication with the ECI during the election period.

The election period saw repeated run-ins between the ECI and the intermediary companies. One instance, reported by one of the authors of this article in The Real Face of Facebook in India, is illustrative.
 

“Within days of the MCC coming into force, Facebook had a run-in with the election authorities. A show-cause notice was issued to BJP leader Om Prakash Sharma (who is an elected member of the legislative assembly of Delhi from the Vishwas Nagar constituency) for putting up an advertisement on Facebook politicising the Pulwama attack by using his own photograph and those of other political leaders (including Prime Minister Modi and BJP President Amit Shah) together with a picture of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, the Indian Air Force officer who had come back to India after his aircraft had crashed in Pakistan.

“The Election Commission asked Shivnath Thukral, Facebook’s Director, Public Policy for India and South Asia, to remove the adertisements shared by the BJP leader. His reported response was stunning. He asked what specific legal provisions had been violated by the disputed advertisement.”

Clearly, the voluntary code of ethics was not sufficient to deal with such instances. 

Civil Society’s Response
On April 5, 2019, a statement was issued as an outcome of collective reflection and a consultative process involving a number of civil society organisations and retired civil servants including two former chief election commissioners of India, which found fault with the ECI’s modest efforts to combat the dangers of misinformation and unaccounted mass campaigning via social media.

The statement took note of the ECI’s consultations with digital platforms and the IAMAI, as well as the IAMAI’s voluntary code of ethics, and while welcoming these developments, pointed out that the entire process had been conducted without any transparency, public inputs or civil society engagement.

The statement issued an appeal to political parties to “recognise the threat of money power in the elections and evolve a consensus to enact a legislation to cap the expenditure of political parties in elections”. To the ECI, the statement appealed that it monitor compliance of spending by political parties, ensure disclosure by political parties on their IT cells, contractors and advertisements to the ECI, ensure disclosure of all digital spending during the election campaign by political parties and candidates to the ECI.

The statement also called for the ECI to conduct an independent audit of the declaration process for political advertisements, suggesting specific steps towards such an audit. It also called for the creation of a nodal department within the ECI to address the “growing threat of fake news” and for the ECI to ensure that online platforms are not used to target communities on the lines of caste, religion, ethnicity, and linguistic identity, or in any other way that violates the MCC. The full statement can be read here.

Where Now?
What the release of the ECI committee’s report has made clear is that regulation of online content in the context of elections became largely an impossibility due to a lack of a cohesive and coordinated framework regulating online intermediaries in general. Until the government’s efforts in this direction reach some sort of conclusion, which can take place only after it considers and makes decisions on a host of other issues such as the questions of data privacy and data localisation, no effective regulation on online content, whether for the conduct of free and fair elections, or to prevent the spread of fake news, or to protect vulnerable individuals and communities from online campaigns against them, will be possible.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

The post Election Commission Failed to Curb Fake News Online Before 2019 Lok Sabha Polls appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: TechGig Bureau

The first budget of the second Modi Government presented by Nirmala Sitharaman is nothing short of a payback gift after the elections to corporate India and foreign financial interests, says the CPI-M in its responses. The Budget and the speech were full of several promises and commitments that would help big corporate capital and the wealthy to strengthen their grip on the Indian economy and foster greater integration of the Indian economy with international financial markets. There is nothing  in the budget for working Indians, the farmers (kisans) and workers,  who have been left to fend for themselves in a world of shrinking opportunities for employment and livelihood states the press release issued today.

The finance minister’s speech listed a long menu of pro-corporate ‘reforms’ – opening up the Indian economy even more to foreign portfolio and direct investment (including the pension sector), creating a ‘financeable’ model for highways, promoting PPP in several areas including railways and metro development, etc. and even commercialization and financialisation of social welfare through a ‘Social Stock Exchange’.

There were no references, however, to the issues of remunerative prices and debt relief that India’s farmers are in desperate need of. On labour, the creation of a more anti-labour labour code was also presented as a ‘reform’.

While all of these were talked about, the FM’s speech was generally short of any real details regarding the revenue measures and expenditure commitments of the Union Government for 2019-20 and was completely silent on the problems of economic slowdown, agrarian distress, industrial stagnation and joblessness that everyone knows currently afflict the Indian economy.

As regards the actual Budget, the Finance Minister chose to not disclose the actual figures for revenues and expenditures for 2018-19 even though they are available by now. Instead the revised estimates presented in the Interim Budget on 1 February were retained in the final Budget – obviously in order to conceal the verifiable fact that the actuals of both revenues and expenditures in the previous year were significantly lower than in the Budget Estimates and even the Revised Estimates of the Interim Budget. This manipulation of the Budget accounts only serves to establish that the expenditure commitments for 2019-20 lack credibility as they will be cut if needed to meet fiscal deficit targets.

The estimates of gross revenues from Central taxes for 2019-20 have been reduced relative to the Interim Budget by almost Rs. 91,000 crores, and 40 per cent of this loss will have to be borne by State Governments. The reduction in estimated revenue collections is attributable to reduced projections for GST (by nearly Rs. 98000 crores) and Income Tax (Rs. 51,000 crores) – an indirect admission of the failure of the so-called reform measures of the Government that it had claimed would improve tax compliance.

What is shocking is that instead of addressing the fundamental problems in the taxation system and raising more resources from direct taxes except through extremely piecemeal measures – the Finance Minister has chosen to give several tax concessions to the corporate sector even while burdening the common people with additional excise duties on petrol and diesel to the tune of Rs. 2 per litre. Hitting at the public sector is the Government’s chosen additional route for raising resources. On the one hand disinvestment of public sector enterprises to the tune of Rs. 1.05 lakh crores is being planned. Further, PSEs will be bled by squeezing more of their profits out of them for the Government – and this amount has been raised from Rs. 1.36 lakh crores in the Interim Budget to 1.64 lakh crores in the final one. Even after all of this, the projected figures will keep the expenditure to GDP ratio the same!

The budget shows very little increase in spending for people. The total percentage of subsidies as per cent of total expenditure have remained almost unchanged at about 12 per cent. The first Woman Finance Minister of the country had presented a budget in which the expenditure on women has fallen from 5.1 per cent to 4.9 per cent of the total budget. Even the Nirbhaya Fund for women’s safety has not seen hardly any increase. There has been a marginal increase in spending on welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes but this continues to be much less than their share in the population. Only 2.9 per cent for welfare of Scheduled Castes and 1.9 per cent of total expenditure for welfare of Scheduled Tribes. There is a decline in allocation for Umbrella Scheme for Scheduled Castes by 2000 crores. Share of allocations for the Ministry of Minority Affairs has remained unchanged. In the context where government’s own statistics are showing a massive increase in unemployment, the Finance Minister has cut the allocation for MGNREGA by Rs. 1000 crores as compared to the revised estimates for last year. Spending on even the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, First Modi Government’s flagship programme, has been reduced by about 4500 crores.

The Union Budget for 2019-20 reflects the complete denial by the Government of the real economic situation of the country, which is living proof of the inability of a private capital led development process to either address the agrarian crisis or create employment opportunities outside it. This 2019-20 budget, therefore, is bound to mount further economic burdens on the vast majority of our people.

The CPI(M) calls upon the Indian people to join the protests that are bound to emerge in the coming days against the various aspects of these anti-people proposals in order to force the government to adopt policies aimed at improving people’s livelihood.
 

The post Union Budget: Payback Gift to Corporates says CPI-M appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The letter reads, “We are a group of former civil servants that takes up, from time to time, matters of exceptional national interest, seeking to remind our cherished democratic institutions of their responsibility to uphold the lofty ideals of the Constitution. We write to you today to draw your attention to the several very troubling and still unexplained issues pertaining to the conduct of the General Elections, 2019, by the Election Commission of India (ECI).”

The letter has mentioned a list of violations and irregularities this election season and has requested the EC to provide clarity on each of the concerns raised. 

Few concerns mentioned in the letter include:

1. EC’s silence over several media reports highlighting the irregularities in the elections seems to be an implicit acceptance of those reports.
2. There seems to be a connection between the delay in announcing the election dates and BJP’s inauguration of 157 projects scheduled between February 8 and March 9. 
3. The BJP members blatantly flouted the MCC by making hate speeches and communal loaded statements. However, the EC failed to take any action against them. For instance, the ‘illegal termites’ statement by Amit Shah didn’t compel the EC to react. It was only after the Supreme Court pulled up the EC did it wake up and took action, albeit selectively.
4. A show cause notice wasn’t issued to Narendra Modi despite his blatant misuse of Pulwama and Balakot issues to create a feeling of nationalism among the masses, which ultimately worked in the party’s favour.
5. Suspension of IAS officer Mohammaed Mohsin after he checked the PM’s helicopter for any non-permissible cargo reflects the glaringly apparent bias of the EC. This is reiterated by the fact that similar checks had been carried out on the helicopters of the Odisha CM Mr. Naveen Patnaik and the then Petroleum Minister Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan, with no objections from the dignitaries concerned. However, the ECI could not and did not explain its double standards. 
6. The use of local information sought by the Niti Aayog so that it could be used by Narendra Modi during his election campaign is another gross misuse of the state machinery.
7. One of the most blatant violations of the MCC and the EC turning a blind eye to it was the airing of NaMo TV despite the MCC being in place. Though EC had ordered that all the content on NaMo TV should be pre-certified by the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) and comply with the 48-hour ‘election silence’ ahead of every phase of voting, it continued to telecast the PM’s speeches and campaigns right till the end of the election season. “Procrastination, silence and inaction characterized ECI’s responses in so many matters.”
8. A ‘candid and apolitical’ interview with Akshay Kumar amidst the election season was another violation of MCC, which once again didn’t compel the EC to take any action.
9. “In terms of transparency of electoral funding, this election was the most opaque ever, both because of the widespread use of electoral bonds, and also because of the enormous amounts of cash, gold and drugs, amounting to Rs 3456 crores, which were seized during the polls.”
10. EC didn’t respond to multiple reports of EVM tampering except merely and repeatedly stating that EVMs are tamperproof.
11. People’s confidence in the EVMs would have been greater if the EC had been more cooperative about using the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPATs) in a manner that would confirm the results of the EVMs, but from the beginning the ECI was extremely reluctant to match the number of votes recorded in EVMs with the votes in the VVPAT machines on any significant scale, despite representations by different groups, including political parties. 

The letter raises severe concerns over the growing misconduct in the largest democrartic exercise in the world. It expresses regret over the EC’s approach, which once was appreciated and respected worldwide for its ability to conduct free and fair elections. Requesting the EC to take note of all these grave irregularities and provide clarifications on each of the doubts raised, the letter states, “In the interests of ensuring that this never happens again, the ECI needs to pro-actively issue public clarifications in respect of each of these reported irregularities, and put in place steps to prevent such incidents from occurring in (the) future. This is essential to restore the people’s faith in our electoral process.”

The letter dated July 2, has been signed by 64 former IAS, IPS and IFS officers: Harsh Mander IAS (Retd.), Government of Madhya Pradesh, Mohinderpal Aulakh IPS (Retd.), Former Director General of Police (Jails) Govt. of Punjab, Shiv Shankar Mukherjee IFS (Retd.) Former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, P.S.S. Thomas IAS (Retd.) Former Secretary General, National Human Rights Commission, just to name a few. 

The letter has been endorsed by veterans of the Armed Forces, academics and concerned citizens such as: Lt Gen C.A.Barretto, PVSM, Arundhati Ghosh, Arts Professional, Bangalore, C. P. Chandrasekhar, Professor, JNU, Anita Dighe, Concerned Citizen, NOIDA, among others.
The letter says, “It is indeed, saddening to witness the process of the demise of that legacy. If it continues, it is bound to strike at the very heart of that founding document the people of India proudly gave themselves – the Constitution of India – and the democratic ethos that is the very basis of the Indian Republic.”

The post “This election was the most opaque”: Former civil servants write to EC appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Polling in the remaining constituency, in Tamil Nadu, stands deferred. The counting commenced on May 23rd and concluded the next day.
The broad outlines of the outcomes were, however, available on the first day of the counting itself.The incumbent regime came back to power with a bang.

Never before, in the recent past, India was so keenly awaiting the results, because never before in the recent past India stood so sharply divided.

So much so that the Time magazine described Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as India’s “divider in chief” on the cover of its May 20 issue. Modi’s picture was on all international issues of the magazine except the United States edition.

The cover story, written by novelist Aatish Taseer, has the headline: “Can the world’s largest democracy endure another five years of a Modi government?” A second one, however, by Ian Bremmer, treats Modi far more positively, suggesting that Modi is “India’s best hope” for economic reform.

Even otherwise, much before that, on March 15, a parliamentarian from the ruling BJP, since 1996 with some gaps in between, Sakshi Maharaj — also a saffron-robed Hindu monk — had predicted that after 2019, there will be no election in 2024.

Even before that, on Jan. 25th, “(i)n his customary address to the nation on the eve of the 70th Republic Day, President Ram Nath Kovind Friday [had] said that the 17th Lok Sabha election is not ‘once-in-a-generation’ but ‘once-in-a-century’ moment”.

All in all, the extraordinary salience of this poll, broadly mirroring that of the 1977, was widely acknowledged.

The Poll Outcome

In a nutshell, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in a “landslide” victory, won 303 seats (out of total 242 for which polls were held), up from previous 282, and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance won 353 seats. The Indian National Congress won 52 seats – up from 44, and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance won 91. Other parties and their alliances won 98 seats.

In as many as 16 states and UTs together, the BJP secured more than 50% of vote shares.

Nationally, the BJP’s vote share was 37.36% – up from 31.34%, while the Congress secured 19.49% – down from 19.52%.

In terms of vote share, the next three largest parties are: AITC (4.07%); BSP (3.63%) and SP (2.55%).

However, in terms of number of seats, DMK – a Congress ally, is the third largest party with 23 seats – all from Tamil Nadu.

One of the other notable aspects is that the Congress failed even to open its account in Rajasthan – with total 25 seats, won a lone seat in Madhya Pradesh – out of total 29, and only 2 out of 11 seats in Chhattisgarh.

Congress had won the state assembly polls in these three states, under the same leadership, displacing the ruling BJP, led by Modi-Shah duo, just about six months back.

It, however, did fairly well in Punjab – winning 8 out of total 13, where it had scored a convincing victory in the last assembly poll in early 2017. Its vote share rose marginally, as compared to the assembly poll – from 38.5% to 40.12%.

It did rather spectacularly – more so, keeping its overall dismal performance in mind, in Kerala, winning 15 out total 20 seats and its alliance partners another 4, conceding only 1 to the CPI(M) – the leader of the ruling coalition in the state.

In Tamil Nadu, it won 8 out of total 38, as the second largest partner in the DMK-led alliance.

The CPI(M) is down from 9, last time, to 3 – 2 in Tamil Nadu, as a constituent of the DMK-led alliance, and 1 in Kerala, as the leader of the ruling LDF.

It could not secure even the second position in any of the seats in its erstwhile bastions – Tripura (2) and West Bengal (42).

The AAP is down from 4 (all in Punjab) to 1 (in Punjab). Last time, it had come second in all the 7 Delhi seats and 1 in UP (Varanasi). This time, it conceded the second position to Congress, in 5 out of the 7 seats in Delhi. Did not contest from Varanasi.

The AITC is down from 34 to 22 seats (all in West Bengal), with a small rise in vote share.

The BSP is up from 0 to 10 (all in UP, in alliance with the SP and RLD), with some fall in vote share.

The DMK is up from 0 to 23 (all in Tamil Nadu), with some rise in vote share.

The Landslide in Historical Perspective

The poll outcome, this time, has been dubbed by quite a few media outlets, very much in tandem with their roles all along, as TsuNaMo (= Tsunami + Na(rendra) Mo(di)) or its various variants.

The label may be pretty well justified in terms of its (devastating) impact on the psyche of too many Indian citizens.

And, it is also a fact, this is by far the best performance by the BJP ever.

This time, it has won 303 seats and secured 37.36% vote share as against 282 and 31.34%, last time, the best till then. Its previous best performance had been in 1998: 182 and 25.59%.

So much so that even “sober” analysts have now started terming it as the confirmation of India’s transit, commencing in 2014, from, the now extinct, “Congress system” – a term coined by an eminent social scientist, late Rajni Kothari19, to denote the dominance of India’s multi-party democratic polity by the Congress, to a new “BJP system”.

So, it won’t be quite out of place to have a relook into what was the “Congress system”.

In 1952, the very first general election, the Congress had won 74.2% of the total seats, as against 3.3% by the second largest party and 45.9% vote share as against 10.6% of vote share. (The second largest parties in terms of seats and vote share were different.)

In 1957, 75.1% of seats and 47.8% of votes, whereas the second largest, in terms of seats – 5.5%, and the one in terms of votes – 10.6%.

In 1962, 73.1% and 44.7%. The second largest in terms of seats – 5.9% and the one in terms of votes – 10.0%.

In all these three polls the Congress mascot had been Independent India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

The “Congress system” did not only mean the dominance of the parliament by the Congress but the states as well.

Nehru would pass away in 1964.

The “Congress system” suffered a very major jolt in 1967, by losing a number of state assembly elections.

The INC suffered significant losses in 7 states which included: Gujarat where INC won 11 out of 24 seats while Swatantra Party won 12 seats. Madras where INC won 3 out of 39 seats and DMK won 25 seats. Orissa where INC won 6 out of 20 seats and Swatantra Party won 8 seats. Rajasthan where INC won 10 out of 20 seats Swatantra Party won 8 seats. West Bengal where INC won 14 out of 40. Kerala where INC won only 1 out of 19. Delhi where INC won 1 out of 7 while remaining 6 were won by Bharatiya Jana Sangh. The decline in support for Congress was also reflected by the fact it lost control of six state governments in the same year.

That, essentially, signalled the end of the “Congress system”.

Nevertheless, even in 1967 parliamentary poll, the Congress had won 54.4% of seats and 40.8% of votes. The closest opponents: 5.9% and 10.0%.

In 1971, in the parliamentary poll, the Congress faction led by Mrs Indira Gandhi would, however, score a very convincing victory: 68.0% and 43.7%. The nearest opponents: 4.8% and 10.4%.

The number of seats won by the Congress, as compared to its vote share, came down because higher index of opposition unity.

Regardless, the era of unilateral dominance by the Congress party had ended in 1967 itself.

The Congress, under Indira Gandhi — post-Emergency, suffered an ignominious defeat in 1977, with its vote share plunging to 34.7% and seat share to 28.4% – this time as a result of across the board opposition unity coming on top of widespread popular revulsion against the Emergency. The party that replaced the Congress in the parliament was, for all practical purpose, a coalition of parties, which could not hold together for far too long.

The era of coalition, effectively, got inaugurated.

The Congress would, however, reach its peak parliamentary poll performance in 1984: 78.6% of seats and 49.1% of votes. The nearest opponents: 4.3% and 7.7%.

But, that would prove to be just a flash in the pan, which had been, understandably, triggered by an extraordinary situation marked by bloody Khalistani movement in Punjab, consequent Hindu exodus, capture of the famed Golden Temple by the armed militants, followed by the “Operation Blue Star” by the Indian Army causing a large number of deaths and severe damage to the temple, the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister by two of her Sikh bodyguards, sparking off massacre of Sikhs in Delhi and also elsewhere.

The “national security” card was used by the Congress, now led by the just deceased Prime Minister’s only surviving son, to the hilt.
To that extent, the just concluded poll bears an eerie resemblance with that one.

The fall of Congress, since ’84, has been fairly steep.

The “Congress system”, as it appears, had been born with Jawaharlal Nehru as the first Prime Minister of India and withered away with his death.

Regardless, this time, the BJP has won 51.93% of seats and secured 37.36% of votes. The Congress, the nearest opponent, in terms of both seats and vote share: 21.40% and 19.49%.

Moreover, except for Kerala, the Congress had, till 1984, fought the general elections, by and large, without any ally. That’s far from the case with the BJP.

Even leaving aside the situations in the states, the present situation can hardly be bracketed with the Congress dominance till 1967, not even during the period from 1971-84, barring 1977-80.

There is, of course, a more salient dividing line separating the two – while the “Congress system”, despite some serious aberrations, operated broadly to strengthen the “Idea of India”, that underpinned the Indian Constitution, this time, that very notion is faced with a mortal threat.

Two Advance Signals

Even before the actual counting of votes began, two advance signals, as regards the likely outcome, became available. One, explicit, the other, implicit.

The obvious signal was, of course, the results of the various exit polls, released after the conclusion of the final phase of polling on May 19th.
The exit poll projections, however, widely diverged.

While the India Today-Axis predicted (around) 352 seats for the (BJP-led) NDA – with a clear and emphatic majority by a margin of (around) 80, and (around) 92 seats for the (Congress-led) UPA, the NewsX-Neta, at the opposite end of the spectrum, predicted 242 for the former and 164 for the latter, and, thereby a hung parliament with the NDA enjoying a clear advantage.

It is specifically in this context, the second (implicit) signal became significant.

Reproduced below https://himalmag.com/a-collective-madness-india-elecions-modi-namit-arora-2019 is an introductory comment22 to a mail posted by this analyst on May 21.

Considering the provisional figure of 67.11% of polling this time, it’s a rise of 0.71% points over the preceding poll in 2014 (66.40%, as reported by the wiki). 2014 itself had seen a jump of a rather phenomenal 8.50% points: 66.40% – 57.90% (as reported by the wiki).

The outcome was that since 1984, for the first time, a single party did win absolute majority, even if it had fought the poll in alliance with a few others and its vote share of 31.34% was the lowest ever for a party winning absolute majority.

The fact that the voting %age has further gone up, even if only marginally, would tend to indicate a wave, given the phenomenal jump in the preceding poll.

The only plausible candidates available to cause a wave are Pulwama/Balakot and anti-minority prejudices/anger.

The Nyaya (read: NYAY), in any case, meant for the bottom-most 20% of the populace, most difficult to be accessed, is hardly a competitor.

The other likely candidate could be strong disaffection with the present dispensation – the hoax of “Acche Din”.

But, that’d have, normally, had brought the polling percentage down, not pushed it up.

Btw, exit polls, almost unfailingly, miss the magnitude of a large swing.

But, all these are, admittedly, speculations. One’ll have to wait for the 23rd, just two days away.

In the event, the NDA won 353 and the UPA – 91.  That is pretty close to the projections made by one extreme of the spectrum of exit polls – by India Today-Axis.

The Drivers

The last time, the BJP, as an opposition party, had polled 31.34%.

It may not be too irrational to assume that, by that time, it had accrued a rather stable/core support base of at least around 20% – 2/3rd of its total votes polled.

In 2009, it had polled 18.80%, in 2004 – 22.16%, in 1999 – 23.75%, 1998 – 25.59%, 1996 – 20.29 and 1991 – 20.04%.17, 23
Thus, around 20% may be taken to be rather steadfastly committed to the ideology of “Hindutva” – an Indian shorthand for Hindu nationalism/supremacism.

The last time, Modi could gather around additional 10% points over and above its (presumed) core support base.
The reasons were, as it appeared then, mainly the following:

I. Rampant corruptions indulged in by the outgoing UPA-II and, the preceding, UPA-I. The public perception of the corruptions was triggered by the then CAG reports and court cases and, further, sharply aggravated by the agitation led by Anna Hazare – an ex-military man, paraded as a Gandhian, collaborating with a Hindu Yoga guru-cum-entrepreneur having a large fan base, Baba Ramdev, and aided by among others, his the then lieutenant Arvind Kejriwal.

II. The consequent “policy paralysis” on the part of the government, as trumpeted, especially, by the corporate media.

III. Modi being able to raise and communicate these issues from his campaign platform, with telling effect, and his promise to end corruption, bring back black money – accompanied with the alluring assurance of depositing Rs 15 lakh in every poor/salaried person’s bank account.

IV. This was further accentuated by his call of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas!” (With All, Development of All!). Also tersely captured in the slogan/promise of “Acche Din!” (Better Days!). This had gained considerable credibility based on the, skilfully constructed and forcefully propagated, narrative of “Gujarat (the state of which Modi was the Chief Minister by then for well over a decade) model of development”.

V. The last, but not the least, was resort to (accentuated) communal polarisation, in a calibrated and targeted manner, aided by the Muzaffarnagar riot in western UP.

While the collapse of the “Acche Din”– the enchanting promise of better days, should have had effected significant erosion in the floating votes gathered last time, Pulwama-Balakot, or rather the (concocted?) narrative30 built around it, aided by a conniving EC and blared ad nauseam by the obliging, and “patriotic”, media – the electronic even more so, made it a surefire game changer.

The ruling party, in a way, got merged with the (brave) armed forces of the country.

Modi claimed and got the full credit for the (presumed) resounding slap delivered by the Indian forces in the face of Pakistan.

He would thus urge the (first-time) voters: “can your first vote be dedicated to the veer jawans (valiant soldiers) who carried out the air strike in Pakistan. Can your first vote be dedicated to the veer shaheed (brave martyrs) of Pulwama (terror attack)?”

“Ghar Me Ghus Ke Marunga”32 (I’d finish you off, by invading your holes!) – the shrill cry emanating from the Indian Prime Minister, was, arguably, the most emblematic campaign line of the Modi-BJP camp.

The main opposition in the field, the Congress, found itself utterly helpless.

It could neither challenge the narrative – that might have had proved even more disastrous, nor posit an alternative narrative with matching appeal, more so, given the biased nature of the media.

The “NYAY” – in any case, ostensibly directed at the bottom-most 20%, presumably, the most difficult to be accessed, was just no match, even if one sets aside the issue of credibility.

Despite the, apparently, spirited fight-back, the inevitable has happened.

A wave of nationalist jingoism unfailingly helps a right-wing party, particularly, if in power.

Thus Vajpayee had scored a clear victory in the 1999 poll, on the back of the Kargil War – facilitated by a monumental failure of the military intelligence on the Indian side, despite the far premature and ignominious collapse of the coalition government led by him. He would, however, suffer a defeat, next time (2004), unaided by any such surge, despite successfully running the coalition, this time round.

Moreover, no factor is a stand-alone entity.

The surge of jingoism emerged out of the latent, or even overt, feelings of animosity towards the (hated) “other” – the Muslims, persistently cultivated by the regime.

The surge only helped to cross the tipping point, to propel the voter vote for Modi/BJP, despite all his glaring fiascos – on the economic front, in particular.

Reproduced below is a rather longish, nevertheless worth citing, extract from a recent write-up carried by a South Asian journal:

“Five years later, barring qualified progress in some areas – toilets, roads, renewable energy, cooking gas – Modi’s promise of vikas has turned out empty. Even governments we rate below-average have arguably delivered similarly spotty progress, as in the preceding UPA regime. Make in India, Skill India and Digital India mostly remain slogans. Demonetisation showed the gaping idiocy and dangerous autocracy in Modi’s decision-making, which callously overruled the advice from experts that only a miniscule amount of black money was in cash. Far from raising India’s prestige and soft power in the world, the press in Europe and North America mostly brackets him and his movement with dubious figures like Trump, Putin, Ergodan and Bolsonaro. Modi has said the climate is not changing, our tolerance for the weather is. He holds asinine views about ancient Hindu feats in genetic science and cosmetic surgery. Despite a historic windfall from low oil prices, he now presides over a deepening farm crisis, an economic slowdown and the highest unemployment in 45 years. Vikas?”

In 2014, Modi ran on a platform of vikas but mostly delivered Hindutva. In 2019, he ran on a platform of Hindutva, with little talk of vikas, smart cities, beti bachao, black money, or Skill India. In 2019, Modi wore his religion on his sleeve. He and his party incited fear of the ‘other’ and made dog whistles and thinly veiled threats of violence and genocide. He gave Lok Sabha tickets to noted communal bigots of the RSS, including one who calls Godse a patriot. So what can we rationally expect from Modi this time? Even less vikas, I think, when the mandate is clearly for Hindutva, paving the way for the far right’s dream of a Hindu Rashtra, a state legally conceived not as secular but a Hindu polity and whose structures and institutions are based on the forms and priorities of Hindu culture and religion.

So how did Modi win this time? A big part of the answer is the powerful opium of Hindu nationalism. The BJP won because a great many Hindus are high on Hindutva. The Sangh Parivar has learned to exploit the well-known cultural inferiority complex of the Hindu middle class, which grew out of India’s colonial encounter with Europe. Alongside, they stoke fears that a billion-plus Hindus are under siege by Muslims, refugees, leftists, Pakistan and pesky “anti-nationals.” The well-funded propaganda arms of the BJP and Sangh Parivar spread a lurid and manufactured sense of historical hurt, key to sustaining Hindutva nationalism. Run by an army of paid trolls, they fan both hate and pride by peddling fantasies of past greatness, military might, superpower dreams, surgical strikes and fake news. The ordinary Hindu’s sense of history is now filled with malicious lies and manufactured resentments against pre-colonial Muslim rule and he wants to settle the score by punishing today’s Muslims.
…
During the voting season, I’d predicted that BJP’s decision to lead with Hindutva and its cynical post-Pulwama airstrikes would be a winning strategy. It more than offset their failures on the economy – a trick that countless demagogues have tried. Stated differently, the BJP’s actual performance on the economy became irrelevant against the joys and psychic highs of Hindu pride and nationalism, which the BJP stoked, playing the people like a fiddle. The BJP turned hate and anger into an animating, intoxicating and rallying force – risking the unleashing of even darker forces that, in time, they may not be able to control. Among other big contributors to the BJP victory were a brazenly partisan media that stumps for Modi and cultivates support for authoritarian rule; high octane propaganda on social media; and a hopelessly divided political opposition, who undercut each other’s votes in India’s first-past-the-post system.

That’s fairly comprehensive.

However, it does appear to severely underrate, though not outright overlook, the salience of the Pulwama/Balakot factor in the last poll.
In fact, with the Election Commission very much on his side, Modi, further accentuated its effect, making a mincemeat of the Model Code of Conduct, via a nationally televised address to announce the successful firing of an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile in the outer space – the first time for India, when the poll process was already on.

(In fact, it looks rather miraculous that for the bulk of post-poll analyses – across the lines, Pulwama-Balakot – so very glaring, as if, just never happened!)

Consequent to the stirred up jingoist surge, Modi could further reinforce the strongman (56”) image – built up assiduously over the last five years using the official machinery to the hilt, of himself.

Other than that, another analyst puts spotlight on three (presumably decisive) factors: Money – highly asymmetric access to financial resources (largely engineered via a controversial Act, legislated through stealth, for the specific purpose), (Electronic Voting) Machine and Media – acting, by and large, as a partisan player.

The point made regarding the EVM is, however, pretty much controversial. The social media, manipulated by a huge troll army, also, predictably, played some part. Apart from toilets (under Swacch Bharat), Ujjwala (cooking gas for poor households) – as mentioned in the extract reproduced above, regardless of patchy performance, the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi also appears to have played a role. So did rural housing scheme.

But, these sundry factors – including 10% reservation46 for “economically backward” members of the castes/groups not till then covered by the provisions of “reservation”, in themselves, cannot but be anything more than minor add-ons.

The main and, in fact, the only national opposition – relentlessly campaigning against the ruling Modi/BJP, the Congress, presented a fairly decent poll manifesto. But, with its limitations of resources – in terms of finance, as compared to the ruling party, organisational structure and, perhaps most importantly, the way it was treated by the mainstream media, it failed to reach out.

Apart from that, its masthead slogan – Ab Hoga NYAY (Now Justice Will Be Done), had, apparently, a basic design flaw. One, the NYAY scheme, meant to give out substantive cash doles to the (economically) bottom-most 20% households held no promise for the rest 80%. Two, it had the issue of credibility – whether it could be really implemented, given the financial constraints and structural limitations of government machinery. Three, it might have had even evoked adverse reactions, in various degrees, from the rest 80% – out of envy from those just falling beyond the limit and the better off ones, in particular, conceiving it as a forced waste of their “hard-earned” money. Fourth, the bottom-most 20% is, in any case, conceivably the most difficult to be accessed.

Its main attack line against the BJP was: Chowkidar Chor Hai! (The Guard Is A Thief!). It was, primarily, based on the visibly murky Rafale jet deal steered by none other than Modi himself. But, the roles played by the Supreme Court, the CAG (ref.: https://www.livemint.com/politics/news/cag-sees-17-savings-in-renegotiated-rafale-deal-1550039618464.html), the financial watchdog, and, most of all, the media turned out to be pretty much unhelpful. Consequently, it also failed to find a resonance.

The failure of the opposition parties to form a united national alliance – a la 1977, to confront the BJP – apparently, quite a non-feasible proposition – as it appears, eventually mattered rather little.

Just stunned by the official outcome, some of the opponents – both party and non-party, of the regime have claimed that the BJP victory has been engineered by way EVM tampering by the ruling party.

This, however, has been rather compellingly negated by one running a fact-checking website and enjoying considerable reputation for objectivity despite known leftist political inclinations.

The same issue(s) had been dealt with in even greater details by an expert, associated with the opposition CPI(M), drawing similar conclusions:
“It is not our argument that Indian EVMs are hack proof. No machine built by anybody, however competent they are, can be made free from hacking by skilled hackers. We have argued that it will require physical access to the machines – whether in the factory or outside – to carry out this hacking.”

As we have described in detail while discussing the administrative procedures, the EVMs have to pass the various verification procedures that involve representatives of political parties. These checks require that political parties understand and have an informed participation in these processes. Apart from physically verifying the EVMs, there are also randomisation procedures that involve the presence and participation of political party representatives.

Therefore, hacking such a system can be done only with a massive conspiracy, and with either the wilful participation of the opposition parties in this conspiracy, or their complete ignorance of what is going on.

Nevertheless, the final conclusion drawn by this author needs be taken with all seriousness and implemented.

Finally, elections must not only be fair but also seen to be fair. Therefore, our argument is that the ECI must not use the VVPAT as just an ornament forced on it by the Supreme Court, and do a token verification. It should do a real verification by tallying the paper slips of the VVPATs with the electronic count in the EVM. Only then will the ECI be able to put to bed the suspicions people have of their votes being hijacked by a ghost in the machine.

Moreover, the process of filing complaints on observing discrepancy between the button pressed and the paper trail displayed needs be made more complainant-friendly than it is now.

There should also be mandatory counting of all paper trails where the winning margin is 1%, or below, of the total votes polled.
Lastly, a look at how the voters have voted.

The votes cast, as is well-known, are anonymous.

Even then, surveys by non-government institutions are carried out to explore the profiles of the support base for various contesting parties.
At least three noteworthy analyses are available in the public domain. These are not congruent.

Yet, the essential point that emerges is that the BJP has, this time, further consolidated Hindu support, across caste divides. But, it, nevertheless, still enjoys more support from the rich and upper castes, even though there has been a sharper rise in case of lower castes, including Dalits, and Adivasis. In stark contrast, little support from the non-Hindus – 10% or thereabout.

All in all, Hindutva in combination with Modi’s carefully constructed image as a strongman riding on the upsurge of jingoism triggered by the narrative built around Pulwama-Blalkot trumped his rather dismal failure on all other fronts and very much neutralised the opposition campaigns.
The roles played by the (supposedly neutral) Election Commission and the mainstream media were, apparently, of huge significance.
Also the grossly disproportionate access to financial resources.

Of course, Tamil Nadu and Kerala are the two most glaring exceptions. There are a few others as well.

But, the BJP virtually swept the heartland, except in Punjab.

What Now?

As far as the opposition camp is concerned, the first response to the defeat is dismay and disarray.

The main opposition party Congress, with its President, Rahul Gandhi, announcing his decision to quit his post regardless of the urgings to the contrary by its highest decision-making body, Congress Working Committee (CWC), is still in turmoil.

Others also appear to be rather nonplussed.

The case of the West Bengal Chief Minister is an illustrative example.

The Muslims, the bete noire of the BJP (and its ideological anchor organisation, the RSS), are, apparently, dispirited.

Some eminent Muslims have, reportedly, written to the Prime Minister welcoming his address on May 26 to NDA MPs and offered “utmost cooperation” to him in reaching out to the community.

Another, known name from the community, has, on the contrary, in a reasoned and spirited appeal, urged the community to make common cause with “(l)iberals, social democrats, socialists, communists, large sections of the underprivileged, the poor, and sections of scholars” in the fight for dignified survival.

Obviously, all these are indicative of the ongoing turbulence within. The BJP – the Modi-Shah duo, in particular, is, obviously, only too elated.
Modi is taking this opportunity also to refashion the organisational power structure. What, however, is far more germane in anticipating the developments in the coming days is that the BJP/RSS has a project – to supplant the “secular” and “democratic” Indian state with a “Hindu Rashtra” (Hindu nation state) – the contours of which are, understandably, not etched in stone, but, even then, would mean complete negation of substantive democracy and pluralism. Of still greater salience, the journey towards it has got to be propelled by constant stirring up of hatred and violence against the constructed inimical “others”, in order to mobilise the Hindus as “Hindus”, drowning out all other competing identities.
Taking off from that basic proposition, the new regime is likely to have two major focal points on the “political” front:

I. Dismantling of all opposition – both party and non-party.

Towards that, dislodging, maybe even dismissal, of, at least a few, opposition-run state governments.

ED, IT, CBI raids on opposition politicians; also, in some cases, buying out.

Tightening the screw, in a myriad ways – including enhanced digital surveillance, also as regards the civil society organisations and dissenting individuals.

II. Sharply spiking communal polarisation by way of (phased?) nationwide roll-out of the NRC, also scrapping of Art. 370 (and Art. 35A) and putting to good use the Mandir-Masjid issue(s), as per the demands of the situation.

Other expected developments are:

(i) Further intensification of non-state physical violence.
(ii) Mega sale of PSUs.
(iii) “Economic reforms”.
(iv) Stepped up trashing of environmental norms and safeguards.
(v) Tightening the grip over the education infrastructure and institutions.
(vi) Further defanging of watchdog institutions.
(vii) More repressive laws, if felt necessary.

While the actual (detailed) work plan will evolve and be calibrated, based on the perceived ground situations, and be punctuated with some measures to project a “people-friendly” image – to confuse and divide the potential opposition, there is little scope that the general direction would be anything significantly different from the one sketched out above.

It would no longer be business as usual, not even by the standards of the last five years.

Conclusion

Modi 2.0 very much presents us with the looming threat of the dismantling of the “India” – embodying the values of “democracy”, “pluralism” and “egalitarianism”, that had been wrought out in the crucible of the epic freedom struggle and, in the process, finally emerged on the 15th August 1947 – in pursuance of a project to supplant it with a “Hindu Rashtra” (Hindu nation state) – by mobilising the Hindus of India as “Hindus”, drowning out all other identities linked to language, culture, gender, caste, class etc., constantly stoking hatred and violence against the constructed inimical “others”.

Regardless of all the (innumerable) flaws and shortcomings that “India” – real and even notional, encapsulates, the success of the above project would prove to be an unmitigated disaster for the vast majority of the people inhabiting this land.

What could offer at least some chance to avert such a predicament is a broad front/fronts: consisting of political parties, as many as possible – including their associated mass organisations, and non-party civil society organisations – based on the common agenda of saving democracy/democratic rights and unity of the country. Backed, actively, by right-minded, otherwise diffused, individuals. On top of the, ongoing and to be taken up, myriad specific issue-based struggles, by various constituents in their own ways – unitedly or independently.

Determined and consistent resistance has got to be offered on all available terrains – including parliamentary, legal, media (both traditional and new) and the streets, and in spaces – political and civil.

It is, admittedly, a stupendous task given that (i) the regime has the levers of the state power under its control – providing it with a disproportionate advantage to set and control the narrative (Pulwama-Balakot being a graphic illustration), and (ii) coming on top of its not too inconsiderable success in vitiating the “Hindu” psyche, via persistent and diligent work, by the RSS and its myriad affiliates, over decades and decades.

Moreover, much of the “opposition” may start melting away even before the real fight starts.

However, one has no option but to hope against hope and fight back.

Courtesy: Counter View

The post India’s 2019 Parliamentary poll outcome: Drivers and consequences – An exploration appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
The 7-phase 17th LokSabha poll commenced on April 11, 2019 and concluded on May 19, covering 542 of the total 543 constituencies. Polling in the remaining constituency, in Tamil Nadu, stands deferred. The counting commenced on May 23, 2019 and concluded the next day.The broad outlines of the outcomes were, however, available on the first day of the counting itself.The incumbent regime came back to power with a bang.
 
Never before, in the recent past, has India so keenly awaited the results, because never before, in the recent past,has India stood so sharply divided.
 
So much so that the Time magazine described Indian Prime Minister NarendraModi as India’s “divider-in-chief” on the cover of its May 20, 2019 issue¹. Modi’s picture was on all international issues of the magazine, except the United States edition. The cover story², written by novelist AatishTaseer, had the headline: “Can the world’s largest democracy endure another five years of a Modi government?” A second one³, however, by Ian Bremmer, treatedModi far more positively, suggesting that Modiwas “India’s best hope” for economic reform.
 
Much before that – on March 15, 2019 – a long standing parliamentarian from the ruling BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP), SakshiMaharaj – also a saffron-robed Hindu monk – had predicted that after 2019, there would be no election in 2024.⁴Even President Ram NathKovind,in his customary address to the nation on the eve of the 70th Republic Day, had said⁵ that the 17th LokSabha election is not ‘once-in-a-generation’ but ‘once-in-a-century’ moment”.
 
All in all, the extraordinary salience of this poll, broadly mirroring that of the 1977, was widely acknowledged.⁶
 
The Poll Outcome
In a nutshell, the ruling BJP, in a “landslide” victory, won 303 seats (out of total 542 seats for which polls were held), up from previous 282, and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance won 353 seats. The Indian National Congress won 52 seats – up from 44, and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance won 91. Other parties and their alliances won 98 seats.⁷ 
 
In as many as 16 states and UTs, the BJP secured more than 50% of vote shares.⁸Nationally, the BJP’s vote share was 37.36% – up from 31.34%, while the Congress secured 19.49% – down from 19.52%.In terms of vote share, the next three largest parties are: AITC (4.07%); BSP (3.63%) and SP (2.55%).However, in terms of number of seats, DMK – a Congress ally, is the third largest party with 23 seats – all from Tamil Nadu.⁹
 
One of the notable aspects is that the Congress won none of the 25 seats in Rajasthan, won a lone seat (out 0f 29) in Madhya Pradesh and only 2 out of 11 seats in Chhattisgarh¹⁰.Barely six months prior, it had won the state assembly polls in these three states, under the same leadership, displacing the ruling BJP, led by the Modi-Shah duo.¹¹It, however, did fairly well in Punjab – winning 8 out of total 13. In the 2017 assembly polls in the state too, it had scored a convincing victory. Its vote share rose marginally, as compared to the assembly poll – from 38.5% to 40.12%.¹²
 
It did rather spectacularly well in Kerala – more so, keeping in mind its overall dismal performance – winning 15 out total 20 seats and its alliance partners winning another 4, conceding only 1 to the CPI(M) – the leader of the ruling coalition in the state.
 
In Tamil Nadu, it won 8 out of total 38, as the second largest partner in the DMK-led alliance.
 
The CPI(M) is down from 9, last time, to 3 – 2 in Tamil Nadu, as a constituent of the DMK-led alliance, and 1 in Kerala, as the leader of the ruling LDF. It could not secure even the second position in any of the seats in its erstwhile bastions – Tripura (with 2 sets) and West Bengal (with 42 seats).
 
The AAP is down from 4 (all in Punjab) to 1 (in Punjab).Last time, it had come second in all the 7 seats in Delhi and in 1seat in UP (Varanasi).This time, it conceded the second position to Congress, in 5 out of the 7 seats in Delhi. It did not contest from Varanasi.
 
The AITC is down from 34 to 22 seats (all in West Bengal), with a small rise in vote share.
 
The BSP is up from 0 to 10 (all in UP, in alliance with the SP and RLD), with some fall in vote share.
 
The DMK is up from 0 to 23 (all in Tamil Nadu), with some rise in vote share.^{13, 14}
 
The Landslide in Historical Perspective
This is by far the best performance by the BJP ever. This time, it has won 303 seats and secured 37.36% vote share as against 282 seats and 31.34% votes, last time, the best till then. Its previous best performance had been in 1998: 182 seats and 25.59% vote share.^{17, 18}
 
This poll outcome has been dubbed by quite a few media outlets, very much in tandem with their roles all along, as TsuNaMo (= Tsunami + Na(rendra) Mo(di)) or its various variants.¹⁵The label may be pretty well justified in terms of its (devastating) impact on the psyche of too many Indian citizens.¹⁶
 
So much so that even “sober” analysts have now started terming it as the confirmation of India’s transit, commencing in 2014, from, the now extinct “Congress system” – a term coined by an eminent social scientist, late Rajni Kothari¹⁹to denote the dominance of India’s multi-party democratic polity by the Congress – to a new “BJP system”.²⁰
 
The Congress System
It won’t be quite out of place to have a relook into what was the “Congress system”.
 
In 1952, the very first general election, the Congress had won 74.2% of the total seats, as against 3.3% by the second largest party and 45.9% vote share as against 10.6% of vote share. (The second largest parties in terms of seats and vote share were different.)In 1957, 75.1% of seats and 47.8% of votes, whereas the second largest, in terms of seats – 5.5%, and the one in terms of votes – 10.6%.In 1962, Congress won 73.1%  seats and 44.7%.of the votes. The second largest in terms of seats – 5.9% and the one in terms of votes – 10.0%.¹⁷In all these three polls the Congress mascot had been Independent India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
 
The “Congress system” did not mean the dominance only of the parliament by the Congress but of the states as well.
 
Nehru passed away in 1964.
 
The “Congress system” suffered a very major jolt in 1967, by losing a number of state assembly elections. The INC suffered significant losses in 7 states which included Gujarat, where INC won 11 out of 24 seats while Swatantra Party won 12 seats; Madras, where INC won 3 out of 39 seats and DMK won 25 seats; Orissa, where INC won 6 out of 20 seats and Swatantra Party won 8 seats; Rajasthan, where INC won 10 out of 20 seats and Swatantra Party won 8 seats; West Bengal, where INC won 14 out of 40 seats; Kerala, where INC won only 1 out of 19 seats and Delhi where INC won 1 out of 7 seats while the remaining 6 were won by Bharatiya Jana Sangh. The decline in support for Congress was also reflected by the fact that it lost control of six state governments in the same year.²¹
 
That, essentially, signalled the end of the “Congress system”.
Nevertheless, even in the 1967 parliamentary poll, Congress had won 54.4% of seats and 40.8% of votes. The closest opponents had  5.9% seats and 10.0% of the votes.In 1971, in the parliamentary poll, the Congress faction led by Mrs Indira Gandhi, however, scored a very convincing victory: 68.0% seats and 43.7% vote share. The nearest opponents had 4.8% seats and 10.4% of the votes. The number of seats won by the Congress, as compared to its vote share, came down because of a higher index of opposition unity.
 
Regardless, the era of unilateral dominance by the Congress party had ended in 1967 itself. In 1977, post the Emergency, Congress, under Indira Gandhi, suffered an ignominious defeat, with its vote share plunging to 34.7% and seat share to 28.4%. This was the result of across-the-board opposition unity coming on top of widespread popular revulsion against the Emergency. The party that replaced the Congress in the parliament was, for all practical purpose, a coalition of parties, which could not hold together for too long.
 
The era of coalition was, effectively, inaugurated.
The Congress would, however, reach its peak parliamentary poll performance in 1984: 78.6% of seats and 49.1% of votes. The nearest opponents had 4.3% seats and 7.7% of the votes.
 
But, that would prove to be just a flash in the pan, which had been  triggered by an extraordinary situation marked by the bloody Khalistani movement in Punjab, consequent Hindu exodus, capture of the famed Golden Temple by the armed militants, followed by the “Operation Blue Star” by the Indian Army causing a large number of deaths and severe damage to the temple, the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister by two of her Sikh bodyguards, sparking off a massacre of Sikhs in Delhi and elsewhere.The “national security” card was used by the Congress, led by the just deceased Prime Minister’s only surviving son, to the hilt.
 
To that extent, the just concluded poll bears an eerie resemblance to the one in 1984.
 
The fall of Congress, since’84, has been fairly steep.The “Congress system”, as it appears, had been born with Jawaharlal Nehru as the first Prime Minister of India and withered away with his death.
 
Regardless, this time, the BJP has won 51.93% of seats and secured 37.36% of votes. Congress, the nearest opponent, in terms of both seats and vote share has 21.40% seats and 19.49% votes.¹³
 
Moreover, except for Kerala, the Congress had, till 1984, fought the general elections,by and large, without any ally. That’s far from the case with the BJP.
 
Even leaving aside the condition of the states, the present situation can hardly be bracketed with the Congress dominance till 1967, not even during the period from 1971-84, barring 1977-80.
 
There is, of course, a more salient dividing line separating the two – while the “Congress system”, despite some serious aberrations, operated broadly to strengthen the “Idea of India” that underpinned the Indian Constitution, this time, that very notion is faced with a mortal threat. More on this later.
 
Two Advance Signals
Even before the actual counting of votes began, two advance signals, as regards the likely outcome, became available. One, explicit, the other, implicit.
 
The obvious signal was, of course, the results of the various exit polls, released after the conclusion of the final phase of polling on May 19th.
 
The exit poll projections, however, widely diverged.While the India Today-Axis poll predicted around 352 seats for the BJP-led NDA – with a clear and emphatic majority by a margin of around 80 seats – and around 92 seats for the Congress-led UPA, the NewsX-Netapoll, at the opposite end of the spectrum, predicted 242 for the former and 164 for the latter, and, thereby, a hung parliament with the NDA enjoying a clear advantage.¹³
It is specifically in this context that the second signal, which was more implicit, became significant. Reproduced below is an introductory comment²² to a mail posted by this analyst on May 21, 2019.
 
“Considering the provisional figure of 67.11% of polling this time, it’s a rise of 0.71% points over the preceding poll in 2014 (66.40%, as reported by the wikipedia).2014 itself had seen a jump of a rather phenomenal 8.50% points from 57.90% in 2009 (as reported by the wikipedia).The outcome was that since 1984, for the first time, a single party did won an absolute majority, even if it had fought the poll in alliance with a few others and its vote share of 31.34% was the lowest ever for a party winning absolute majority.
 
The fact that the voting percentage has further gone up, even if only marginally, would tend to indicate a wave, given the phenomenal jump in the preceding poll.The only plausible candidates available to cause a wave are Pulwama/Balakot and anti-minority prejudices or anger.The Nyaya (read: NYAY) in any case, meant only for the bottom-most 20% of the populace which is the most difficult to be accessed, is hardly a competitor.The other likely candidate could be strong disaffection with the present dispensation – the hoax of “Acche Din”.But, that would have, normally, brought the polling percentage down, not pushed it up.
 
By the way, exit polls, almost unfailingly, miss the magnitude of a large swing. But, all these are, admittedly, speculations.One will have to wait for the 23rd, just two days away.”
 
In the event, the NDA won 353 seats and the UPA 91.¹³ That is pretty close to the projections made by the India Today-Axis poll, placed at one extreme end of the spectrum of exit polls.
 
The Drivers
In 2014, the BJP, fighting as an opposition party, had polled 31.34% of the votes.It may not be too irrational to assume that, by that time, it had built up a rather stable/core support base of at least around 20% of the voting population – about 2/3rd of its total votes polled.In 2009, it had polled 18.80% votes, in 2004, 22.16% votes and in 1999,  23.75% votes. In 1998, its vote share was 25.59%, in 1996, it was 20.29% and in 1991,it got 20.04% of the votes.^{17, 23}Thus, around 20% of the voters may be taken to be rather steadfastly committed to the ideology of “Hindutva” – an Indian shorthand for Hindu nationalism/supremacism.
 
The last time, Modiwas able to garner around 10% additional points over and above its (presumed) core support base.The reasons, as it appeared then, were mainly the following:
 

1. Rampant corruption indulged in by the outgoing UPA-II and, the preceding, UPA-I. This public perception of the prevalent corruption was triggered by the CAG reports issued around then, and some court cases. It was, further, sharply aggravated by the agitation led by Anna Hazare – an ex-military man, paraded as a Gandhian – collaborating with a Hindu Yoga guru-cum-entrepreneur having a large fan base, Baba Ramdev, and aided by among others, his then lieutenant ArvindKejriwal. 
2. The consequent “policy paralysis” on the part of the government, as trumpeted, especially, by the corporate media. 
3. Modi being able to raise and communicate these issues from his campaign platform, with telling effect, and his promise to end corruption, bring back black money – accompanied with the alluring assurance of depositing Rs 15 lakh in every poor/salaried person’s bank account.²⁴ 
4. This was further accentuated by his call of “SabkaSaath, Sabka Vikas!”²⁵ (With All, Development of All!). Also tersely captured in the slogan of “Acche Din!”²⁶ was a promise of better days to come. 
5. All this gained considerable credibility based on the skilfully constructed and forcefully propagated narrative of “Gujarat (the state of which Modihad been the Chief Minister for well over a decade by then) model of development”.²⁷ 
6. Last, but not the least, was the resort to (accentuated) communal polarisation, in a calibrated and targeted manner, aided by the Muzaffarnagar riot in western UP.²⁸

 
While the collapse²⁹ of the “Acche Din” promise should have had effected significant erosion in the floating votes gathered last time, Pulwama-Balakot, or rather the (concocted?) narrative³⁰ built around it, aided by a conniving EC and blared ad nauseam by the obliging, and “patriotic”, media – the electronic even more so – made it a sure fire game changer.The ruling party, in a way, got merged with the (brave) armed forces of the country.Modi claimed, and got, full credit for the (presumed) resounding slap delivered by the Indian forces in the face of Pakistan.He would thus urge the (first-time) voters: “can your first vote be dedicated to the veer jawans (valiant soldiers) who carried out the air strike in Pakistan? Can your first vote be dedicated to the veer shaheed (brave martyrs) of Pulwama (terror attack)?”³¹“Ghar Me GhusKe Marunga“³² (I’d finish you off, by invading your holes!) – the shrill cry emanating from the Indian Prime Minister, was, arguably, the most emblematic campaign line of the Modi-BJP camp.
 
The main opposition in the field, the Congress, found itself utterly helpless. It could neither challenge the narrative – that might have had proved even more disastrous – nor posit an alternative narrative with matching appeal, more so, given the biased nature of the media.The “NYAY” – in any case, ostensibly directed at the bottom-most 20%, the most difficult to be accessed, was just no match, even if one sets aside the issue of credibility.
 
Despite the, apparently, spirited fight-back, the inevitable has happened. A wave of nationalist jingoism unfailingly helps a right-wing party, particularly, if in power.Thus,Vajpayee had scored a clear victory in the 1999 poll, on the back of the Kargil War – facilitated by a monumental failure of the military intelligence on the Indian side – despite the far premature and ignominious collapse of the coalition government led by him. He would, however, suffer a defeat, next time (2004), unaided by any such surge, despite successfully running the coalition, this time round.
 
Moreover, no factor is a stand-alone entity.The surge of jingoism emerged out of the latent, or even overt, feelings of animosity towards the (hated) “other” – the Muslims – persistently cultivated³³ by the regime.The surge only helped to cross the tipping point, to propel the voter to vote for Modi/BJP, despite all his glaring fiascos,particularly on the economic front.
 
Reproduced below is a rather longish, nevertheless worth citing, extract from a recent write-up³⁴ carried by a South Asian journal.
 
Five years later, barring qualified progress in some areas – toilets, roads, renewable energy, cooking gas – Modi’s promise of vikas has turned out empty. Even governments we rate below-average have arguably delivered similarly spotty progress, as in the preceding UPA regime. Make in India, Skill India and Digital India mostly remain slogans. Demonetisation showed the gaping idiocy and dangerous autocracy in Modi’s decision-making, which callously overruled the advice from experts that only a miniscule amount of black money was in cash. Far from raising India’s prestige and soft power in the world, the press in Europe and North America mostly brackets him and his movement with dubious figures like Trump, Putin, Ergodan and Bolsonaro. Modi has said the climate is not changing, our tolerance for the weather is. He holds asinine views about ancient Hindu feats in genetic science and cosmetic surgery. Despite a historic windfall from low oil prices, he now presides over a deepening farm crisis, an economic slowdown and the highest unemployment in 45 years. Vikas?
 
In 2014, Modi ran on a platform of vikas but mostly delivered Hindutva. In 2019, he ran on a platform of Hindutva, with little talk of vikas, smart cities, betibachao, black money, or Skill India. In 2019, Modi wore his religion on his sleeve. He and his party incited fear of the ‘other’ and made dog whistles and thinly veiled threats of violence and genocide. He gave LokSabha tickets to noted communal bigots of the RSS, including one who calls Godse a patriot. So what can we rationally expect from Modi this time? Even less vikas, I think, when the mandate is clearly for Hindutva, paving the way for the far right’s dream of a Hindu Rashtra, a state legally conceived not as secular but a Hindu polity and whose structures and institutions are based on the forms and priorities of Hindu culture and religion.
 
So how did Modi win this time? A big part of the answer is the powerful opium of Hindu nationalism. The BJP won because a great many Hindus are high on Hindutva. The SanghParivar has learned to exploit the well-known cultural inferiority complex of the Hindu middle class, which grew out of India’s colonial encounter with Europe. Alongside, they stoke fears that a billion-plus Hindus are under siege by Muslims, refugees, leftists, Pakistan and pesky “anti-nationals.” The well-funded propaganda arms of the BJP and SanghParivar spread a lurid and manufactured sense of historical hurt, key to sustaining Hindutva nationalism. Run by an army of paid trolls, they fan both hate and pride by peddling fantasies of past greatness, military might, superpower dreams, surgical strikes and fake news. The ordinary Hindu’s sense of history is now filled with malicious lies and manufactured resentments against pre-colonial Muslim rule and he wants to settle the score by punishing today’s Muslims.
 
During the voting season, I’d predicted that BJP’s decision to lead with Hindutva and its cynical post-Pulwama airstrikes would be a winning strategy. It more than offset their failures on the economy – a trick that countless demagogues have tried. Stated differently, the BJP’s actual performance on the economy became irrelevant against the joys and psychic highs of Hindu pride and nationalism, which the BJP stoked, playing the people like a fiddle. The BJP turned hate and anger into an animating, intoxicating and rallying force – risking the unleashing of even darker forces that, in time, they may not be able to control. Among other big contributors to the BJP victory were a brazenly partisan media that stumps for Modi and cultivates support for authoritarian rule; high octane propaganda on social media; and a hopelessly divided political opposition, who undercut each other’s votes in India’s first-past-the-post system.
 
That’s fairly comprehensive.
However, it does appear to severely underrate, though not outright overlook, the salience of the Pulwama/Balakot factor³⁵ in the last poll.In fact, with the Election Commission very much on his side³⁶, Modi further accentuated its effect, making mincemeat of the Model Code of Conduct, via a nationally televised address to announce the successful firing of an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile in the outer space – the first time for India³⁷, when the poll process was already on.(In fact, it looks rather miraculous that for the bulk of post-poll analyses – across the lines – Pulwama-Balakot which were so very glaring, almost just never happened!)
 
Consequent to the stirred up jingoist surge, Modi could further reinforce the strongman (56” chest) image of himself – built up assiduously over the last five years using the official machinery to the hilt.³⁸
 
Other than that, another analyst³⁹ puts a spotlight on three (presumably decisive) factors: Money (highly asymmetric access to financial resources largely engineered via a controversial Act, legislated through stealth, for the specific purpose⁴⁰), (Electronic Voting) Machine and Media ( acting, by and large, as a partisan player).⁴¹The point made regarding the EVM is, however, pretty much controversial⁴².

The social media, manipulated by a huge troll army, also, predictably, played some part⁴³.Apart from toilets (under Swacch Bharat) andUjjwala (cooking gas for poor households) – as mentioned in the extract reproduced above, regardless of patchy performance, the PradhanMantriKisanSamman Nidhi⁴⁴ also appears to have played a role. As did the rural housing scheme⁴⁵. But these sundry factors – including 10% reservation⁴⁶ for “economically backward” members of the castes/groups not till then covered by the provisions of “reservation” – in themselves, cannot but be anything more than minor add-ons.
 
The main and, in fact, the only national opposition – relentlessly campaigning against the ruling Modi/BJP – the Congress party, presented a fairly decent poll manifesto.⁴⁷But, with its limitations of resources, in terms of finance, as compared to the ruling party, organisational structure and, perhaps most importantly, the way it was treated by the mainstream media, it failed to reach out.
 
Apart from that, its masthead slogan – AbHoga NYAY⁴⁸ (Now Justice Will Be Done) – had, apparently, a basic design flaw. One, the NYAY scheme, meant to give out substantive cash doles to the (economically) bottom-most 20% households held no promise for the rest 80%. Two, it had the issue of credibility⁴⁹ – whether it could be really implemented, given the financial constraints and structural limitations of government machinery. Three, it might have even evoked adverse reactions, in various degrees, from the rest 80% – envy from those just falling beyond the limit and the rest – better off ones, in particular – conceiving it as a waste of their “hard-earned” money. Fourth, the bottom-most 20% is, in any case, are conceivably the most difficult to be accessed.
 
Its main attack line against the BJP was: ChowkidarChor Hai!⁵⁰ (The Watchman Is A Thief!). It was, primarily, based on the visibly murky Rafale jet deal steered by none other than Modi himself. But, the roles played by the Supreme Court⁵¹, the CAG⁵², the financial watchdog, and, most of all, the media⁵³, turned out to be pretty much unhelpful. Consequently, it also failed to find a resonance.
 
The failure of the opposition parties to form a united national alliance,a la 1977, to confront the BJP – apparently, quite a non-feasible proposition – eventually mattered rather little.⁵⁴
 
Just stunned by the official outcome, some of the opponents – both party and non-party, of the regime have claimed that the BJP victory has been engineered by the EVMs being  tampered with by the ruling party.⁵⁵This, however, has been rather compellingly negated⁵⁶ by one analyst running a fact-checking website⁵⁷ and enjoying considerable reputation for objectivity despite his known leftist political inclinations⁵⁸.The same issue(s) had been dealt with in even greater details⁵⁹ by an expert, associated with the opposition CPI(M)⁶⁰, drawing similar conclusions:
 
It is not our argument that Indian EVMs are hack proof. No machine built by anybody, however competent they are, can be made free from hacking by skilled hackers. We have argued that it will require physical access to the machines – whether in the factory or outside – to carry out this hacking.
 
As we have described in detail while discussing the administrative procedures, the EVMs have to pass the various verification procedures that involve representatives of political parties. These checks require that political parties understand and have an informed participation in these processes. Apart from physically verifying the EVMs, there are also randomisation procedures that involve the presence and participation of political party representatives.Therefore, hacking such a system can be done only with a massive conspiracy, and with either the wilful participation of the opposition parties in this conspiracy, or their complete ignorance of what is going on.
 
Nevertheless, the final conclusion drawn by this author needs be taken with all seriousness and implemented.
 
Finally, elections must not only be fair but also seen to be fair. Therefore, our argument is that the ECI must not use the VVPAT as just an ornament forced on it by the Supreme Court, and do a token verification. It should do a real verification by tallying the paper slips of the VVPATs with the electronic count in the EVM. Only then will the ECI be able to put to bed the suspicions people have of their votes being hijacked by a ghost in the machine.
 
Moreover, the process of filing complaints on observing discrepancy between the button pressed and the paper trail displayed needs be made more complainant-friendly than it is now.There should also be mandatory counting of all paper trails where the winning margin is 1%, or below, of the total votes polled.
 
Lastly, a look at how the voters have voted.
 
The votes cast, as is well-known, are anonymous.Even then, surveys by non-government institutions are carried out to explore the profiles of the support base for various contesting parties.At least three noteworthy analyses⁶¹ are available in the public domain. These are not congruent.Yet, the essential point that emerges is that the BJP has, this time, further consolidated Hindu support, across caste divides. But, it, nevertheless, still enjoys more support from the rich and upper castes, even though there has been a sharper rise in case of lower castes, including Dalits, and Adivasis. In stark contrast, little support from the non-Hindus – 10% or thereabout.
 
All in all, Hindutva in combination with Modi’s carefully constructed image as a strongman riding on the upsurge of jingoism triggered by the narrative built around Pulwama-Balakot,  trumped his rather dismal failure on all other fronts and very much neutralised the opposition campaigns.
 
The roles played by the (supposedly neutral) Election Commission and the mainstream media were, apparently, of huge significance. Also the grossly disproportionate access to financial resources.
 
Of course, Tamil Nadu and Kerala are the two most glaring exceptions. There are a few others as well.But, the BJP virtually swept the heartland, except in Punjab.
 
What Now?
As far as the opposition camp is concerned, the first response to the defeat is dismay and disarray.
 
The main opposition party Congress, with its President, Rahul Gandhi, announcing his decision to quit his post regardless of the urgings to the contrary by its highest decision-making body, Congress Working Committee (CWC), is still in turmoil.⁶²Others also appear to be rather nonplussed. The case of the West Bengal Chief Minister is an illustrative example.⁶³
 
The Muslims, the bete noire of the BJP (and its ideological anchor organisation, the RSS), are, apparently, dispirited. Some eminent Muslims have, reportedly, written⁶⁴ to the Prime Minister welcoming his address on May 26 to NDA MPs and offered “utmost cooperation” to him in reaching out to the community.Another, known name from the community, has, on the contrary, in a reasoned and spirited appeal⁶⁵, urged the community to make common cause with “liberals, social democrats, socialists, communists, large sections of the underprivileged, the poor, and sections of scholars” in the fight for dignified survival. Obviously, all these are indicative of the ongoing turbulence within.
 
The BJP – the Modi-Shah duo, in particular, is, obviously, only too elated.Modi is taking this opportunity also to refashion the organisational power structure.⁶⁶What, however, is far more germane in anticipating the developments in the coming days is that the BJP/RSS has a project – to supplant the “secular” and “democratic” Indian state with a “Hindu Rashtra” (Hindu nation state) – the contours of which are, understandably, not etched in stone, but, even then, would mean complete negation of substantive democracy and pluralism. Of still greater salience, the journey towards it has got to be propelled by constant stirring up of hatred and violence against the constructed inimical “others”, in order to mobilise the Hindus as “Hindus”, drowning out all other competing identities.⁶⁷
 
Taking off from that basic proposition, the new regime is likely to have two major focal points on the “political” front⁶⁸:
 

1. Dismantling of all opposition – both party and non-party.Towards that end, dislodging, maybe even dismissal, of, at least a few, opposition-run state governments;ED, IT, and CBI raids on opposition politicians and also, in some cases, buying them out can be expected. All this leads to tightening the screw, so to say, in a myriad ways – including enhanced digital surveillance, also with regard to  the civil society organisations and dissenting individuals.
2. Sharply spiking communal polarisation by way of (phased?) nationwide roll-out of the NRC⁶⁹, also scrapping of Art. 370 (and Art. 35A)⁷⁰ and putting to good use the Mandir-Masjid issue(s)⁷¹, as per the demands of the situation.
3. Other expected developments are:
   (i) Further intensification of non-state physical violence.⁷²

(ii) Mega sale of PSUs.⁷³
(iii) “Economic reforms”.⁷⁴
(iv) Stepped up trashing of environmental norms and safeguards.⁷⁵
(v) Tightening the grip over the education infrastructure and institutions.⁷⁶
(vi) Further defanging of watchdog institutions.⁷⁷
(vii) More repressive laws, if felt necessary.
 
While the actual (detailed) work plan will evolve and be calibrated, based on the perceived ground situations, and be punctuated with some measures to project a “people-friendly” image⁷⁸ – to confuse and divide the potential opposition – there is little scope that the general direction would be anything significantly different from the one sketched out above.
 
It would no longer be business as usual, not even by the standards of the last five years.
 
Conclusion
Modi 2.0 presents us with the real and looming threat of the dismantling of an”India” – embodying the values of “democracy”, “pluralism” and “egalitarianism”, that had been wrought out in the crucible of the epic freedom struggle, and which, finally emerged on the August 15, 1947 – all in pursuance of a project to supplant it with a “Hindu Rashtra” (Hindu nation state). This is sought to be achieved by mobilising the Hindus of India as “Hindus”, drowning out all other identities linked to language, culture, gender, caste, class etc., and constantly stoking hatred and violence against the constructed inimical “others”.Regardless of all the (innumerable) flaws and shortcomings that “India” – real and even notional, – encapsulates, the success of the above project would prove to be an unmitigated disaster for the vast majority of the people inhabiting this land.
 
What could offer at least some chance to avert such a predicament is a broad front/fronts consisting of political parties, as many as possible – including their associated mass organisations, and non-party civil society organisations – based on the common agenda of saving democracy/democratic rights and unity of the country. This should be backed actively, by right-minded, otherwise diffused, individuals and should be in addition to the ongoing and futurevarious specific issue-based struggles taken up by various constituents in their own ways – unitedly or independently.
 
Determined and consistent resistance has got to be offered on all available terrains – including parliamentary, legal, media (both traditional and new) and the streets, and in all available political and civil spaces. It is, admittedly, a stupendous task given that

1. the regime has the levers of the state power under its control – providing it with a disproportionate advantage to set and control the narrative (Pulwama-Balakot being a graphic illustration), and
2. theregime has found not too inconsiderable success in vitiating the “Hindu” psyche, via persistent and diligent work, by the RSS and its myriad affiliates, over decades and decades.
3. Moreover, much of the “opposition” may start melting away even before the real fight starts.

 
However, one has no option but to hope against hope and fight back.

Notes and References:
1.     Ref: <https://imagesvc.timeincapp.com/v3/mm/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftimedotcom.files.wordpress.com%2F2019%2F05%2F0520_modi.jpg&w=800&c=sc&poi=face&q=85>.
2.     Ref.: <http://time.com/5586415/india-election-narendra-modi-2019/>.
3.     Ref.: <http://time.com/5586417/hope-for-economic-reform-in-india/>.
4.     Ref.: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdwVVUT7LHM>.
5.     Ref.: <https://indianexpress.com/article/india/2019-elections-century-moment-voting-sacred-president-kovind-republic-day-speech-5555396/>.
6.     E.g.: <https://theprint.in/opinion/2019-lok-sabha-elections-more-polarising-than-1977-which-saw-the-fall-of-indira-gandhi/231707/>.
7.     Ref.: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Indian_general_election> and <http://results.eci.gov.in/pc/en/partywise/index.htm>.
8.     Ref.: <https://www.livemint.com/elections/lok-sabha-elections/bjp-secures-50-or-more-vote-share-in-16-states-uts-together-1558896859828.html>.
9.     Ref.: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Indian_general_election>.
10.  Ref.: <http://results.eci.gov.in/pc/en/partywise/partywiseresult-S26.htm?st=S26>.
11. Ref.: <https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/congress-wins-chhattisgarh-rajasthan-mp-assembly-elections-trs-sweeps-telangana/321603>.
12. Ref.: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Punjab_Legislative_Assembly_election> and <http://results.eci.gov.in/pc/en/partywise/partywiseresult-S19.htm?st=S19>.
13. Ref.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Indian_general_election
14.  Ref.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2014_Indian_general_election.
15. Just two representative examples: <https://www.business-standard.com/podcast/current-affairs/exit-polls-go-beyond-modi-wave-predict-tsunamo-a-4-minute-wrap-up-119052000213_1.html> and <https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/why-media-missed-the-tsunamo/articleshow/69474429.cms>.
16. Ref., e.g.: <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/16/you-know-indias-democracy-is-broken-when-millions-wait-election-results-fear/?utm_term=.1cb0dd64238f>.
17. Ref.: <http://www.democracy-asia.org/qa/india/KC%20Suri.pdf>
18.  Ref.: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Indian_general_election>.
19. Ref.: <https://www.jstor.org/stable/2642550?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents>.
20. Ref.: <https://www.thehindu.com/elections/lok-sabha-2019/analysis-highest-ever-national-vote-share-for-the-bjp/article27218550.ece>, to be read together with: <https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/fJx8pbHZO6KdvqErOulLZN/The-BJP-system.html> and <https://www.livemint.com/elections/lok-sabha-elections/ten-charts-that-explain-the-2019-lok-sabha-verdict-1558636775444.html>.
21. Ref.: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Indian_general_election>.
22. Ref.: ”LokSabha elections: At 67.1%, 2019 turnout’s a record, Election Commission says’: Likely Implications’ at <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/greenyouth/a2fek4E9XUQ>.
23. Ref.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2009_Indian_general_election_by_party.
24. Ref.: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqsDChcPxRU>.
25. Ref.: <https://www.indiatoday.in/world/americas/story/narendra-modi-sabka-saath-sabka-vikas-john-kerry-202063-2014-07-29>.
26. Ref.: <https://www.dnaindia.com/india/video-manmohan-singh-inspired-bjp-s-campaign-tagline-ache-din-aane-waale-hain-says-narendra-modi-1983560>.
27. Ref.: <https://qz.com/171409/gujarat-by-the-numbers/>. Also look up: <http://theconversation.com/should-india-really-follow-modis-gujarat-model-26917> and <https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/case-study/case-study-strategy-tactics-behind-creation-of-brand-narendra-modi/story/206321.html>.
28. Ref.: <https://scroll.in/article/675473/how-the-muzaffarnagar-polarisation-strategy-paid-off-for-the-bjp-and-why-its-being-used-again>.
29. Ref., e.g.: <http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4311065-India-Demonetisation-One-Year-After-A-Synoptic.html>, <https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/chaotic-gst-ahead/1449853/>,https://www.news18.com/news/business/gdp-growth-drops-to-5-8-in-january-march-the-worst-in-17-quarters-and-behind-china-for-first-time-in-2-years-2167055.html, <https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-s-unemployment-rate-hit-45-year-high-in-2017-18-report/story-1MYf1tFZ0thkz1UGfKp1BP.html> and <https://www.livemint.com/news/india/unemployment-rate-rises-to-45-year-high-of-6-1-in-fy18-official-data-1559306879836.html>.
30. Ref.: ‘Further Exposure on Balakot Bluff: ‘IAF findings that India shot down own helicopter put on hold until after elections (Updated with IAF rebuttal and my response)” at https://www.mail-archive.com/greenyouth@googlegroups.com/msg23599.html.
31. Ref: <https://www.financialexpress.com/elections/modi-speech-asking-first-time-voters-to-dedicate-ballot-to-pulwama-martyrs-not-violation-ec/1565162/>.
32. Ref.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SemvcQvQh5g.
33. Ref., e.g.: <https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2014/09/politics-love-jihad-damaging-secular-fabric-country/> and <https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/cow-vigilantes-in-india-killed-at-least-44-people-in-last-3-yrs-report-119022000520_1.html>.
34. Ref.: ‘A collective madness’ by NamitArora at <https://himalmag.com/a-collective-madness-india-elecions-modi-namit-arora-2019/>.
Yet another noteworthy one: ‘India has gone from false hopes in 2014 to false pride in 2019’ by PranabBardhan at <https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/preening-nationalism-5781485/?fbclid=IwAR35tRK2n1x8RXF9zO-u0GdHayW5Ko8JxkJBayE4u67p5N_6rdxWopxq6kg>.
35. Ref.: https://theprint.in/opinion/pulwama-balakot-helps-modi-in-polls-issues-of-farmers-jobs-rafale-dont-exist-anymore/199143/ and https://www.livemint.com/elections/lok-sabha-elections/from-farm-to-fauj-seeds-of-nationalism-1553051665236.html.
36. Ref.: <https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/newsindia/clean-chit-to-pm-narendra-modi-ashok-lavasa-recuses-himself-from-ec-meetings/ar-AABxqYi?li=AAggbRN>.
37. Ref: <https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/narendra-modi-mission-shakti-tv-announcement-media-elections-2019-5649352/?fbclid=IwAR2uJ6nyRmwTAEAiOuJNn8pkxeiCJ2AsK69OcEGWFcYTWbOYSAtLZW_bodg> and <http://www.cndpindia.org/cndp-statement-on-the-asat-test/>.
38. Ref.: <https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/anil-vij-haryana-bjp-leader-praises-pm-narendra-modi-about-56-inch-chest-over-balakot-strike-1999610> and <https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-with-balakot-airstrikes-pm-modi-has-shown-he-is-a-man-with-56-inch-chest-amit-shah-2744055>.
39. Ref.: ‘The 2019 Elections Came Down to Money, EVM Machines and the Media: The fourth ‘M’ – the model code of conduct – was reduced to waste paper.’ by M.G. Devasahayam at <https://thewire.in/politics/elections-2019-money-evm-media>.
40. Ref., e.g.: https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/lok-sabha-elections-electoral-bonds-of-secrecy-political-parties-5655406/?fbclid=IwAR0R3ztFnB33pNARiFyfaAMJhnuEaBDKqm2qxJuf_MUNB6VaIEXDk4T-vJc, https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/ruling-bjp-bags-95-of-funds-why-there-s-an-uproar-over-electoral-bonds-119040500309_1.html?fbclid=IwAR15tSl29vKmwfDu4dFr4BTWtldkH7dsOfPBbOWsY5Lbsl6dCzasHFugxKc and https://www.boomlive.in/cms-report-bjp-spent-rs-27000-cr-on-the-most-expensive-indian-election-till-date/.
41. See also: https://kafila.online/2019/06/07/the-massive-mandate-of-2019-and-the-role-of-the-election-commission/?fbclid=IwAR05K5bbh-a95eDmc9Cci8UbGYwUJxByXRvO7dTxP30p83U3i2zwiZ8nTfw and, for the role of the media: <https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/democracy-can-die-in-daylight-too/article27902292.ece?fbclid=IwAR2RL4AGzZa1THDbvuLZ51NR8Cate3rJ6SvLoj62aYar9iIw77cH5MqDkYI> and <https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/how-indias-media-landscape-changed-over-five-years>.
42. https://www.facebook.com/freethinker/posts/10157182374108609, <https://scroll.in/article/920203/large-scale-evm-rigging-is-almost-impossible-but-election-commission-must-act-to-reassure-sceptics> and https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/revisiting-evm-hacking-story.
43. Ref: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2019/01/11/long-read-india-online-how-social-media-will-impact-the-2019-indian-general-election/, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/role-of-social-media-as-influencer-of-voting-choices-overhyped-csds-study/article27819723.ece?fbclid=IwAR3fH67-8fj-z5rwuc4wg7KSgYeS7aoDzlsj2vVICIAnGDuy8NGURlgn1KY and <https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/telling-numbers-voters-rarely-share-political-views-content-online-5777817/?fbclid=IwAR07xjbDhm54t3o3fNWcPgNNtkyrKjRl044vcHCujVyVZgN31tkzXCf6xDg>.
44. Ref.: https://www.businesstoday.in/current/economy-politics/pm-kisan-centre-pays-around-rs-10500-crore-towards-first-second-tranche/story/339830.html.
45. Ref.: <https://www.insightsonindia.com/2019/01/19/pradhan-mantri-awas-yojana-gramin-pmay-g/>.
46. Ref.: <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/greenyouth/aXMX-uecoIo> and <https://www.livemint.com/news/india/why-the-10-quota-may-not-make-sense-1560423749061.html>.
47. Ref.: <https://manifesto.inc.in/en/> and <https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=forums&srcid=MDkzMzQxNDY4MDA2ODI0NzY2MDABMTQ3OTU1OTc0ODIwNzcyMzI3MjIBek9tUmVRTW5BZ0FKATAuMQEBdjI&authuser=0>.
48. Ref.: <https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha-2019/story/congress-campaign-tagline-ab-hoga-nyay-rahul-gandhi-1496062-2019-04-07>.
49. Ref.: <https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/general-elections-2019/rahul-gandhi-may-bet-big-on-nyay-but-how-viable-is-it-63724> and <https://www.livemint.com/elections/lok-sabha-elections/ten-principles-to-do-justice-to-nyay-1556634265094.html>.
50. Ref.: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chowkidar_Chor_Hai>.
51. Ref.: <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/greenyouth/rafale$2C$20supreme$20court$2C$20worst$20ever$2C$20sukla$20sen%7Csort:date/greenyouth/5-fzbo1AY5o/Q3ok19vqBQAJ>.
52. Ref.: <https://www.livemint.com/politics/news/cag-sees-17-savings-in-renegotiated-rafale-deal-1550039618464.html>.
53. The mainstream media, by and large, underplayed the issue. It appears even more so if one keeps Bofors in mind. The Hindu was almost the sole exception, that too at a rather late stage:https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/investigative-reports-by-n-ram-on-the-rafale-deal/article26447043.ece.
54. Ref.: https://scroll.in/article/924720/data-check-would-anti-bjp-parties-have-done-better-if-the-congress-had-sewn-up-more-alliances.
55. Ref.: https://www.msn.com/en-in/video/news/mayawati-accuses-of-evm-tampering/vi-AABOfw6, https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/mamata-banerjee-claims-bjp-pre-programmed-evms-during-lok-sabha-polls-2019/1607285/?fbclid=IwAR1K33nhGRFX8I0hGZJSUgOg4RnoC0KhIf1HJqlKpv7srXkOG_LuvpFCUp8, https://kafila.online/2019/06/07/the-massive-mandate-of-2019-and-the-role-of-the-election-commission/?fbclid=IwAR05K5bbh-a95eDmc9Cci8UbGYwUJxByXRvO7dTxP30p83U3i2zwiZ8nTfw and <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScFNbd39hVVViZEjC868YMUW6Th_Zu8CbfOjp9_8oAZ6_0vrg/viewform?fbclid=IwAR0CTpLC6acQdd5LXuAwcTH2V69HW7m0otlrub1zE_pTGfVJXVi4iBzaqDE>.
56. Ref.: https://www.facebook.com/freethinker/posts/10157182374108609.
57. Ref.: <https://www.altnews.in/>.
58. Ref.: <https://ahmedabadmirror.indiatimes.com/others/anniversary-special/fighting-fake-news-epidemic/articleshow/67997862.cms>.
59. Ref.: https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/there-no-ghost-indian-electronic-voting-machine. Also, the further update: <https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/revisiting-evm-hacking-story>.
As it appears, till now, only one defeated (Congress) candidate, contesting from North Mumbai, has filed formal complaint with the ECI as regards EVM discrepancy in one polling booth (ref.: <https://twitter.com/OfficialUrmila/status/1131442691219304448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1131442691219304448&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thehindubusinessline.com%2Fnews%2Felections%2Furmila-matondkar-files-complaint-against-evm-discrepancies-at-magathane-polling-station%2Farticle27217378.ece>). She, however, is declared defeated by a margin of over 4.65 lakh votes (ref.: <https://www.news18.com/news/politics/mumbai-north-election-results-2019-live-updates-north-mumbai-north-bombay-winner-loser-leading-trailing-2153955.html>).
60. Ref.: <https://www.facebook.com/cpimcc/photos/a.246081492230205/420866571418362/?type=1&theater>.
61. Ref.: <https://www.thehindu.com/elections/lok-sabha-2019/the-verdict-is-a-manifestation-of-the-deepening-religious-divide-in-india/article27297239.ece>, <https://scroll.in/article/925925/are-indias-elite-anti-bjp-actually-saffron-party-got-greatest-support-from-upper-castes-rich?fbclid=IwAR3Uu2LBKFaok7fjZzuOi7YuYI7bLTKUXV8edxG089uwiTTbFDbbG_bBOFo> and <https://www.livemint.com/politics/news/where-did-the-bjp-get-its-votes-from-in-2019-1559547933995.html>.
62. Ref.: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/congress-mulls-naming-interim-president/articleshow/69731928.cms, <http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2019/jun/12/congress-core-panel-axed-rahul-gandhi-to-remain-president-1989282.html?fbclid=IwAR2p6io0KUYeojwr72iirzbPSFKU_EOQ1xPnxVBdQQKp3-ZIg6Q01BT9c1M> and <https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/opinion/former-ias-officer-argues-rahul-gandhi-and-congress-must-stay-the-course?fbclid=IwAR0yd2ISuu9z5BRb_fULQHqb9iB4LWIuQCTi5Dv3xxunxad76NdM-XuS3ig>.
63. Ref.: <https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/those-living-in-bengal-will-have-to-learn-to-speak-in-bengali-mamata/787873.html?fbclid=IwAR2hgullFx5Pn1PV0P_R6wEhTgfW2WSxqZyGK1-3UVSvnfa850VC9GqTHy4>. 
Also, of relevance, as regards the Left: <https://www.asianage.com/india/politics/150619/cpi-proposes-merger-of-all-left-parties-in-india.html?fbclid=IwAR0_3rf_klJ1902xBYlN2WVz9BaaOh6Uj_zMpwqwS5ZNgTXr9aWbTn7OLTM>.
64. Ref.: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/eminent-muslim-citizens-want-pm-modi-to-focus-on-education-skills-and-confidence-building-for-minorities/articleshow/69639047.cms,https://web.dailyhunt.in/news/india/urdu/the+siasat+daily+english-epaper-siaseten/letter+to+pm+modi+from+muslim+intellectuals+sets+off+controversy-newsid-118049572 and <https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/muslim-leaders-seek-cbms-from-modi/article27823401.ece?homepage=true>.
65. Ref.: <https://thewire.in/politics/despondency-is-not-an-options-for-muslims-in-india-today>.
66. Ref.: <https://www.livemint.com/politics/news/sushma-swaraj-among-several-ex-ministers-dropped-from-the-council-of-modi-2-0-1559231740995.html> and https://www.news18.com/news/india/rajnath-singh-now-part-of-six-key-panels-of-govt-added-to-four-more-cabinet-committees-2175349.html.
67. For a brief comparative study of “Indian nationalism” vis-à-vis “Hindu nationalism” – including both congruence and discordance, may look up: ‘Indian Nationalism, Hindutva and the Bomb’ – the sub-section ‘Indian Nationalism vis-a-vis “Hindu” Nationalism’, in particular, by this analyst, at <http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article10225>. 
As regards the project, arguably, of some relevance: ‘BJP’s Real Agenda’, by this analyst, at <http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article30113>. That was some two decades back.
68. Ref.: <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/greenyouth/Amit$20Shah%7Csort:date/greenyouth/_rGIx5uRSmU/nmfsEYjFCAAJ>.
69. Ref.: <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/greenyouth/FE_iJH_1aI4>.
70. Ref.: <https://www.businesstoday.in/current/economy-politics/bjp-manifesto-promises-to-abrogate-article-35a-article-370/story/335132.html>.
71. Ref.: https://www.abplive.in/videos/ram-mandir-will-be-constructed-mohan-bhagwat-1000784.
72. Ref.: <https://peoplesdispatch.org/2019/05/29/as-modis-second-term-begins-violence-against-minorities-left-activists-continue/> and <https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/stories/why-indian-leader-modis-big-win-is-an-absolute-tragedy-for-christians/>.
73. Ref.: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/niti-aayog-readies-list-of-over-50-cpse-assets-for-sale/articleshow/69682397.cms.
74. Ref.: <https://www.livemint.com/news/india/modi-government-may-announce-big-bang-reforms-in-first-100-days-1559296867510.html>.
75. Ref.: <https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/documents-reveal-modi-and-javadekars-war-on-indias-environment_in_5c97cba3e4b0a6329e180367>.
76. Ref.: “This mandate is significant for another reason. It has completed the rejection and decimation of what Modi himself described as the “Khan Market cacophony” of pseudo-secular/liberal cartels that held a disproportionate sway and stranglehold over the intellectual and policy establishment of the country. Under Modi-II, the remnants of that cartel need to be discarded from the country’s academic, cultural and intellectual landscape [emphasis added].”
(See: ‘This election result is a positive mandate in favour of NarendraModi’ by Ram Madhav at <https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/lok-sabha-elections-result-narendra-modi-bjp-government-congress-5745313/>.)
77. Ref.: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/law-ministry-not-a-post-office-but-a-stakeholder-in-judicial-appointments-ravi-shankar-prasad/articleshow/69632865.cms.
78. Ref.: <https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/government-lifts-landholding-limit-extends-pm-kisan-scheme-to-all-farmers/article27697207.ece>.

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Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi appeals to the Election Commission of India for an enquiry into the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) tampering case and if need be for a re-conduct the Lok Sabha election 2019. 

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It has become imperative to understand and decipher the serge of right-wing populist leadership that India has seen from 2013 onwards. At this critical time, to understand and probe this astonishing victory of Narendra Modi and his party, the necessity to look at the history of right-wing populism is both essential and urgent. While traditional historical documents tend to privilege great events and leaders, other valuable and useful sources such as photographs, films, family albums, census records are useful to discern the lives of the larger populace. Films are one such important historical document of their times.  The language of film, the narrative, cites of love and violence amongst other crucial aspects is a vital sources of such an investigation.
 
Can a work of art, a painting, a photograph or a film be analysed as a forewarning of death, terror and tyranny? The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) is considered the definitive work of German Expressionist cinema in film history is one such film. But more than its visual style which effectively portrays its disjointed and horrific world, the film is also considered almost a prophetic warning of what was to come in the Germany of the 1930s-40s.
 
The protagonist Francis (Friedrich Feher), a young man recalls the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane have gone through in the recent past. On the occasion of the annual fair in Holstenwall, Francis and his friend Alan visit an exhibit — The Cabinet of DrCaligari, where the doctor shows off his somnambulist friend Cesare and awakens him from his deep sleep. When Alan enquires about his future, Cesare declares that he will die at first dawn. The next day Allan is found dead and the search for the murderer begins. Mean while Cesare is seen carrying an unconscious Jane. The mob chasing them through the streets of stark lights and shadows is cut abruptly when Cesare just leaves Jane on the street and vanishes.

Francis then follows Calligari to mental asylum where he is the director! The local police and Francis discover that Calligarihas been influenced by an occult medieval manuscript, has found a somnambulist and places him under a hypnotic spell, to subject him to his will, even to kill.
The film portrays the mood of the Germans, depressed by their defeat in the war, the loss of jobs and lives. German society was headed towards its weakest and the most vulnerable moment in history. Adolf Hitler would take over soon.

The renowned film theorist and culture critic Siegfried Kracauer wrote a distinctive book on German cinema, titled, “From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film”, in which he argues how German film directors foreshadowed in their works, the gruesome reality that was to take place almost a decade later. In his reading Caligari was Hitler and the German people were the sleepwalkers.

More often this historical reading into the collective psyche of nation gives us an insight into contemporary times, where once again populism is paired with a vision of divisive society. This reality is upon us. A disarrayed opposition with no sense of revival or reform, or even survival, has crumbled in the face of Dr Calligari who is leading the nation on a repetitive somnambular cycle, where murders, genocides, lynching and everyday misogyny is performed, over and over. The next cycle begins with absolutely no recollection of the previous one.

Those who refuse to be hypnotized to perform before this somnambulist spectacle are declared either a threat to this somnambulist state or are seen as insane inhabitants, dissonant this ‘civilized world’.

Our somnambulist nation state is so deeply attached to the idea that Dr Calligari has fed us through his ‘performances’, of speeches and personal interviews, that we celebrate the austerity of a man, while we know that in his sleep and to achieve his dream of the Hindu rashtra, he has burnt alive innocent children. We are ready to overlook the most heinous crimes because we feel that we shall be lead to a greater glory by Dr Calligari and his asylum, who while claiming to build a new India that rests on medieval notions that are bereft of any sense of human dignity. His team of Cesares roam freely on our streets and we have also liberally elected them as our representatives to continue this long dreadful sleepwalk.

History has lessons for us, but those lessons require rigour, understanding and empathy. In today’s times our collective somnambulism towards the empty spectacle of development, the fantasies of single homogenous identities have brought us to a juncture where we forget the crimes committed against our fellow citizens everyday, just as the new dawn cracks open.For the people of Germany the forewarning was wrapped in expressionism, our warnings were all around us when social welfare became secondary to profits, and the definition of development became flyovers, flashy malls and photo-shopped images.
 
This seismograph of the collective sub-consciousness of willingness to be violent has just started. Those of us who have been unable to be hypnotized are the ones who will have to endure the pain caused by this violence. At the same time, we will also have to fight intelligently and innovatively without fearing even bigger failures than those we have already endured.
 
(The author is a freelance writer, based out of Pune. She writes on issues of Cinema, Gender, Caste, De-notified Tribes, and Culture at the intersection of Neo-liberalism. She teaches Journalism and Film Studies at FLAME University)

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