A vocal for local verdict

By 6 pm on June 4, the world had heard the verdict of the world’s largest electoral exercise, with certain disbeliefs. Some 600 million people voted in what is now termed as India’s longest-ever election spread over seven phases.

The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was expected to smoothly walk into its third consecutive tenure with a bigger majority, while the opposition INDIA alliance led by the Congress party was to be pushed into electoral oblivion.

But the results by the evening (6.00 pm) threw a closely contested fight: 294 for NDA and 231 for INDIA alliance, with the BJP trailing much behind the majority mark of 272 seats on its own.  

The ruling alliance still enjoys a majority and can form the next government, but the dip in its number of seats raises a critical question: why didn’t it perform as expected? This is particularly pertinent to BJP which claimed 370 seats (also widely projected in various pre-election and exit polls). Why did people vote against it, costing it over 60 seats in comparison to its seat number in the 2019 general elections?

First, a quick electoral profile of India. Unlike the country’s skewed sex ratio, the voters are evenly balanced, and in fact India has more women voters than men: for 100 male voters, there are 110 women voters. Also, women are increasingly voting more and more.

Going by the country’s occupational profile, every second voter in India belongs to an agricultural household. Statistically deducing, the world’s largest democracy also hosts the maximum number of poor in the world as well as the highest number of unemployed youth currently.

As the campaign for the general elections started in early April, the BJP led by PM Modi set the agenda: he was seeking majority electoral consent to make India a “developed country” by 2047. The components of this developed country goal included: a US$5 trillion economy; employment for all; and rise of India’s clout in the global arena. And a metaphysical assurance of an India that is a “vishwaguru”. Modi sold it as his own “guarantee”, thus becoming the sole candidate for his party — irrespective of who was contesting, voters were told to vote for Modi. So, for the NDA, Modi was the only candidate.

As the campaigns progressed — with each phase of voting passing by — it turned out to be an outright communal and polarising election solely engineered by Modi himself. He stopped selling his “developed” India dreams, instead trying to divide voters to gain his core voters back.

This is where the voters made it a local election. The opposition INDIA block campaigned solely on raging local (but of prime importance) issues: unemployment, price rise, agrarian distress and dipping farmers’ income. They added caste-based social and economic distresses to this.

Interestingly, “Constitution” emerged as a powerful campaign issue. As Modi asked for 400 seats and many ruling party leaders demanded this majority to change the constitution, the Opposition presented this in local meetings as a certain stealing of rights — read affirmative actions like reservation for socially and economically underdeveloped communities in education and employment — by the ruling party. Inequality and justice for deprived groups gained prominence.

Arguably, constitutional rights became such an election issue that they resonated at very local levels. It became a point of conversation in roadside eateries and in village squares.

More than that, the socio-economic context of the elections made it a very local election. In April, the CSDS-Lokniti pre-poll survey unequivocally stated the growing resentments among voters.

In the survey, to the question “If you compare today with the last five years, do you think it is much easier to get jobs or has it become more difficult?”, 62 per cent people surveyed said it had become difficult. To the question, “What about the price rise? Has it increased or decreased in the last five years?” 71 per cent people surveyed said it had increased, more among the poor population covered under the survey.

In 2018, Modi promised what is known as the “New India” by 2022, the 75th anniversary of India’s independence (also known as India@75 vision). This promise, to be delivered in 2022, included: Employment, economic growth, doubling of farmers’ income, housing for all and a boost to the service sector.

There are at least 17 government targets that had a deadline in 2022 under the India@75 vision. According to an analysis published in the State of India’s Environment 2022 — which used government-published data — the country missed most of the targets.

Instead, in parameters like wage rate growth, employment and income of farmers, the government has utterly failed to meet the set target set for 2022.

India’s youth unemployment rate is unacceptably high. Youths account for nearly 83 per cent of the country’s total unemployed population. Every third young Indian is not pursuing education, or is not employed or has no skill-based training. Over two-fifths of the country’s youths are educated below the secondary level and just 4 per cent have access to vocational training.

For the decade 2012 to 2022, the “real” earning of a regular salaried and self-employed person in India has been declining, according to a recent report released by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Institute for Human Development (IHD), the Delhi-based non-profit set up by the Indian Society of Labour Economics.

The report “India Employment Report 2024” says that the average monthly real earnings of regular salaried and self-employed people “have either declined or remained stable”. “Real” earning is an inflation-adjusted figure. The report has used data from Government of India sources.

“The average monthly real earnings for regular salaried workers declined annually by 1.2 per cent, from 12,100 rupees in 2012 to 11,155 rupees in 2019, and by 0.7 per cent as of 2022, to 10,925 rupees,” estimates the report. The same trend is visible for self-employed Indians, who constitute a significant percentage of employed people. “The average real earnings of self-employed individuals declined annually by 0.8 per cent, from 7,017 rupees in 2019 to 6,843 rupees in 2022,” the report says.

In March, Lucas, with Thomas Piketty and Anmol Somanchi of the World Inequality Lab, released a working paper titled “Income and Wealth Inequality in India, 1922-2023: The Rise of the Billionaire Raj”. This paper builds on the “World Inequality Report 2022” and updates on inequality in India up to 2022. “Billionaire Raj” sounds a rather elevating phrase to an aspirational Indian since we are high on a dreamy path to become a developed economy.

“Fastest growing economy” was already a superlative that had become a poll slogan on the eve of the general elections. To make this growth look inclusive, the government has claimed to have helped 250 million escape poverty (the estimate is for multidimensional poverty, since India does not have an estimate of income poverty since 2012).

The number of billionaires in India has been increasing. In 1991, India had just one billionaire. By 2011, the number reached 52 and in the next one decade, it more than tripled to 162 in 2022. “Over this period, the total net wealth of these individuals as a share of India’s net national income boomed from under 1% in 1991 to a whopping 25% in 2022,” finds the paper. This level of inequality was observed before 1922, during the British Raj. This is why the authors have named their paper “Billionaire Raj”.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been harping on this inequality and Modi’s overt support to corporate houses to gain more has been one of his key campaign points. For a population that is not employed gainfully, and whose income has not been increasing for years, this resonated.

Modi coined this slogan some years ago to give fillip to local entrepreneurs: “Be vocal for local.” He meant Indians must be local in their preferences, whether for produce or even in deciding marriage venues. This narrative resonated, but just as a slogan.

His performance on the most important issues of unemployment, price rise and dipping income doesn’t reflect his vocal for local slogan. As his turn came, voters made it an electoral slogan.