This year’s Indian general election has arguably raised more questions about the fairness of the electoral process than any other time in the country’s history.
For example, in December the Indian Parliament passed a bill allowing an executive-dominated committee to appoint election commissioners, raising many concerns that this could jeopardize free and fair elections.
During the election campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also made a series of speeches that were widely considered Islamophobic, including accusing the opposition Indian National Congress of favouring Muslims, and the Election Commission failed to properly enforce the Model Code of Conduct regarding such comments.
Meanwhile, opposition chief ministers Arvind Kejriwal of the Ahmed Ahmed Party (AAP) and Hemant Soren of the Jharkhand Congress Party (JMM) have been arrested on corruption charges, with both parties claiming that the charges are politically motivated.
But one lesson from this election is that opposition parties can undermine the ruling party’s advantage, even when there are doubts about how free and fair the vote was.
In Indian elections, opposition parties have presented a united front and stuck to a consistent message that reflected the specific issues that angered voters.
Read more: With democracy under threat in Narendra Modi’s India, how free and fair will this year’s elections be?
Why was caste politics so important?
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party did not perform as well as expected in the elections, suffering heavy defeats in its northern Indian heartland. Modi began the six-week election campaign declaring that his party would win more than 400 seats. In the end, his party was reduced to 240 seats, while the opposition National Alliance for Development (INDIA) won 232 seats.
India had a shaky start to the election: founding member Janata Dal joined Modi’s coalition government earlier this year. India also failed to reach a seat-sharing agreement with another member, the Trinamool Congress (TMC), but the party remained in the coalition.
But as the election campaign dragged on, the BJP’s attacks on the opposition have led to a more united front, with a particular focus on caste issues.
Indian society and politics are stratified by the caste system, which has its roots in ancient religious texts and bestows symbolic and material rights and privileges on people belonging to particular castes.
Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s speech underscored his determination to uphold the Constitution and address the issue of caste-based injustice in India. He promised to conduct a caste census to uncover the extent of disadvantage and wealth concentration in society.
He also pointed to the centralisation of power in government and an upper-caste dominated media that worships Modi and is indifferent to problems of unemployment and inflation.
Lalu Prasad Yadav, leader of the Rajya Sabha Jawaharlal Nasional (RJD) party, which is also part of the Indian Union, warned that the BJP plans to amend the constitution to eliminate caste-based affirmative action, a charge that Modi denied but which appeared to resonate with voters.
The caste issue has posed a dilemma for Prime Minister Modi’s Hindu nationalist politics, which places importance on the customs and behavior of upper-caste Hindus while relying on the support of the lower-caste majority to win elections.
The BJP has sought to ease these tensions by promoting welfare schemes and accusing the secular opposition of conspiring with Muslims to take money from poor, lower-caste Hindus.
Ahead of the elections, Modi also claimed to have replaced traditional caste stratification with four new castes for welfare “beneficiaries” – women, farmers, youth and the poor.
In reality, government welfare programs consist of small cash transfers, microloans, food rations, and subsidies for personal items like toilets, intended to compensate for stagnant incomes and lack of jobs. The Modi government’s potentially transformative spending on health and education has stagnated.
The BJP’s infrastructure-focused economic policies have benefited big business, drawing accusations of crony capitalism, and it has failed to attract significant foreign investment or grow manufacturing to create jobs.
Over the past decade, and especially since the COVID pandemic, India has also become one of the most unequal countries in the world, with the situation worst for women, Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims.
Dalit politicians have also emerged
Perhaps the biggest surprise for the BJP was its heavy defeat in its heartland, Uttar Pradesh.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) has historically dominated politics in Uttar Pradesh by promoting the interests of certain lower castes, or “other backward classes,” but this tactic has antagonized other lower castes, which the BJP exploited to win power in 2017.
In this election, the SP appears to have formed a new, broader caste coalition.
Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP
The election also saw a new shift in Dalit politics, the lowest rung of India’s caste system, with new Dalit parties emerging in Uttar Pradesh, such as Chandra Sekhar Azad’s Azad Party.
Further south, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) consolidated its position as the largest Dalit party in Tamil Nadu, winning every seat it contested.
The Future of Indian Democracy
Indian democracy is not out of the woods yet: activists, students, political leaders and journalists remain locked up.
The Hindu nationalist movement has a history of inciting sectarian violence when elections do not go its way.
The Modi government also began to expand media censorship during the election period.
While there is little sign that Modi will moderate what many see as authoritarian tendencies, there is now growing resistance, skepticism and political alternatives that could help restore democracy in India.
