Changes in India

Bimaru Domination: After 20 years of rainbow coalitions in the Capital, from Mizos to Shiv Sainiks, Communists to Socialists, Bahujan Samaj to Dalit Panthers, Yadavs to Gorkhas, Assamese to Malayalees, it's back to the truism, " Who rules Lucknow, Rules Delhi." Just when you thought Heartland political supremacy is over, it's back with a bang. Consider this: The BJP's victory came from BIMARU states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh) - the party won 190 seats out of 225 seats, sweeping aside every Opposition party. It barely won 92 seats from the rest of India, of the vast and diverse 318 seats.

Discourse

So, it's back to Bahubali politics of feudal swagger, brahminical sophistry, caste and cultural decoding, social ferment, backwardness, and Hindi- Bhojpuri domination. The BIMARU states together have the most despicable human development indexes put together - The eight poorer states - Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand - are home to nearly 48% of all SCs, 52% of all the STs and 44 per cent of all Muslims in India. BIMARU states have the capita income of less than Rs. 25 per day.

Healthcare, education, water supply, lack of population control measures, unfair laws and order continue to affect the economic growth of these states. But they are going to dominate the national discourse. Already a minister when asked a question by media crews spat back asking to be spoken to only in Hindi! We may love our Banarasi Jamdanis and Rajasthani Raj Kachoris but the BIMARU states are going to put aside states from Tamil Nadu to Kerala, Mizoram to Odisha to Opposition benches in the Lok Sabha. Har Har Mahadev.

India is Modi, Modi is..: If there's one top reason the mainstream classes ( think middle class, commanding corporates, big media, etc) have always given while rooting for Narendra Modi is their ecstatic desire for a " strong, tough leader" even admitting without coyness that " India needs a Dictator." So, Modi's marketing managers and campaign bosses were happy to sneak in the admiring tones of comparison between him and Indira Gandhi - of dominant one- party regime, an emasculated Opposition, of authoritarian rule, blinding loyalty and unquestioning obedience.

But really, are leaders fashioned on the fantasies of only this middling, meddling, moralising class? Which came first, the leader or the apparition? Modi, or mainstream anxiety? Listening to conversations you'd think PM Modi is the 21st century bogeyman that will discipline, regulate and whack everyone to respectability, prosperity and good behaviour. And, so the so- called right- thinking classes have decided this is what the poor, unwashed multitudes need and such is their influence today, in a connected world, that the masses have begun chanting the same mantra.

Coalitions

End of Rainbow Coalitions: In the last 20 years or so, the country was evolving its own version of a representative democracy - regional leaders were thrown centrestage as Lalu Prasad, M Karunanidhi, NT Rama Rao, Biju Patnaik, Kanshi Ram, Mayawati, J Jayalalitha, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Naveen Patnaik, Chandrababu Naidu, Nitish Kumar, even Communists like Harkishen Singh Surjeet and Prakash Karat, all crashed into the scene - who not only represented their regions but subaltern India as caste chieftains of the backwards and outcastes, and workers and peasants groups. At the same time, we also saw the rise of Hindu nationalism with the BJP, though there was no Muslim party that came up along religious lines.

Unfortunately, regional leaders began imitating national parties and soon became provincial warlords - corrupt, inept, inefficient, pedestrian. What could have been a genuinely, proportional representative and a new kind of federal democracy, turned into authoritarian regimes run by family oligarchs.

As their role became more crucial in coalition governments at the Centre, they began demanding a bargain for their allegiance to the government.

Yet this motley crew did help drag to a certain extent the tyrannised and marginalised castes out of their horror into the modern age. It brought about a sense of self- confidence and self- worth which they had never experienced before. Too bad their leadership betrayed them and neither could they evolve to match up to their growing aspirations.

But what if there was a robust media, courts and civil society, which could have forced course- correction of the regional satraps with rigorous debates, discussions and crucial intervention? We would have given the world " Lycra Democracy" a truly homegrown, fit- to- shape a bulging, bursting country, inclusive yet stretchy, to accommodate as many diverse and different people.

Imagine the freedom of movement!

Howlocracy

Hindutva versus Hinduism: If secularism was the four- letter word of the last three decades, then Hindutva is set to enter the wrestling ring yet again with its dubious and deceptive association with Hinduism. The 90s saw the lawlessness and chaos that came with this confusion, but matters settled when it became clear which caste and class Hindutva represented. It did not help that a Supreme Court judgment of 1995 confounded the issue further saying Hindutva could also mean " the way of life of the Indian people and the Indian culture or ethos." So, whenever BJP has come to power at the Centre, the Hindutvadis begin to rattle their trishuls, after all it is their central ideology.

Soon the cacophony for maha artis and yagnas for temples and mosques will begin, supremacist religious calls and chants will roar, godly offense and insults in art, culture and the like will reverberate; Hindutva nationalism and patriotism will be the order of the day. So, while the devout Hindu will hold his religion sacred, Hindutva will try to impose uniformity, militancy and monogamy through their armies of the RSS, Bajrang Dal, VHP and the hundred other replicates. If hyper- secularism was arbitrary and partisan, proto- Hindutva will be aggressive and unruly.

Howlocracy: It's the Delhi Decibel that launches a 1,000 causes, and if megaphone democracy successfully ousted an inept, corrupt, bungling UPA government, it has established one straightforward dictum - be with us, be us, or perish. And so, public discourse is all about Modi's Team, Modi's swearing- in, Modi's 100- day deadline; apart from petty office squabbles between Telangana and Seemandhra, Article 370, HRD Minister's educational qualifications and her duplicitous degrees; even as two minor Dalit girls are raped and hanged to death on a tree by Yadav boys in age- old caste hostility, and the murderous attack on the mother of a Dalit rape survivor, among many other vicious caste atrocities. Really, but how do you expect feudal India, the dustbowl of cowbelt politics, to impact the sensex- gazing public in urban India? Perhaps, just getting a seat or two in Parliament would have empowered the BSP to ensure that such violence and brutality is not perpetrated on the Dalits? But hey, this is not a mobocracy, this is Howlocracy, so as long as you get invited to a chat show, democracy works.

The writer is a freelance journalist