A new look at the India's foreign policy

As the moolah about Modi's swearing in has died down, it is time to analyze the achievements of the mini SAARC summit organized on the sidelines of the new government's induction. Modi has adorned a new avatar relating to Pakistan, one which none of his political adversaries predicted given his acerbic views towards the Muslim neighbor during his campaign. By inviting Nawaz Sharif not only has Modi set a strong precedent but has also positioned himself as the absolute authority on foreign affairs. Nawaz Sharif on his part has gone out of his way to attend the event fending off the fundamentalists in his party and in the army. His statement which he read himself unlike the Indian statement which was read by the foreign secretary gave a clear indication of what transpired in the meeting when he said that he expects the future talks focus on "cooperation rather than confrontation". Clearly, Modi seems to have taken a hardline towards terrorism and 26/11.

Although these talks have been overshadowed by the presence of Pakistan, Modi's goal was much larger. He wanted to give a strong message to the world of his arrival. You can call it the reaffirmation of the Indian pride or Hindu rashtra. Not responding to the friendly overtures made by the US is a case in point.

Another step in this direction is the appointment of former General VK Singh as a minister for North-east affairs and connecting him to the external affairs ministry. China which has believed in pushing India to the limits with regards to border disputes as became evident in Ladakh, will have to re-calibrate its moves regarding the North-east. It has been aggressively building military grade roadways and railways to the North east borders, hence this move by Modi was a quintessential one.

Regarding Srilanka, it is believed that Modi has pushed Rajapaksa in the direction of giving more autonomy to its northern regions dominated by the Tamils. He has given a clear message to his regional partners that the days when the state dictated foreign policy are long gone with Manmohan Singh.

With the smaller neighbors like Nepal and Bhutan he has expressed strong support in warding off Chinese occupation.

All in all, Modi has set the agenda for his foreign policy. Expect more visits to the regional neighbors and Asian powers like Japan and South Korea, a measured aggression against China and a snub to the west.
(Photo courtesy dnaindia.com)

Modi and the Media

A lot has been said about the BJP's extravagant media propaganda, branding and advertising. This post is not about that. Rather, I focus on how Narendra Modi set the agenda for primetime news through his speeches and interviews.

When Modi was appointed the PM candidate for the BJP in September 2013, the media was skeptical about his capabilities. Most people strongly believed that this BJP's experiment would fail given the in-fighting within the BJP.
During the assembly elections, AAP hogged the limelight. It seemed as though the other states results were of no concern and political analysts speculated that since Delhi is a microcosm of India, whatever happens in Delhi will be replicated everywhere.

But around this time Modi was already busy setting up the groundwork for the Lok Sabha elections. Modi knew that the road to 7RCR went through Bihar and UP. He deftly appointed master strategist Amit Shah as the UP's state secretary. Along came the big rallies in Patna, Ranchi, Kanpur, Bhairaich etc. In all of these rallies he made Congress and specifically the Gandhi family the enemy no.1 depicting the bad policies and showcased the Gujrat model as a contrast. The party workers had begun door to door campaigns and the assets in the RSS were being tapped. Modi had set his agenda as 272+ and his campaign managers laid out groundwork for the campaign on social media, print and TV. Volunteers were assigned with specific tasks of attracting the youth, raising development as the main issue and showcasing Gujrat.

Meanwhile, Congress was ignoring all this activity thinking that it is too early and that Modi's campaign would lose steam in the coming months. The media tried to play this up as Rahul vs Modi campaign but since the Congress was not confrontational it diverted its attention to the AAP phenomenon. I remember on every national issue that was debated on primetime, there would be an AAP spokesperson. AAP becoming a national party was a foregone conclusion.

It was after the AAP resigned from Delhi that the media suddenly woke up to the political situation in the country. Modi was already holding mammoth rallies on a regular basis making strong speeches. Pre-poll surveys showing positive trend towards that BJP were debunked by raising up the credibility issue of such surveys.
Around March when parties started their campaigns, through their internal surveys they felt a significant shift in their vote banks . Everywhere they went for campaign , people already knew about Modi and the Gujrat Model. Congress was now fighting for 150 seats rather than a majority. Meanwhile, Modi would consistently give a 30 second controversial bite in his speeches only to be picked up by the media to played up in the primetime shows.

Congress was fooled into thinking that winning TV debates meant winning elections and leader after leader went around defaming Modi and his Gujrat model. Media became strongly polarized around Modi. The real issues of inflation, unemployment and poverty went on the back burner and the election became all about for or against Modi.

At this point Modi knew that he had won most of his battle. The next job was to make more people for than against. This gave rise to the plethora of interviews showcasing Modi's personality as a good administrator. Since Modi was popular and his interviews made for great television, media houses lined up to explore more about the enigmatic leader.

This was how Modi won the media. His description went from a mass-murderer to great orator to a statesman in no time.

Of course, Modi's campaign had a lot more to it like the involvement of RSS, use of technology etc. but  his media management was one of the finest ever in the history of elections in India. 

AAP ka kya hoga?

The much discussed Aam Aadmi Party seems to be the next big casualty of the elections. This new kid on the block  touted to get 100+ seats in the Lok Sabha ended up with a meager 4, all of them to surprisingly real Aam Aadmis. I say this because none of there blockbuster candidates managed to win even a single seat. It created a world record for the becoming the political party with maximum number of candidates(421 out of 432) losing their security deposit by gathering less than 1/6th of the votes in their constituency.

The Aam Admi party needs to be given credit for bringing corruption to the forefront in this elections and in involving the middle-class urban youth in politics. AAP capitalized on the Anna movement and the massive anti-incumbency of the Congress in Delhi while occupying the left of center political space left vacant by the Congress. This was done in the form of agitations against rising electricity bills, supporting the cause of auto drivers, by promising free water and by promising a strong anti-corruption bill. They surprised everyone when they got 28 seats in the Delhi assembly and formed a minority government.
The Aam Aadmi's political journey then started going downhill as soon as Kejriwal resigned in Delhi. They created some serious political blunders which were even visible to political amateurs but were surprisingly never mentioned on national television.

First, the decision to fight on 421 seats in the parliamentary elections. Then, giving tickets to khas aadmis including Ashutosh, Ashish Khaitan, Meera Sanyal, V. Balakrishnan etc. Then, leaving the corruption plank for secularism plank which was the only political space left to fight Modi. In this process they lost a crucial section of there support base in the form of youngsters, middle-class and the upper middle-class.
Political editors who were calling it a close fight in Varanasi ended up falling either in the category of being massively incompetent or having a soft side for AAP. Arvind Kejriwal lost by a whopping 3.7 lakh votes even after the consolidation of Muslim votes.  Kumar Vishwas, Meera Sanyal and many others lost their deposits. Conspiracy theorists are free to wonder why they made this political blunder when they were surrounded by so many great thinkers and psephologists.

After the dismal performance they are trying to form a consensus in Delhi again on whether to try and form a government. Although, they got a drubbing in the parliamentary elections, they have a substantial support base in the city. If they hit the right political strokes, they can possibly repeat there strong performance of 2013. Of course this time they don't have the advantage of anti-incumbency of the Congress and will be up against a much stronger enemy in the form of Modi. Also, its being rumored that Kiran Bedi might be the CM candidate for the BJP which will challenge the anti-corruption plank of AAP.

 If they do play the secularism card to gather Muslim votes chances of which are high, then they will become a formidable force in Delhi. Muslims will vote for AAP with more confidence this time around because they know that AAP is a better contender against BJP than Congress at the moment. This will relegate Congress to the third place in almost all the Constituencies.

For AAP it seems like the road to victory is long and with many roadblocks. It has taken an enormous toll on its party workers who have fought two back to back elections with little money compared to other heavyweights. The party volunteers deserve most credit for keeping AAP's hopes alive in the political space even though its leaders are trying hard to make this experiment fail.

Bihari Vikas Purush on his way out

Nitish Kumar seems to be the first casualty of the aftershock from the massive election mandate of 2014. He has resigned taking moral responsibility for the drubbing that JDU got in the elections. So thorough has been the defeat, that in many constituencies across Bihar, JDU has been relegated to the third place and RJD has emerged as a force to reckon with.

But the analysts who are judging this move as part of media theatrics are making a gross miscalculation. Nitish Kumar unlike Arvind Kejriwal is a seasoned politician and his move comes as a result of rumors that his MLAs might be deserting him to join the BJP. Also, there is pressure from Sharad Yadav (the JDU leader in Lok Sabha who lost the elections) to get a majority in the Bihar assembly so that he can at least attempt to enter the parliament through the Rajya Sabha. Also, interestingly although Nitish Kumar submitted his resignation to the Governor, he refrained from advising him to hold fresh elections. This gives a strong indication that the move was aimed at galvanizing party support.

This strategy has seemed to work as the MLAs rallied behind Nitish Kumar and he got to pick the new CM of the state. Jitan Manjhi, a Mahadalit leader was chosen as the new CM aiming at consolidating the Dalit votes that it lost to the BJP in the parliamentary elections. It is said that Jitan Manjhi comes from the poorest of the poor Dalit caste. Why does a Vikas Purush need to play a Dalit card?

Consolidation of Muslims, Dalits and Mahadalits into the JDU fold was the primary motive of Nitish Kumar when he broke the alliance with BJP last year. This move backfired after Modi himself played the Dalit card and the development card in tandem. Also, RJD took away the Muslim votebank.

A Mahadalit CM seems like his masterstroke before the Bihar assembly elections. The rumor that JDU might form an alliance with the RJD seems very bizarre and if it happens, the alliance will become a formidable force to reckon with for the BJP. It is the vote split between the RJD and the JDU which helps BJP.

This story is still breaking and it would be premature to make any predictions at this point but the interesting take-away from these election results have been the re-entry of Caste politics in Bihar. 

Aa gayi Modi Sarkar

It seems fitting to start a new blog in the context of the changing political situation in India. The BJP has won a historic election in India and people have voted a controversial man, Narendra Modi to be the next Prime Minister of India.

In many ways this election was historic, be it the decimation of Congress in every corner of the country or the negation of the regional satraps who had a strong votebank in the form of religion or caste. Many political pundits are grappling with understanding this mandate as their classic political analysis of Hindutva or caste polarization has failed to explain the results in this election. During the electioneering, even a month before the election results, Ravish Kumar, prime-time presenter with NDTV-India was showing ground reports in UP which made us believe that the Muslim-Yadav votebank of SP and SC/ST votebank of the BSP is not only intact but thriving. In a way he disregarded the election polls which were showing 50 plus seats for the BJP owing to his analysis. Hence, the political analysts have much to explain in terms of this mandate.

The political scenario is undergoing a churning and a new kind of narrative has to emerge that explains this mandate. I say this because this is not just a vote against anti-incumbency but a vote for change. It is a vote where everything that Congress stands for has been negated. Imagine a political party winning an election without promising even a paisa of dole.

In this blog some of these questions will be raised to understand this mandate. How does anti-incumbency effect only UP and not Tamil-Nadu for instance? How does Nitish Kumar widely known as the Vikas Purush of Bihar lose an election which was largely fought on the development plank? Many candidates from the BJP belonged to the OBC who won in UP. Is it safe to assume that although people have voted on caste lines have not done so on party lines? What does this mandate mean for Muslims in UP where for the first time after independence no Muslim MP has won?

 As Ravish Kumar rightly points out that all the students of political science must start reading politics from scratch and that all the political books be rewritten.