Contradictions of India’s Right-wing Government and Growing Disenchantment

ABSTRACT

The right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party won India’s 2014 general election by promising development for all. Such promises have generally turned out to be empty. A recent nationwide survey shows that there is widespread disenchantment with this government. This article briefly discusses the disappointing economic and social-political record of the government. Based on empirical information from the above-mentioned survey, it then discusses how the dismal development record is registering in the minds of people who are becoming disillusioned with the government. The article also provides some general reflections on the government, including on the internal connection between government’s pro-business nature and its Hindu nationalist-sectarian character spreading religious hatred and division.

KEYWORDS:

• Right-wing
• Bharatiya Janata Party
• capitalism
• India
• fascism

Acknowledgement

The author gratefully acknowledges the generous assistance from Ashley Chen who constructed all the figures used here, based on the data supplied to her. She is, however, not responsible for the content nor for any errors in the discussion.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest has been reported by the author.

Notes

1. Fascism is a political-ideological mass movement that seeks to rescue capitalism from its crisis by employing authoritarian measures against ordinary people and against religious or ethnic minorities or indeed against any person/group/organisation, and especially the Left, that seeks to protect the democratic and economic rights of ordinary people, including minorities (see Renton 2007).

2. This section draws on Das (2018a).

3. A right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation, RSS is BJP’s ideological guru (teacher). It also canvasses electoral support for the BJP.

4. In fact, it is widely known that BJP came to prominence from obscurity on the basis of demolishing a centuries-old mosque in Uttar Pradesh by mobilising its right-wing Hindu-fundamentalist forces in the mid-1990s. In more recent times, in the recently concluded Karnataka elections in May 2018, a major reason it garnered votes was that it created Hindu-Muslim tensions and communal violence in coastal Karnataka.