Editorial: When the elites defect

CHENNAI: The BJP’s confidence ahead of the Lok Sabha election expresses itself in the form of a daily premature elation: Not a single vote has been cast but the Modi-Shah duo gloats that a two-thirds majority is as good as won. Indeed, the cards are heavily stacked against the INDIA bloc and analysts predict a walk in the park for the BJP. Yet, the relentless raids by the ruling party on opposition ranks not only belie its professed confidence but betray an anxiety bordering on OCD. Despite its cockiness, it’s rather odd that the duo should be so wary of the prospect of Rahul Gandhi striking a chord among the people.

Ahead of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’s entry into a state, hostilities are being organised to deter ordinary people from joining the journey. Out of the blue less than two weeks ago, the BJP spirited Nitish Kumar away from the INDIA parties. Last week, right after the Supreme Court struck down the electoral bonds scheme as unconstitutional, the Income-Tax Department pounced on Congress party’s bank accounts and put a lien on the funds therein, all but crippling its ability to fight the coming election. Alongside, the BJP has been engineering defections of critical Congress party leaders in important states. Following the departure of Ashok Chavan and Milind Deora in Maharashtra, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath is poised to fly the coop along as well.

These defections from the Congress are significant as the leaders in question were once members of the party’s brat pack or Doon School buddies of the Gandhi family scions. Additionally, while Milind Deora, Jyotiraditya Scindia, and Jitin Prasada hailed from the influential elites of their respective states, defectors like Kamal Nath, Ashok Chavan, Amarinder Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kiran Kumar Reddy had risen to be chief ministers.

For the BJP, triggering propaganda-worthy defections from the Congress may well serve the goal of winning the next election, but its real designs see farther into the future. The Gandhi family’s lingering relevance in important states comes from their historic links with feudal elites in those societies. These elites come with their own working alliances with subaltern castes and social groups right down to the village level. It is these elites who organise an audience for the Gandhis by calling on their alliances to fund crowds and arrange local activities. Without this assistance, the Gandhis’ all-India appeal would be greatly reduced. Snipping these symbiotic linkages would take the BJP closer to its objective of a Gandhi-mukt Bharat and seal its own pre-eminence for decades to come.

For the defecting elites, this is not an easy switch of allegiance. While the Congress high command and the Sangh Parivar are both Brahmin-dominated entities, one operates in a liberal-western milieu and other in a cultural nationalist ethos. Having gotten used to receiving social deference from subaltern castes, these elites are uncomfortable about being bossed around by RSS pracharaks who don’t defer so easily to the merely feudal. But with Modi fast filling the space once occupied by the Gandhis as the pre-eminent Indian icon, the feudal elites now think it imperative to sail with the new imperial idea. Historically, it’s a switch they have made whenever there has been a change of guard in New Delhi: from the old Hindu kingdoms to the Muslim Sultanates and Mughals, thence to the British, and after Independence, to the Congress high command. And now to a subaltern upstart backed by the high priests of Nagpur.