Consent Manufactured

The Lok Sabha elections have entered the last phase. And clearly temperatures are rising, violence in states like Jammu and Kashmir is increasing, and tolerance levels of political parties falling dramatically. Despite the talk of a wave in favour of the BJP and its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, reports from the ground suggest a tough battle in almost all constituencies with three and four cornered contests making predictions difficult.

However, pollsters, corporates and the media seem clear that this is a one way battle, and that Modi and the BJP will cross 200 seats enabling them to form the government with the help of willing regional political parties. The jury is still out on this one, and currently field reports even from crucial states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar certainly do not confirm this wishful thinking.>

But regardless of the final outcome, this election has been like no other at least in this writer’s memory. The stakes of course are extremely high as secular India battles communal India in a polarisation on ideology and not castes and communities. The BJP of course has brought in development as the much required fig leaf, fighting the electoral battle on the plank of development. Hate speech tops the campaign with the worst kind of threats, talk of revenge, accusations hurled by mostly BJP leaders followed of course, by Samajwadi’s Azam Khan. The minorities, in particular, have felt the heat as have those struggling to keep Indian polity secular with small time leaders actually telling them to move to Pakistan.

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But this is perhaps the first election where the corporate media has come into its own, and where money power has been used in the worst possible fashion to first manufacture consent, and then turn that false consent into national consensus, and then seek to push this down every single Indian voters throat as if this country is a monolith of one people, one religion, one caste, one culture, one language, and if they had their way,one gender! So for an outsider watching television news in India for the first time it would appear that there are really only two parties in the fray—the BJP and the Congress, and that the first is sweeping these elections with Modi set to become India’s Prime Minister. This is about as far as media understanding goes. There is little to nothing about the regional parties in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, UP, Bihar and the fight they are giving on the ground.

>In India an election is never over until it is over. Pollsters and predictions have gone drastically wrong, not once but repeatedly. The BJP expecting to return in 2004 was shown the door rather dramatically by the Indian electorate, leaving the pundits and the politicians completely astounded. Mayawati, not even recognised as a player in a UP election, emerged from the back to form the government while the political pundits were still going through the permutations and combinations, meaningless in the face of voter assertiveness.

All that can be said at this moment, and contrary to the cacophony of television and corporate propaganda is that there is no discernible wave on the ground. There is anger with the Congress, anger and unhappiness but a hard battle is being fought in all states except perhaps Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where the BJP remains on a strong wicket. But even Rajasthan might yield some surprises in that old guard Jaswant Singh has given a tough fight back, despite the full might of the BJP government in the state being made to counter him.

May 16 might just yet again be the unpredictable. The people of India have come to the rescue of India over and over again. There is no reason to think that this Lok Sabha election might be an exception.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Newsclick

Courtesy: thecitizen.in