Political discussion of development versus justice
In any democracy, elections are not a means of winning or losing, forming or bringing down a government, they are actually a medium of inspiring political consciousness. Elections are a medium to inspire discussions on dialogue, development, and nation-building in society. During election days, those debates are basically shaped by the speeches and statements given by the leaders in the manifesto and rally issued by the political parties.
Actually, I believe that this election is an election of clashes of images, due to which the images of the political leaders, which have deteriorated over a long period, have more impact than the words said during this election. In this election, people are voting more on the memories and influence of ‘doing’ than on words.
Elections and promises of various political parties
Some election debates are aimed at long-term change, while others are of an immediate popular nature. What are the debates in this election that are inspired by this strategy of gaining popularity for immediate political gains? Consideration of all these issues is necessary not only in the context of this election but also for the development, expansion and deepening of the entire democracy.
There are two types of debates in this election. On one hand, India is making the goal of becoming the country’s third-largest economy a topic of discussion. There, the state is promoting schemes for the distribution of resources in Indian society by keeping the four economic classes—poor, youth, women, and farmers—at the center.
On the other hand, Congress is promoting the social welfare program as populism by combining it with the concept of reservation-based caste-centric social justice along with other promises in its manifestos. For this, she is also using caste census in the entire country as a populist slogan in her election discussions.
If we look at the process of framing the debates of this election, it seems clear that BJP wants to base this election around the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the concept of a developed India focused on all social welfare programmes.
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Election manifestos of political parties
In this election, leaving aside the indirect caste additions and subtractions in the ticket distribution, it has tried to distance itself from the politics of caste identity in the speeches of its manifesto leaders. At the same time, Congress has tried to make the issue of caste-based social injustice in Indian society a popular debate on the issue of reservation-based social justice from the very beginning of its election discourse.
This time, religious identity in the context of minorities and caste identity in the context of social justice remain the central elements of the Congress manifesto. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly raised this issue of caste and religious identity with terms like justice and injustice.
Congress has raised many fear- and anxiety inducing discussions, like the Constitution will be changed under BJP rule, whether elections will not be held, etc. This strategy of Congress’ election discussion has hindered BJP from changing its election discussion strategy.
To respond to these conventional political weapons of Congress, BJP has fired its conventional weapon of doing politics of demonization on Congress along with its discussion of development, pride of India and developed India.
In this discussion of appeasement, along with castes, the discussion of religious identity has also started coming to the fore. BJP has intelligently linked this discourse of appeasement with the discourse of social justice. Started this propaganda that, in order to satisfy the people of one religion, Congress wants to snatch the rights of the backward, scheduled caste, and tribal poor and distribute them among a particular religious community.
At the same time, he has woven the intention of Congress to conduct a survey of gold and property in the narrative of a threat to the privileges of Indian women and the “mangalsutra” of middle-class women.
Political parties’ own caste promises
This should be considered a master stroke of Prime Minister Modi in the politics of narratives in the Indian elections, in which he not only shook the mind of the middle class but also took the identity of the poor, backward and Dalits out of the framework of traditional caste-based social justice politics, Hindutva, A balanced mix of social justice and development aspirations has been prepared. There is such a deadly attack in politics, it remains to be seen how Congress’s discourse will be able to face it.
It is seen again and again that caste is sometimes helpful as a unit of distribution of social justice, but later on it gives rise to many types of social injustice. The Congress will have to understand that it is extremely difficult to separate caste from caste in Indian society.
We have seen that many such experiments have failed so far. After independence, the politics of social justice have seen Kashiram, a unique experimenter, eventually weaken after initial successes. It has to be understood that the edge of caste in Indian society can be blunted only through the process of economic development.
