Rajdeep Sardesai’s book is a convincing analysis of the national election in India this year, replete with relevant interviews and penetrating comment rising above the heat and dust and unrestrained, often vulgar, rhetoric of the contestants for parliamentary office and far more often than not, the spoils thereof. Sardesai reviews the process of elections themselves, and their overview and monitoring, apart from the outcome which is known to every reader. Therefore, the views and conclusions of the author are more valuable than the narrative itself of the election as it unfolded, and in this respect Sardesai leaves nothing unsaid.

He notes that the result gave the lie to those, even in his journalistic profession, who thought the result would be a foregone victory by a wide margin for the BJP under Narendra Modi. He writes, “Those of us who called the 2024 election even before the campaign kicked off were guilty of forgetting a cardinal principle of life and politics; the future is unpredictable.” The biggest shift in voter preference was due to Dalit voters who consolidated with Muslims and which led to a significant drop of five percent in BJP support. The Dalit-Muslim ‘alliance’ had a major effect on the election outcome.

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As to the election supervision by the Election Commission, Sardesai bewails that “Never before, not even in the days …when the ECI was a relatively unknown entity, has the election umpire been so feeble, opaque and biased in its functioning.” As for the media, he laments that “Large sections of the media have abandoned even the pretence of objectivity in their craven, sycophantic fawning before the Modi-led regime.”

Sardesai reflects in some detail on the role of government-dominated agencies, of whom the most notorious is the Enforcement Directorate led by the ruling party’s yes-men who use the unrestrained power given to them under law to levy such pressure that the victims defect to the ruling BJP to avoid harassment, and he cites numerous cases in point. A Supreme Court lawyer is quoted as saying “The essence of tyranny is the ability to use a harsh law selectively against your enemies.” In such a milieu, asks the author rhetorically, what chance did the opposition have?

Looking into the future with due caution, Sardesai nevertheless offers some candid opinions. The swagger of a polarising strongman will be increasingly tested by his opponents, but “the fierce determination to cling to power has not been shaken by verdict 2024.” Therefore “the brutish and thuggishly transactional politics practiced by Team Modi/Shah” will continue, especially since there is no visible challenger to Modi yet. In a striking and memorable passage, Sardesai finds numerous aspects of Indian democracy extremely troubling. He summarises them thus; “The rampant use of money power, the merciless trampling upon of institutions, the weaponization of enforcement agencies, the hollowing out of ideology, caste and religion as divisive markers of identity, the pettiness, corruption and at times, sheer venality of those meant to serve the citizen, the increasingly autocratic behaviour of leaders, the persecution of dissenting voices in society and the pathetic failure of large sections of the media to speak truth to power.” On the other hand, Sardesai remains agathist though there is no room for complacency. “India’s core diversity can still resist heavy-handed attempts to undermine our uniquely plural ethos… If constitutional responsibilities are abandoned, then the Indian public will have to, once again, show their resolve in holding their leaders to greater accountability and forcing them to shed their arrogance.”

This book is a fine exegesis of the Indian political scene today and a necessary read for those interested in this topic.

The reviewer is a former foreign secretary

Spotlight

2024

By Rajdeep Sardesai

HarperCollins India, 2024

529 pages, Rs 799/-