The law of diminishing returns: Can BJP win forever?

One way would be to create new incentives to keep voters happy with the Modi regime

In theory, autocracies do not last. They are overthrown, sometimes by worse autocrats and sometimes by democratic movements that are occasionally unstable and unsustainable. India's eroding democracy during the Narendra Modi years since 2014 has opened itself up to being downgraded by international organisations that list the progress of democracies as an "elected autocracy", close to the bottom of the list of countries where elections are regularly held.

Therefore, democracies are always in danger of slipping and adding to the ranks of autocracies. The relationship between India, autocracy, Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party on the one hand and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh with its goal of establishing a Hindu Rashtra and Akhand Bharat in the foreseeable future as the allegedly prescient Mohan Bhagwat has predicted begs the question: Is the law of diminishing returns infallible? Can the BJP win forever?

The Sangh and BJP's investment in aggressively pushing the Hindutva agenda, aided and abetted by an army of proselytisers at various Dharam Sansads, preaching toxic masculinity and calling for genocide against the Muslim minority and a collection of organisations that have tasked themselves with a mission to destroy mosques and restore temples destroyed by Muslim monarchs and invaders have a purpose. The mission is transparent – it expects its campaign to succeed in perpetuating the reign of Modi and turning the BJP into an invincible winning machine.

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In other words, the army of Hindutva activists expects that the investment it is making now will prove that the law of diminishing returns, which economists consider to be infallible, is wrong. The popularity of the BJP would, it appears, continue to rise and rise as more and more is added to the Hindutva mission and the Akhand Bharat mirage.

The BJP's popularity in the elections will never peak by this estimation, and the law of diminishing returns is wrong because there will be no end to the demand for the party's product. For as long as the BJP-Sangh can churn out more of the same Hindutva narrative, seeding anxieties and sowing fear by pointing to a spectre that threatens Hindus and the faith, the popularity of the party will
grow.

Post the Uttar Pradesh elections, the BJP-Sangh obviously believes that popular vote share will remain high, even if it does not rise, so long as the Hindutva narrative is aggressively peddled. The BJP would like its investors and its voters to believe that there can be no decline in the rate of return; there is no margin at which the popularity of the BJP begins to drop, no matter how much more it invests in pushing its narrative and agenda.

The fallacy of this reasoning is that the BJP had to produce a new version of its narrative to hold on to the 39 per cent vote share it won in UP in 2017 and again in 2022. The add on weapons to its existing stockpile was the hijab row in Karnataka, followed by forbidding Muslim traders from setting up stalls next to a temple precincts in Udupi, Dakshin Kannada and Shivmogga, followed by the orders of the BJP government in the state, followed by forbidding vendors to sell meat, followed by bulldozers demolishing homes and shops targeting Muslims across North India.

The Gyanvapi mosque and the Mathura Idgah mosque are adds ons essential to expanding the narrative, much like the add ons in ancient oral epics, because the Babri Masjid-Ram Mandir story has served its purpose, and its returns for Hindutva politics have hit the margin when utility begins to dip and turn negative. Not having new things to link to the hyper-nationalist, communally divisive, fear-inducing identity narrative of Hindutva spells danger for Modi and the BJP as it speeds towards a series of crucial state assembly elections in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and four Northeastern states. And, then there will be the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

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The BJP won about 37.36 per cent of the votes in 2019, while the National Democratic Alliance, which it leads, won 45 per cent. For two reasons, the BJP has to find ways to stave off what is inevitable in electoral politics, a decline in popularity as the reality of lived experience of the Modi regime builds up popular discontent. Cranking up the campaign on the danger to the religious majority from a proliferating minority, arresting anti-nationals by branding them enemies, and inciting communal clashes are issues that have temporarily worked against growing discontent against the Modi regime's economic policies and failure to generate jobs, control spiralling inflation.

There is, however, a limit on how long people can be persuaded to think about the danger to Hindutva as the priority and not about how badly off they are. One way would be to create new incentives to keep the voters happy with the Modi regime, or as the economists would say, work to kick start the law of increasing marginal disutility. The way that would work is to pay voters to keep them happy and attached. That the Modi regime may be willing to do so, that is, offer carrots to keep voter support, is a recent report, The State of Inequality In India, released by the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, with recommendations ranging from a universal basic income, increases to the minimum wage and a guaranteed employment programme for the urban unemployed.

These are all magic bullet answers to the issues that are contributing to growing discontent over inflation, joblessness and low economic growth. Should Modi stamp this with his approval, the BJP's popularity would either grow, or at least it would not fall in any significant way.

Narendra Modi cannot afford to coast along for too long. Majoritarianism has to be compensated. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat believes the moment for Hindutva's arrival has come; "Hamari gaadi chal padi hai, bina brake ki gaadi hai, sirf accelerator hai. Jo rokne ki koshish karenge, woh mit jayenge. Jo aana chahe, woh hamare saath aa ke baith jaayen, gaadi rukegi nahi (Our car is on its way. It has no brakes and only the accelerator. Anyone who comes in the way will be destroyed. Those who want can come to join us in the car. This car won't stop)," Bhagwat said recently in Haridwar. He added, for good measure, that Akhand Bharat, or unified India (Afghanistan to Myanmar, with Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka thrown in) could be realised in the next 10-15 years. The implication is obvious; Modi must deliver for his parental body, the RSS, to achieve its ultimate dream.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Kolkata)

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)