There was huge talk of the town in 1991 about the stagnation of Indian economy and the financial mess country was in. The economists coined the term “Hindu rate of growth”, many of them ridiculed India with all sort of words and had written off the story of India exactly after 40 years of Independence. They clearly told India is in deep quagmire and it cant be brought back until the Hindu civilizational thoughts are removed.
At that time PM Narashima Rao boldly undertook the reforms then India soon became an economic miracle. The above events showed the resilience of Hindu mind. The Hindu mind when freed up from all bondages did wonders which in turn created a more sustainable lifestyle all across and also so many poor and middle class families moved up in the financial ladder. The above story is very important not only to understand its economical impact but also on the political impact which a Hindu Mind can create
Rise of Hindu Votes in TN, WB:
With recently concluded elections, the entire left Liberal media with clear patronage from opposition parties have started writing up the end of story for BJP in terms of 2024 elections. Elections are not won or lost based on writings on media, it can clearly help in building an narrative but until in the ground level i.e booth level workers are not excited even the greatest leaders can bite the dust. There are so many instances of it happening on year to year basis in elections. There are many silent indications which the liberal media usually misses when covering the results if it is against BJP. Liberal media portrayed 2018 verdict of Karnataka as the greatest defeat of BJP but less than an year, BJP sweeped Karnataka (KA) in national elections. So there are so many silent indicators which BJP read on the 2018 KA results and worked on the feedback loop which resulted in an massive victory which was never seen and heard of in KA. So lets step by step discuss the silent indicators which voters have given in the recently concluded TN & WB state elections.
1.A miss in Consolidation of minority votes in TN & WB: Many pollsters have written lot of about consolidation of minority votes in support of anti BJP parties in both the states. But what they missed is even after 95% consolidation of Minority votes in TN & WB, the winning coalition was unable to cross the 50% vote share. There is still a huge potential Hindu voters who are waiting to jump over to the BJP if any religious binary event happens like banning durga puja, Hindu celebrations etc. Remember WB had 30% of Minority voters inspite of that TMC was unable to cross 50% vote share.
2.Conslidation of Hindu votes in TN & WB: The pattern which emerged for post 2014 is votes are cast differently in national elections and then in state elections. BJP is really handicapped when coming to the state elections as it repeatedly failed to maintain the vote share it has got during Loksabha polls and also lost huge percentage of votes. For ex: In MH, Delhi, Haryana, JH BJP has lost somewhere between 10-19% of votes it has got during national elections. But the same did not hold good in TN,WB. In TN,NDA improved its voteshare to the extent of around 18-20 % as far as WB is concerned BJP has lost only 2% of votes. It clearly shows that as the minority consolidation started at the same time the hindu consolidation is happening at ground level even though there is no emotive religious issue at play in the states. There are some seats in TN like kadayanallur,vaniyambadi even though there are huge minority votes, the hindu candidates irrespective of parties has won due to counter consolidation. So it seems the avenue of consolidated Hindu votes has started picking up even in non traditional states of BJP.
3.Rise of Hindu asmita on non Brahmin castes: BJP which had traditional upper caste vote base , started breaking ground on non brahmin caste voters in TN, WB. Take the case of Western TN belt in which BJP had some nominal presence in previous years completely consolidated behind NDA in the current elections. There was even talk of the town that when HM Amit shah met with then TN CM during seat allocation clearly told ADMK that western and southern part we will give a heavy lifting and asked TN CM to focus on other northern, delta areas of TN. In TN, the 4 MLAs which Bjp got does not belong to upper caste i.e brahmins. In WB SC/ST voters voted enmasse to BJP. So the Hindu respect and consciousness has been now being picked up by OBC & SC/ST communities.
4.Politics moving to Bipolar nature: With recent concluded elections in TN & WB, it can be analyzed in clear terms that country is moving towards bipolar nature in states with third alternatives whoever it is either Congress/communists in WB,BJP in Kerala are getting squeezed out with minorities voting in enmasse in one side and due their polarizing nature, Hindus are also now clearly taking stand for opposite front. Usually polarizing nature can be found in Cities but now it is happening in rural areas also with Hindus clearly voicing out tensions raised by Minorities in curbing their freedoms in competitive places i.e in terms of population.
So it can be safely assumed that with new rising Hindu vote, the non traditional BJP states might also have got good influence on ideology of RSS. So now these states also can safely be assumed to have embraced Hindutva to certain extent but the victory on the political discourse might take few election cycles to be completely visible.
