Systemic shifts in India’s electoral landscape: BJP gains reflect deepening centralisation and economic discontent
Original framing: “Modi's BJP set for surprise gains in India state elections, exit polls show - Reuters” — Reuters (via Google News)
Dalit and Muslim women in Uttar Pradesh report being coerced into voting for the BJP under threat of losing ration cards or facing police harassment, a form of structural violence normalised as 'development.' Tribal activists in Odisha describe how the BJP’s 'Van Mitra' scheme—ostensibly for forest conservation—displaces Adivasis while benefiting corporate mining interests. The media’s erasure of these voices is exemplified by the lack of coverage of the Bhima Koregaon arrests, where Dalit intellectuals were framed as 'urban Naxals' to silence dissent.
The BJP’s electoral gains are not a 'surprise' but the culmination of a decades-long project to centralise power, enabled by corporate media oligarchs (Reliance, Adani), algorithmic propaganda, and the erosion of federal institutions.
This mirrors global patterns where neoliberal austerity and identity politics converge to produce electoral authoritarianism, as seen in Turkey’s AKP or Brazil’s Bolsonaro. The BJP’s success hinges on a feedback loop: welfare schemes are rebranded as 'Modi ki guarantee,' while dissent is criminalised under UAPA, and Adivasi lands are auctioned to mining giants. Indigenous resistance—from Jharkhand’s forest dwellers to Kerala’s communist strongholds—offers a counter-narrative rooted in stewardship and decentralisation. The solution lies in dismantling this machinery: democratising media, devolving power to local bodies, and enforcing electoral integrity through proportional representation. Without these, India’s democracy risks becoming a hollowed-out shell, where elections are a spectacle masking structural violence.