Crushing 'Ab Ki Baar 400 Paar', India Sees Light at the End of the Tunnel

I am neither a psephologist, nor a political analyst, or an expert journalist, or even a member of a political party.

Yet, purely as an engaged citizen, I had publicly called out, on 16 March 2024, the obvious misrepresentation by our national TV channels when, in a nationwide mega opinion poll on the mood of the nation, they called 400-plus seats for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

It was so obvious, at least to me, that this was a blatant act of intellectual dishonesty and partisanship in setting the narrative aligned to the ruling dispensation's Ab ki baar 400 par, and the inevitability of the election process itself. Incensed at the brazenness, I publicly tweeted my views with a date stamp (see here) for exposing the machinations of these channels on election day.

The point is not that I was right in retrospect, but that it was obvious to a common citizen in terms of the macro trends, and with a bit of elementary statistics, the ultimate seat outcome was quite divergent from the projections of large media houses and professionals with access to the best psephologists and data tools that money can buy. Merely a broad pulse of politics and the mood of ordinary people on the ground would have been sufficient to discern the trend way back in March.

The larger point is this: Are we living in an environment of large-scale misinformation, or biased information at best, even when consuming news from the mainstream media, whom we are entitled to trust in a vibrant democracy? And are they really so compromised, as has been obvious enough over the last few years, to have been christened Godi media?

I wonder what the state would be had it not been for the crusading efforts of online publications like The Quint, The Wire, etc. or YouTubers like Ravish, Dhruv Rathee, and many others who kept us sane and grounded.

And who is accountable for this?

Lakhs of crores have been lost today on the financial markets based on the narratives set up by the media, including some leading anchors of the financial media, with the gullible retail investor yet again falling for glib talk about equity prices based on such narratives. The FIIs were short on our markets for the last few months, and carried record shorts of billions of dollars into the event, with the domestic players on the other side. When asked, some anchors and “experts” took the position that the Indian investor had matured and we are now atmanirbhar.

In a public speech to an industry forum, I explained that it is necessary to take FII’s views with more than a passing sense of seriousness, simply because they have seen many markets, cycles, and politics over the last many decades across multiple countries and political dispensations, and they vote with their money.

Besides, foreign institutions are not subject to the types of pressure that have compromised our public institutions of late. Domestic financial institutions could, therefore, potentially be subject to such pressures and retail investors would do well to be wary about their hard-earned money.

This political mandate is, in my view, the best outcome for India. We will perhaps have the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government with a continuance of the economic trajectory, assertive foreign policy, and infrastructure rollouts but a significantly toned-down level of belligerence, divisive politics, and a penchant for half-truths.

Also, hopefully, the media and our institutions will recover their spines to some degree, and the parliament will once again get down to debating legislative changes before they are imposed on the nation. If there is one overwhelming message of this mandate, it is our joint resolve to fight authoritarian, divisive forces that polarise society based on identity politics.

I would not be far off the mark to say that this election will change the course of Indian politics while having still chosen prudent economic policy over freebies, but simultaneously making sure that our leaders understand that “mother of all democracies” is not merely a slogan. It has become inherent to our being, and for that, we have the political founders of our nation, like Nehru and Ambedkar, to be eternally grateful to.

I had written in these columns a few weeks ago that, as Montesquieu said, centuries ago, “If a republic be small, it is destroyed by a foreign force; if it be large, it is ruined by an internal imperfection.” We would do well to remember these wise words of wisdom as we exercise our Hobson’s choice.

I am so glad that as a nation we did the right thing and just in the right measure by voting for an opposition to not just be an opposition, but an opposition that can be counted upon to be constructive and learn from past mistakes.

(Prabal Basu Roy is a Sloan Fellow from the London Business School. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)