Book Review | The Election That Defied Explanations

First, a disclosure. One of the authors of the book India on the Move is a friend I have known and admired for years. I urge you to keep that in mind while reading this review.

The book is an honest attempt to make sense of the multi-layered 2024 Lok Sabha verdict. It does so in a way few others have attempted to decipher elections thus far: Through WhatsApp group chats, by examining the issues that unified and polarized the country, through long and arduous train journeys, and through conversations with some of the most prominent figures in Indian politics, among other methods.

In that sense, the book is a collection of impressions drawn from real events as they unfolded. As master chroniclers of our time, the authors must be commended for not imposing their biases and prejudices on their written words. That is no mean achievement considering the polarised world we are living in.

A few lines from the book are worth highlighting here. “While JNU catalysed a resurgence of nationalist discourse in India, it concurrently sowed seeds of discord among the youth, whose disillusionment would manifest in subsequent political landscapes,” the authors observe, referring to a series of events at India's premier Jawaharlal University, which eventually contributed to the emergence of contrasting narratives.

Let's consider another passage: “While the virus tested the robustness and contingencies of the country's healthcare systems, the fear of the virus also amplified existing prejudices at a time when the nation needed to fight a common enemy,” the authors argue, reflecting on the Covid pandemic, which tested our bodies and nerves like few other events in recent decades.

There are chapters, and then there are unique phrases. Here are some chapter titles from the book: When a Deadly Virus Meets Viral Nationalism, Nationalism Goes Global, Of Ideology and Semantics, New Parliament and New Names, Political Tricolour and Soft Hindutva, and Popular Culture: The New Battleground. My favourite remains the one dealing with multiple discourses during the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors are spot-on when they observe that “the new plan of benevolent statesmanship linked with nationalism has now become an inevitable part of politics".

My own take is that while the 2024 verdict leaned more toward benevolent statesmanship, the element of macho nationalism was somewhat missing. It seemed like a collection of several state elections. While West Bengal voted one way, neighbouring Bihar went the opposite. The verdict in Uttar Pradesh was full of surprises, and the people of Maharashtra, Jharkhand, and Rajasthan chose to punish some and reward others.

One theme that stood out was that people did not appreciate any political party taking them for granted. “Logon ne aukat dikha di” (people showed a mirror to all), as a friend said the day the Lok Sabha election results were announced.

The book delves into the multiplicity of the 2024 Lok Sabha verdict. Instead of a single meta-narrative, there were several at play—some cancelling each other out, and some reinforcing one another.

My editor-in-chief beautifully captured the pattern here: “It is a multi-layered verdict—the beauty of the India we know and have grown up in. The 2024 mandate is like a rainbow whose colours politicians will have to work hard to decipher. And decipher they must, with humility and passion, not dismissively. This verdict signals a triumph of individualism.”

(The author is Consulting Editor, NDTV)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author