Over a seven-week vote spanning April to June, in a far harder-fought election than expected, India’s Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won a third term in office. The opposition, headed by the Congress-led Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), however, fought back for a more equal India. It found new energy in the weeks immediately preceding voting after the government targeted the opposition with arrests and freezing bank accounts. Civil society, too, emerged as a challenger to the government, which had encroached on civic space by coercive means including criminalising dissent and non-coercive means including bans on foreign funding to curb and close down NGOs.
Many of these groups got involved in the election process to contain the regime from further impinging on civil liberties and overturning the foundational underpinnings of India’s secular and inclusive polity. Engagement between India’s civil society and political parties was an important step in this process – a significant illustration of the evolving strategy of emerging political actors and influencers that runs contrary to the party-state compact that propels the BJP’s dominance and its ambition to establish a one-party state.
Defending democracy
During election campaigning, civil and political society groups came together to oppose growing authoritarianism and protect constitutional rights. This was evident in local and state-level actions organised from the grassroots up, rather than by only those leading or holding offices in parties. In the event, the difference between opposition and the ruling party in the Lok Sabha (the House of the People, India’s parliament) narrowed to 60 seats, making it more representative of India’s pluralistic society and diverse voices and interests. The NDA retains power with 293 MPs, a little more than the majority mark of 272, while the INDIA bloc has 234.
The improved performance of the opposition can be attributed to strategies adopted by the INDIA bloc bolstered by civil society organisations that coordinated with each other while also filling lacunae in opposition parties’ campaigns. A substantial set of counter-narratives was constructed to challenge strategies employed by the BJP/ RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and its affiliates. These highlighted measures to tackle economic distress, unemployment, majoritarian communalism and more generally to promote equality and social justice. Countless citizens spent time and effort drawing up and translating talking points to expose the lies and misinformation spread by the right wing, holding small meetings, helping voters to register and, above all, extending solidarity in times of despair.
Laying the groundwork
The social ground was created by many different movements of the past five years, notably the anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) movement, the farmers’ struggle and groups such as students, minorities and women, which gave voice to a simmering anger against the right-wing regime. The political ground was prepared by the Eddelu Karnataka (Wake Up Karnataka) and Bahutva Karnataka (Pluralistic Karnataka) campaigns, a consortium of local civil society groups in Telangana, and issue-based social movements (e.g. Right to Food, Right to Information) in Rajasthan and beyond.
Eddelu Karnataka and Bahutva Karnataka were in the vanguard of this process. Neither group, driven by the work of committed volunteers, has any formal party affiliation but they made voters aware of the failures of the incumbent government by disseminating material through traditional as well as social media. They organised 75 conferences in different constituencies and released 80 videos highlighting BJP failures. Their activities spanned organising events, mobilising public opinion, actively interacting with parties and submitting concerns of citizens to them during the elections.
They established a model of effective civil society intervention that crossed borders, encouraging progressive individuals and organisations in other states to similarly intervene in the democratic processes. They all shared a common concern that the 2024 election was the most consequential for the future of India’s democracy as vast swathes of civil society opposed to ethnic nationalism and majoritarianism presented a unified front.
Voices of the movement
Social media also created avenues for alternative viewpoints outside the mainstream. This is especially true of digital outlets – notably the Wire, Scroll, NewsClick, Quint, News Minute and a large number of YouTube channels helmed by journalists who had earlier worked in, and been forced out of, Hindi television channels. YouTube, Facebook, Reels and dozens of short video apps played a crucial role in influencing public opinion and media consumption among educated youths and middle classes in favour of the opposition, rivalling television news programmes prone to political and big business biases. YouTubers led the charge against the Hindu right night after night, producing content and giving traction to opposition voices. Dhruv Rathee’s video ‘Is India Becoming a Dictatorship?’ was viewed more than 25 million times in the run up to the election.
Rahul Gandhi’s two yatras – Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) in autumn and winter 2022-2023 and Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in winter 2024 – also galvanised people from different walks of life. These long marches through the length and breadth of India brought pressing issues – economic inequalities, price rises, unemployment, social injustice and subversion of the constitution – to the fore, creating a distinct campaign that symbolically countered violence with non-violence. Politically, it broke the pall of fear and paved the way for the dissipation of the invincibility of the BJP, which had been taken as a given.
The Bharat Jodo Abhiyan (BJA), a national network of civil society organisations, was formed during the BJY. It launched a grassroots movement to help the opposition in state elections as well as nationally and brought together scattered protests on jobs, land acquisition and economy to create an army of campaign volunteers. Although unaffiliated to any party, the BJA decided to focus on 100 parliament constituencies to help the Congress Party and its allies. Congress in turn asked its state units to appoint a representative at every level of the organisation to help the BJA carry out its local level activities.
A diverse opposition bloc fuelled the electoral decline of the BJP in this election. That this was done in concert with civil society is significant. For the first time ‘democracy as an ideology’ and defence of the constitution prevailed to a great extent over strong-man leadership and majoritarian politics. Working together, civil and political society has propelled a process which has for now halted – or at least significantly slowed down – India’s democratic backsliding.
