Search for greener pasture: Jyotiraditya Scindia’s move to BJP is a symptom of India’s shift to majoritarian politics

Close observers of Indian politics would not have been surprised by Jyotiraditya Scindia’s exit from Congress. The reason why Scindia got more coverage than some of the others who have deserted Congress is that he was seen as one of the more prominent and articulate leaders in the party. Besides, a relatively young scion of an erstwhile royal family will always get more attention than a run-of-the-mill politician.

While there is little doubt that Scindia’s move will demoralise an already battered Congress, his switch to the BJP can be interpreted in several ways. At one level, Scindia’s move could be seen as rank opportunism. After having lost in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, it was generally accepted that Scindia had been somewhat sidelined in Madhya Pradesh politics. So it was not unnatural for Scindia to look for greener pastures.

That he was promptly nominated by BJP for a vacant Rajya Sabha seat gives credence to the theory that Scindia preferred the privileges of power and authority to opposition politics. Future promises of a Union Cabinet berth might have further sweetened the deal. It could also be argued that he took the easy way out rather than start a political outfit of his own, which his father Madhavrao had done without much success.

At another level, Scindia could be seen as switching to a party with which his family has had deep associations. His grandmother was a founder member of BJP and two of his aunts are long-time members and MLAs of BJP. It is less remembered that Madhavrao too started out as an independent, backed by the Jana Sangh, the predecessor to BJP, before moving to Congress for most of his political career.

That Congress has not been able to halt a steady stream of defections, including high-profile ones such as Scindia, is an example of the steady decline of the party’s standing. It is also proof of the party’s inability to hold on to and promote younger leaders as well as evidence of the erosion of organisational structures to address factionalism and discontent.

Beyond the specifics, Scindia’s switch brings into focus the role of ideology in Indian politics, a question that has bedevilled political scientists. There is a long line of distinguished scholars, who have argued that Indian politics is not driven by ideology. This line of argument is based on the conventional division between the right and the left, characteristic of Western liberal democracies, largely being absent in India. Influential academics, such as Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph, have also asserted that one of the characteristics of Indian politics has been its persistent centrism.

A recent book by political scientists Pradeep Chhibber and Rahul Verma has argued that the two ideological axes along which Indian political parties are divided are the ‘politics of statism’, namely the role of the state, and the ‘politics of recognition’, or the inclusion of ethnic and minority groups in state policies. While this is a useful distinction, what we see today is an increasing convergence of the political class and parties on the primacy of statist and welfare policies. This has gone hand in hand with a Hindu majoritarian tilt since BJP gained power in 2014, which has upended the centrism that the Rudolphs wrote about.

So, on economics, there is little debate among the two national parties and the regional parties, who have all tried to outdo each other on welfare policies. Congress and the rare regional party have tried to contest the majoritarian turn, but this has been a weak challenge. On a range of issues, from the abrogation of Article 370 to the Ram temple in Ayodhya, non-BJP parties have either struggled to articulate a coherent response or just gone along with BJP’s stand. It’s only on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act that a range of political and social actors could mount a concerted challenge.

This one-party dominance or the “unipolar ideological universe” – as political analyst Suhas Palshikar terms it – has made it that much easier for politicians like Scindia to switch sides to BJP. Of course, changing political allegiances is an old game in India. According to PRS, between 1967 and 1983, there were approximately 2,700 defections at the state level, with 15 defectors becoming chief ministers.

Indeed, the term, ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’, became popular after a Haryana legislator, appropriately named Gaya Lal, defected thrice in 1967 from Congress to another party and back in the span of a fortnight. Then the rash of defections had occurred due to Congress dominance being challenged for the first time in several states across India. Currently, it’s much more about politicians flocking to the dominant party.

There is a final question as to what voters think about party hoppers or turncoats. Political scientist Gilles Verniers has crunched data to show that voters tend not to reward those who have switched party allegiances. There are other studies that show that voters are not too bothered by party hoppers and tend to vote for the party, rather than the candidate.

Irrespective of what the data says on voter preferences, switching parties will remain a popular pastime. Given the ideological dominance of the BJP and its huge war chest, the traffic is likely to be one way in the foreseeable future.