{"id":31759,"date":"2021-05-05T18:02:50","date_gmt":"2021-05-05T09:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/may\/05\/india-modi-covid-second-wave-west-bengal-elections"},"modified":"2021-05-05T18:02:50","modified_gmt":"2021-05-05T09:02:50","slug":"a-surprise-defeat-in-one-of-indias-biggest-states-shows-that-modi-is-not-invincible-amit-chaudhuri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=31759","title":{"rendered":"A surprise defeat in one of India\u2019s biggest states shows that Modi is not invincible | Amit Chaudhuri"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Amid the calamitous second Covid wave, the ruling BJP party tried and failed to win the coveted West Bengal elections<\/p>\n<p>In the months leading up to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/may\/02\/narendra-modi-loses-key-state-election-west-bengal-covid-grips-india\">assembly elections<\/a> in West Bengal, I began to realise that there was every chance that the state where I live, once a left stronghold, would soon be under the rule of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). The realisation came from talking to ordinary, working-class Bengalis. K, a man in his late 30s who had come to work for us, said tersely but firmly that he\u2019d be voting BJP. The reason? \u201cYou need to throw out parties in power from time to time. It\u2019s good for them.\u201d He was invoking the Kerala model \u2013 in Kerala, voters periodically alternate between putting one of the two main parties in power. Electorates in all states \u2013 in fact, the whole country \u2013 would probably go Kerala\u2019s way if they had a viable opposition to turn to.<\/p>\n<p>From K I learned firsthand what I knew in theory: that the term \u201canti-incumbency\u201d doesn\u2019t capture the ground-level resentment people begin to feel towards parties that have been in power for too long. The resentment in a state like Bengal isn\u2019t aimed so much at the party\u2019s principal figureheads; it\u2019s a reaction against the intolerable nature of a politics of local patronage and fiefdoms. Everywhere you go in West Bengal, you\u2019re in a terrain where every inch \u2013 footpath, tea stall, shop, roadside<strong> <\/strong>\u201cclub\u201d (that key political, social and sporting institution), festive celebration \u2013 is politicised. The ruling dispensation manifests itself through all-powerful, low-level functionaries who dispense governance through bullying. K and others I spoke to thought it was time to teach these people a lesson. For them, a vote for the leading Hindu nationalist party wasn\u2019t about temples and Islam.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/may\/05\/india-modi-covid-second-wave-west-bengal-elections\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amid the calamitous second Covid wave, the ruling BJP party tried and failed to win the coveted West Bengal electionsIn the months leading up to the assembly elections in West Bengal, I began to realise that there was every chance that the state where &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":591,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,433,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-india","category-narendra-modi","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/591"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31759"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31778,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31759\/revisions\/31778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}