A new myth has penetrated the Indian mind: that elections are all about election campaigns. Many seem to assume that there is a sort of election campaign decisionism. They reason that if a party decides to win an election and puts its best effort and resources into it, it can emerge victorious on the counting day.
This narrative overlooks the structural aspects of the Indian polity and its long-term transformations, and instead focuses on a few, self-styled Chanakyas. In this view, masterstrokes delivered by dear leaders alter electoral fortunes. The massive National Democratic Alliance (NDA) win in the Bihar election is thus chalked down to Nitish Kumar’s last-minute outreach to women or to Amit Shah’s acumen.
This election-centric ideology itself emerged with the rise of two tendencies—the ascent of Hindutva and the growth of political consultancies.
The professionalisation of election campaigns in India was a result of both tendencies. While the rise of Hindutva attempted to detach elections from materialist politics—the detachment of politics from the material needs of the people using right-wing identitarian anxieties—the rise of political consultancies soaked elections in a capitalist framework of efficiency and profit.
The truth about elections and winning elections is an altogether different matter.