Efficiency and the rise of the BJP in India

India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a dominant force in Indian politics. Armed with the narrative of Hindutva and led by Narendra Modi, who is arguably one of modern India’s most popular leaders, the party has transformed India’s political economy in the last few years. Many in Pakistan, however, view the BJP from a very narrow perspective, primarily focusing on Hindutva and a core anti-Muslim agenda that goes back decades. But while the desire to culturally reshape India is a key plank of the party, it is important to recognize that the BJP’s dominance in India, particularly in the Hindi heartland, has more to do with its grassroots organization and ability to provide welfare and service delivery to broad segments of society.

The BJP’s victory in the recently held elections in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, is the latest bit of evidence showcasing the BJP’s dominance in Indian politics. The party has emerged victorious despite a devastating pandemic, where a brutal lockdown imposed by the Modi government caused unimaginable economic, emotional, and societal trauma. The economy ground to a halt and millions lost their livelihoods; the pandemic devastated the Hindi heartland, where crematoriums ran out of capacity. Despite this, the BJP remained popular, winning over 250 of the 403 seats in Uttar Pradesh elections.

A recently published book titled The New BJP: Modi and the Making of the World’s Largest Political Party does a wonderful job explaining why the BJP is so dominant. Nalin Mehta, author of the book, has based his analysis on interactions with local leaders, journalists, and community members who have first-hand witnessed the rise of the BJP under Modi. In the book, a senior BJP leader in Uttar Pradesh argues that “Hindutva is like the elephant’s teeth” and that while “Hindutva gives you the speed if you are going in a particular direction,” it is welfare that is “the wheel that makes it all run.”

This focus on efficient service delivery, supported by a hyper-focused grassroots mobilization strategy, has played a fundamental role in the BJP’s dominance in Indian politics. While the BJP is not inclusive when it comes to non-Hindu religious minorities, Muslims in particular, its political setup is inclusive when it comes to forming a broad coalition that cuts across castes. For example, the BJP has made a concerted effort to represent Other Backward Castes and Scheduled Castes in the party. This strategy has ensured that the BJP’s total target vote share continues to grow, and as early data from Uttar Pradesh indicates, the party has made further inroads in the Dalit community as well.

This inclusion of previously ignored castes within the BJP umbrella has been paired with a focus on direct bank transfers. This was made possible by the BJP government’s focus on opening zero-balance bank accounts for citizens. With citizens having Aadhaar digital identity cards linked to their bank accounts, transfer of money to deserving households became much more efficient. This plugged leakages and corruption in the welfare system, ensuring that deserving households began receiving the full amount of benefit payments they were entitled to.

As Mehta shows in his book, Modi’s focus on providing “pakka ghar” to citizens has been immensely popular and empowering for citizens. Launched in November 2016, the program had provided funding for over 17.5 million homes for the poor by November 2020, and “12 million of these approved houses had already been constructed.” This was made possible by a direct bank transfer of INR 120,000 paired with ninety days of unskilled labor under a separate scheme. Other schemes focused on toilet construction, gas cylinders, and fertilizer subsidies have been made more efficient as well, benefiting millions of households who previously struggled to get the welfare payments that were their right.

Welfare delivery in South Asian societies has been plagued with corruption and cronyism for decades, where powerful bureaucrats and politicians colluded to extract welfare payments for personal gains. The rollout of direct bank transfers under Modi short-circuited this system, but it was still possible for powerful individuals at the local level to hold up applications. To deal with this issue, the BJP leveraged its grassroots presence to directly engage with and empower citizens down to the village level. In Uttar Pradesh, for example, the grassroots workers in coordination with the chief minister began informing citizens about what government schemes they were eligible for and asked whether deserving citizens had received these benefits. This meant that the local party supported citizens who were stuck in red tape, creating a relationship with communities that helped mobilize voters during elections season.

It is for this reason that Modi and the BJP survived both the demonetization fiasco, which sucked liquidity out of India’s cash-based economy, and the pandemic lockdown failures. While these policy failures devastated households, the ability of the party to efficiently deliver welfare to households, especially those belonging to lower castes, has created a loyal base of supporters who can see and feel the difference in their lives through the welfare and service delivery of the BJP government.

This is not to say that Hindutva as an ideology does not play a role in mobilizing the BJP’s base. The hateful and divisive rhetoric leveraged by the BJP is creating long-term fissures in Indian society and represent a growing radical threat. However, it is important to recognize that effective governance, service delivery, and welfare payments are core features of the BJP’s playbook. The combination of Hindutva and effective service delivery has made the BJP a dominant force in Indian politics and the role of the latter should not be underestimated.