While Indian exit polls didn’t predict the BPJ’s loss of majority, the effects of climate change and increased visibility of religion in politics have long been forecast, says Amitava Kumar
The electorate has resurrected a viable opposition in parliament against a chastened BJP. But neither side is ready to face the immensity of the climate crisis, a call to voters to send more than 400 of its candidates to the 543-member parliament. This slogan, voiced by Modi at his campaign rallies, set a high bar for the party.– and now the results, with that party having won only 240 seats, suggest that the electorate has sent a chastening message to the ruling party and trimmed its hubris.
You wouldn’t know this if you heard the hype in India’s television studios, where enthusiastic anchors mirrored Modi’s aggressive statements, particularly his hostile and– but there was no Modi wave. There was only the heatwave. Just this week, in my hometown of Patna, in eastern India, I met a man named Ashutosh Pandey who told me that the level of heat had proved fatal for people in his own village: he wasn’t going to risk voting, and neither was his mother.
The crucial point to be noted here is that the heat did not figure at all among the thundering sentiments delivered from the dais by the candidates. The prominent environmentalist Ashish Kothari told me that the “full dimensions of the climate crisis” had escaped both the BJP’s and Congress’s manifestos. In the face of such silence, it fell on the Delhi High Court to warn of the effects of global warming this past week: The courtPerhaps the election results hold a small promise of change.
The truth about climate change is that it exacerbates social inequities, and once multiple crises begin to unfold in the future, one of the first victims will be the faith in democracy that we are all experiencing in this heady moment.
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