Modi 2.0: Nationalism of Urban India that went Unnoticed

Nationalism need not always be associated with military acts only. Mostly it is in daily routine acts of common man. This is the most important undercurrent that mattered for urban voters of India.

Infamous statement by Dr Shama Mohamed of Indian National Congress almost sums up what opposition thinks and knows about their own country.

Certainly such a brazen statement undermines voters’ wisdom and their decision. What amuses me more is lack of understanding of nationalism among the oppositions as well as number of journalists, political analysts and critics of Modi. More than often, nationalism gets linked to military actions or at least that’s what has been popular discourse post Balakot air strikes. This populist definition of nationalism is completely different than the nationalism that is practiced. Nationalism has nothing do with educated or illiterate and it definitely does not come in the form of air strike or surgical strike only.

The urban voter can be divided into two broad categories. One is people with roots in rural India who put in lot of hard work in urban India to make good living for their families in rural India. Other category consists of people like me who are brought up in cities and have no direct connection with rural India. This differentiation will simplify further analysis.

Almost clean sweep in Bengaluru and 100% success in Delhi and Mumbai has made many left-liberals, journalists and analysts wonder and they’ve been unable to digest the resounding mandate that BJP led NDA got in 2019 general elections. One such example is a tweet by respected journalist Rajdeep Sardesai questioning people’s choice of Sadhvi Pragya and rejection of Atishi Marlena of AAP. It is classic case study of how people have undermined voters’ intellect and displayed their inability to have deeper understanding of electorate.

The inability to fathom such result is understandable after all so much was invested in building various anti-establishment narratives like tukde-tukde or NotInMyName etc. which were either hypocritical or fake. These narratives never found any place in lives of common urban voter and voter could see the real motivation behind these mischievous activities. Disowning one’s own nation is not something that a common man can accept. The nation, state, city and even locality provides a sense of belonging to a common man. This is also a form of nationalism which went unnoticed.

Many urban voters are indirect beneficiaries of govt schemes and programs. Most of them are immigrated to cities for work, leaving their families behind in rural India. These family members who live in villages are beneficiaries of govt schemes like Jan Dhan or Ujjwala or Aawas Yojana etc. It is understandable for them to vote for BJP as they are direct or indirect beneficiaries. Equal or may be even larger section of urban voters are not direct beneficiaries of govt schemes. And still they long for BJP under Narendra Modi. These people are okay with themselves not getting direct benefits as long as rural India, that has been deprived for years, gets what it deserves. Be it gas cylinder or a bank account or electricity. They firmly believe that alleviating poverty in India will come through providing access to basic amenities in rural India and they see Narendra Modi as the man who can deliver on this promise. Despite having no direct benefits and only suffering from GST and DeMo, this section of urban voters voted to ensure that deprived India gets its share of development. This kind of nationalism among urban India also went unrecognised.

It was not just BJP’s efforts but such voting for inclusive growth and betterment of deprived Indians that made these elections look like presidential elections. Hence the local candidate, his or her education, public life record etc. were secondary for urban voter as long as she/he is NDA candidate who will empower Modi govt. to ensure Sab Ka Vikas.

To sum up, this election was largely driven by work done in rural areas of India. The social media trends to some extent spoke of it. But hardly any mainstream media spoke of it until recently when Shekhar Gupta read between the lines and assessed media’s blanket blindness towards ground reality. This ground work in rural areas creates ripples in urban areas too. Hence it is of utmost importance to focus on rural growth without losing urban development agenda which eventually will take center-stage.