The results confirm that voters have not elected their caste or tribe but their Hindu-ness. | Photo Credit: BCCL

Narendra Modi will be the first non-Congress politician to serve two full consecutive terms as Prime Minister in a majority government. His victory is certain to have convulsive consequences. Apart from the obvious implications for the Congress and some other regional political parties who might now have to fight to stay relevant, the triumph spells a major crisis of credibility for the so-called ‘’Khan Market Consensus”: An entitled clique who purport to have crafted the ideological bedrock of Indian democracy.

The results confirm that voters have not elected their caste or tribe but their Hindu-ness. Where the Mandir failed, the “Khan Market Consensus” has succeeded in awakening the Hindu.

Ever since the rise of Modi, virtually from the first day he assumed office, the “Khan Market Consensus” has droned on about his allegedly corrosive impact on the secular fabric of the nation. Its rasping excoriation of Modi’s RSS background and its simplistic hyphenation with a mean-spirited Hindu chauvinism meant that all his supporters were branded as bigots. Indeed, as the vanguard of a new kind of “bhakti” movement the difference being that this avatar was not syncretic but Semitic. A Klu-Klux-Klan governed by a code and hooded by blinding hatred towards Muslims, Dalits, LGBTQI, Liberals, democrats and everything that stood in the way of a Hindu Rashtra.

Sorry, but it’s a jaundiced, illiberal conflation of the type that cost Hillary Clinton the elections in 2016. Remember, when she shamed Trump supporters by branding them all as “deplorables". Being so dismissive taught her a lesson. Today, Indian voters have taught Rahul Gandhi, Mamata and several other satraps who were the political ‘sutradhars’ of this ‘’Khan Market’’ construct a lesson.

Just like not every liberal is an Urban Naxal, not every Modi supporter is a bigot, prejudiced, sicko. On the contrary, most Modi’s supporters recognise he has made some mistakes. They have been anguished when he has given a podium to the faces of an uncompromising anti-Muslim component, they have felt their stomach churn when abominable crimes were visited upon Muslims in the name of Gau-raksha, they have been disappointed when he has been reticent to embrace progressive social order where same-sex love is not stigmatised. In fact, they have even been grateful when the courts have stepped in to remind Modi of his omissions and Constitutional obligations.

Had the “Khan Market Consensus” not been so busy snootily looking down their patrician noses they would have read the results of Assembly elections and Lok-Sabha by-elections over the last 18 months for what they were: A sense of disaffection with Modi for some of his mistakes. But instead of embarking on an agenda that would have provided Modi supporters a genuine reason to vote for another manifesto, they continued to shame them. In fact, not content with labelling, they went further by insidiously pursuing a policy of dividing Hindus.

If the results of the Lok Sabha elections tell us something it is this: Modi supporters don’t want to be divided by self-serving politics but want to be united by hope. The hope that they too will someday wear without guilt a “suit-boot” accessorised by perhaps even a “tilak”. The hope that they won’t have to flash their caste certificate to apply for the next job or scheme. The hope that saying “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” would not be construed as an indignity but as a privilege available to anyone who decides to delight in the pageantry of patriotism.

The views expressed by the author are personal and do not in any way represent those of Times Network.