The 2019 Indian National General Elections to the 17th Lok Sabha were held in a charged and hyper-nationalistic atmosphere. The terror attack in Pulwama had just occurred, and the speedy retaliation of Balakote had galvanised the national mood about the ‘New India’ and the ostensible change in governance style.
The ruling party had led a strident and electrifying campaign under the theme ‘Sankalpit Bharat, Sashakt Bharat’ and made 75 concrete promises towards India’s 75th year of Independence. An overarching and inclusive theme of ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas’ with the guarantee of ‘Ache Din’ (prosperous days) rang through the air!
Bold promises like ‘Clean Ganga by 2022’, doubling farmers income by 2022, pursuing relations with neighbourly countries under ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ etc.
Those times had midwifed a new Indian belief and sensibility that was decidedly muscular, martial and with a ‘mumkin’ spirit. In beating the drums of war, the role of the traditionally restrained and apolitical ‘Indian Soldier’ and his/her identity sprung into the national consciousness, like never before.
Though still reeling under the sub-optimal fulfilment of the OROP promise, the venerable Veteran suddenly became omnipresent. Television studios were full of pugnacious Veterans in their impressive regimental regalia, tilted peak-caps and thundering military language to confirm the advent of ‘New India’. They snarled and ‘out-patriotised’ anyone who suggested that most of the so-called ‘muscularity’ was essentially political/partisan hype, rather than reality.
Some even regrettably used language unbefitting the classic template of an officer-and-a-gentleman. But in the rousing times that be, it didn’t matter.
In a positive development, almost all parties, national and regional, resorted to giving tickets to Veterans, besides generous airtime as flag bearers of partisan flags.
Many long-forgotten heroes-in-uniform from yesteryear were recalled for civilian (electoral?) benefit. Even though they occasionally compromised on facts and dates to stitch convenient partisan narrative, but again, it was par for the course in the scheme of things.
But the healthy invocation of the Veterans also occasionally crossed the fine-line of not invoking the image of the ‘Uniformed’ soldiers in beseeching votes in their name.
Again, this grave excess and dereliction towards healthy democracy was diminished. Ultimately, many Veterans fought for the Lok Sabha ticket under different partisan flags, but only some won. almost all from a single party that had succeeded in establishing the most ‘muscular’ storyline, succeeded.
Since 2019-2024, much water has flown under the proverbial bridge and context. For one, the bloody Summer of 2020 and its continuing tensions on the Indo-Sino frontier firmly changed the perception of ‘enemy number one’.
Beijing soon replaced Islamabad (or more realistically, Rawalpindi) as the principal security concern. Strategic calculus got more complicated in the neighbourhood with an increasingly detached Nepal and a Sino-wounded Bhutan.
Myanmar with its own internal political intrigues and retraction from democracy led to new dynamics. Sri Lanka and Maldives with strong ‘anti-India’ constituencies and parties oscillated in their equations with India.
Now, even Bangladesh is witnessing an unprecedented ‘boycott India’ campaign with the opposition parties sensing an India-hand in Sheikh Hasina’s re-election. The spillover of the tenor, tonality and phraseology of Indian politics was having a consequential spillover and natural effect in the neighbourhood, and often it wasn’t positive.
Within the country itself, ‘Manipur’ signified the effects of electorally-gratifying, but societally divisive appeal of the ‘us-versus-them’ spiel. There was a subliminal sense of tension, even if it were routinely and successfully deflected as part and parcel of the ‘necessary price to pay’ towards fructifying India’s manifest destiny, as suggested to the masses.
Any cautionary note from any independent or international source was immediately scorned and slammed as ‘sovereign jealousy’, ‘toolkit agenda’, ‘Soros-funded’, ‘China-funded’.
Somewhere along the line, hyper-nationalism had completely consumed and reposed the muscular agenda of security and the imagery of the ‘Indian Soldier’ towards one political party, and it romped home handsomely in 2019.
Cut to the looming 2024 General Elections for the 18th Lok Sabha, and curiously the role of the once-prominent Veterans seems significantly lesser across all parties. From missing names of Veteran candidates in the nominations order to the absence of ‘TV-studio Warriors’ on 9PM debate – the fraternity is to use a militaristic term, Missing In Action!
It is no one’s case that the security threats (both external or internal) have mitigated, yet the thundering presence of Veterans that one had got accustomed to has instead given way to the manufactured-angst of partisan ideologues, apparatchiks, and spin-doctoring of party spokespersons.
There seems to be far more sophistry and wordsmithing of the contested debates (Ache Din, versus the, Not-So) than the blunter and plain speak of 2019. There is a lot more obfuscation of debate with the use of the word “context” to explain the indefensible.
The more straightforward shooting from the hip style of the Veterans in the 2019 run-up, clearly does not fit the bill of electioneering style in vogue now.
Even though the overarching appeal of ‘muscularity’ or decisiveness is still alive-and-kicking, however, the expressions and elements of the same have given way to newer specificities like the abrogation of Article 370, CAA/NRC, Common Civil Code, Ram Mandir etc., as opposed to the purer militaristic themes.
Strangely, tensions with China, the new ‘Enemy Number 1’, are downplayed and hardly find mention. Certain generic themes like ‘Make in India’ are also conflated to the security realm (which does make sense).
However the literal presence, nomination, voice, or optics of the ‘Indian Soldier’ or its surrogate voice through the Veterans is indeed, Missing in Action! It is a phenomenon that afflicts the opposition parties too.
Intuitively, this change of weakened representation of the Indian Armed Forces fraternity cannot augur well for the approximate 1.8 million Veterans spread across the country, and consequently for the standing forces whose institutional cause and concern naturally accrued more naturally to the said fraternity.
Has the image of the “Indian Soldier” outlived its resonance power (electorally) in 2024 or is it deliberately downplayed to avoid the decidedly direct Q&A approach of Veterans per se? Opinions are divided on the reasons but for sure the 18th Lok Sabha will have lesser representatives with the ensuing phenomenon of ‘Missing in Action’.
Lt. Gen. Bhopinder Singh is the former Lieutenant Governor of The Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Pondicherry and an Indian Army officer who was awarded the PVSM. Views are the writer’s own.