BJP has won the War over Cultural Agenda but at what cost?

The results of the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections came as a shock to many. The victory of the BJP was a foregone conclusion. That was, perhaps, the only unsurprising aspect of the results that were declared on the 4th of June. Apart from that, just about everything was a bombshell.

The Samajwadi Party’s performance in Uttar Pradesh, the decrease in the victory margin of Narendra Modi, Smriti Irani’s defeat in Amethi, that it took extremely unexpected results from Odisha to comfortably secure a third term for the Prime Minister, it was a rollercoaster of a ride.

There are many theories regarding what happened. All of them in bits and parts provide a coherent explanation of precisely what went wrong for the BJP. Some claim the ‘400 Paar’ slogan cost the party crucial votes among SC communities, others say it’s economic distress that made its presence felt. There is likely at least some amount of truth in all such theories.

However, a major yet under-discussed shift in Indian politics is the ongoing radical depolarisation.

Radical Depolarisation in 2025

The NDA Government has undertaken quite a lot of controversial political ventures since returning to power last year. The most notable among them has been the Waqf Amendment Bill that was passed by the Parliament in April. In terms of impact, it is a lot more far-reaching than the Citizenship Amendment Bill.

Despite emotional rhetoric from politicians, the issue has sparked very little political mobilisation, a far cry from the violent protests during the CAA or farm law agitations. Apart from impassioned verbal opposition on social media and elsewhere, there was nothing much on the ground at all. Life has gone on as usual.

This has been accompanied by bulldozing of slums across the country in states where the BJP is in power. Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Assam and Delhi, all of them have experienced demolition of illegal slums where the majority of residents belonged to the Muslim Community. Surprisingly, however, as part of a new strategy or otherwise, opposition parties have by and large allowed it to happen practically unopposed.

Not only this, the Modi Government has even initiated the mass deportation of Bangladeshi illegal immigrants. Since the launch of Operation Sindoor, reports state that thousands of Bangladeshi illegal immigrants have been deported. Again, surprisingly, it has hardly elicited any strong reactions from any opposition party. If you remember, the entire premise of the protests against the CAA was this, that illegal Muslim immigrants will be deported while Hindus will be given citizenship through the Act. It is precisely what is happening right now, and yet, hardly anybody seems to care.

Is this good news for the BJP?

The answer to that question is yes and no. The positive aspect for the BJP is that it is now in a position to ram through a lot of its core agenda. The negative aspect of it is that it is not getting the kind of attention that it deserves. The lack of virulent opposition from its rivals has also been accompanied by a lack of appreciation from its supporters, from sections of the electorate who would welcome such action in favour of national interests.

All of this has meant that the BJP is no longer fighting in its own turf. It is no longer fighting on agendas it is strong at. The obvious implication of it all is that the BJP has already won the Culture Wars. But at what cost? Nehruvian Secularism is practically dead for all means and purposes. M.K. Gandhi is largely irrelevant today. Vast sections of the electorate already accept that Rahul Gandhi is an incompetent fool.

They are happy that the Ram Mandir has been built in Ayodhya. They support the Citizenship Amendment Act wholeheartedly. They support the abrogation of Article 370. They are also comfortable with an idea of India that is based on its Hindu Civilizational Ethos. All these cultural questions have been settled. Hindutva has won decisively on these fronts. But General Elections are held every five years and every political cycle has two or three core issues that take centerstage.

The BJP’s comprehensive victory means that Article 370 and Ram Mandir have been taken out from political cycles forever. Elections can no longer be contested over these narratives. If it were up to the BJP, they would attempt to contest 2029 on the same issues but how can they when opposition parties have happily conceded defeat on these fronts?

The Negativity Must Flow

The inevitable consequence of all of this is the apathy that has gripped people’s attitude towards politics. Victory is sweet for a day or a month. That joy eventually will fade. Travel is, more often than not, sweeter than the destination. Many BJP-aligned influencers now find that incessant attacks against rival parties yield diminished returns.

Rahul Gandhi’s political mishaps were funny the first time, the second time, the third time and maybe, even the fourth time. But after all these years, they don’t yield the kind of raucous laughter they used to. It does not help that Rahul Gandhi has finally learnt to stay ‘on message’ far more consistently. The message may be destructive and even evil but it is weaponising existing resentment among various sections of Hindu Society.

It is something that is far harder to mock or target. BJP-aligned influencers avoid attacking the Congress on many issues because the party’s own stance is unclear. As a consequence, the attacks are largely limited to the tried and tested formula that has worked for the party for nearly a decade.

However, it has led to the average BJP supporter disengaging from politics. The party no longer enjoys the kind of organic support it did for a decade. Maybe it was inevitable after being in Government for two terms but it is a loss that will be felt dearly by the party.

Politics is a zero-sum game. If people are not towing your agenda, then it is almost certain that they are peddling your rivals’. And it is something that is happening as we speak. A lot of supporters have become so disillusioned with the party, they are often more critical of them than even their rivals. The rivals, rather smartly, play it safe by refusing to hand over any ammunition that might distract people.

X is the preferred online destination for political disputes, like Instagram is for food and travel blogs and Facebook is for personal life updates. So we have people on X fighting over caste, gender, food habits and everything else under the Sun. I even saw some of them fight over introverts and extroverts.

All of this indicates that people are just bored from politics. And that is the real threat of the radical depolarisation that is underway. If people are fighting over national narratives, then they will be fighting over issues that have the potential to metastasise into something that has the potential hurt the party far more significantly.

The BJP is already learning how to overcome the challenges

Despite the discussions surrounding BJP’s vulnerability, its performance in Assembly Elections since 2024 has been astonishing. Haryana, Maharashtra and Delhi, all three of them were extraordinarily significant victories and unlikely too.

These victories demonstrate that the BJP has adapted to the new realities of Indian politics exceedingly well. Instead of relying on national factors, these elections were fought locally, sometimes hyper-locally, leveraging anti-Hooda sentiment in Haryana, anti-incumbency in Delhi and local political arithmetics in Maharashtra.

While the BJP is clearly adapting to new political realities, national elections remain a different ball game. The good thing for the party is that it still has 4 years to set things in order. It’s a long time to find new national narratives to engage the electorate over. If it fails to do so, the radical depolarisation will only intensify further and might become too big of a challenge to overcome. Nonetheless, if events since 2024 have proved anything, it is that the BJP should never ever be underestimated.