Re-discovering Social Justice

The roadmap for the 2029 Lok Sabha election should focus on equal access to resources, economic and political, while ensuring dignity and self-respect

- N Sukumar, Mukesh Thakur and Ankur Kumar

THE past decade in Indian politics had witnessed the submersion of all other identities under the Hindutva juggernaut and the gradual erosion of political parties that spoke the language of social justice. A few scholars argued that the subaltern communities had unquestioningly accepted Hindutva. Similar results were expected in 2024 and there were whispers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gaining a brutish majority and amending the Constitution. For the party devotees, nothing would stop India from becoming a Hindu rashtra.

However, the long-drawn elections fought in the scorching summer unleashed many surprises. The BJP fell short of an absolute majority and regional parties, which had social justice as their agenda, were able to contain Hindutva, especially in the Hindi heartland. The communally-laden speeches and campaigns failed to sway the masses and instead issues of employment, the Agniveer scheme, the guarantee of Minimum Support Prices (MSP), the Old Pension Scheme, enhancement of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA), education, and constitutional guarantees took centre stage. Working under the radar, the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu sought to forge new alliances across their traditional support base. A rejuvenated Congress under Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge also positioned itself as a party which voiced the concerns of the Dalits. A mere six months ago, nobody would have imagined that the labour of the INDIA bloc regarding seat-sharing and joint electoral campaigns would help to drastically reduce the BJP’s tally of seats.