Four years of being in power inevitably exerts a gravitational pull on a government's popularity ratings and the Modi government is no exception. The Prime Minister, a consummate and indefatigable politician, more perceptive that any other in India, would be looking for the next opportunity to use that ultimate weapon that has unerringly delivered the goods in elections: mass mobilisation.

Since 2014, he has displayed a method of gradation in this that is start small and then ramp up. The International Yoga Day that has been celebrated on June 21 since 2015, mobilises people and bears his stamp. Prime Minister Modi proposed it in 2014 during his speech at the UN general assembly. It brings together people worldwide, but there is a message between the lines for his audience at home. At Dehradun, where he was on the day this year, the Prime Minister said, "When forces defeat us and break us, there is division within society and family. The person breaks from within, with loneliness increasing. Yoga does the work of joining these pieces."

In ideological terms Modi has been the Indian rightwing's strongest leader since LK Advani. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was, by contrast, a moderate leader and preferred a generally convivial atmosphere to deliver on governance. Modi, and Advani before him, quickly understood the importance of mass mobilisation in politics and turned out, in that sense, to be good students of history. Advani, the man credited with bringing the Bharatiya Janata Party to the centre-stage of Indian politics, mobilised people on a massive scale for the Ram temple in Ayodhya. It was outrightly communal but worked in a Hindu-majority nation, and won seats for the BJP in Parliament. It is now a continuous conversation between the party and the masses and keeps delivering the goods for the BJP.

Modi has not been able to mobilise people with a single programme on the same scale as Advani was able to do with his rath yatra in 1990. But, through a series of programmes, he has been more effective overall besides appropriating the place of 'Hindu Hriday Samrat' in the hearts of many Indians. Using Hindu identity as the launch pad, Modi's Swachh Bharat campaign was a national project to bring people together. It tied in with the RSS way of life focusing on hygiene and clean surroundings. His biggest mobilisation came before he became Prime Minister. In the lead-up to the 2014 general elections, he addressed over 5,800 meetings across the country and travelled lakhs of kilometers, which BJP stalwarts described as the most ambitious election-related mobilisation ever.

The mobilisation has paid him handsome dividends at critical times. The crisis of demonetisation is a highlight. He was not only able to convince people to undergo hardship for a national cau­se, he coopted them into his digital India campaign as well. In the end, there was no immediate pain, as the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections showed. The results revealed that the poorest, who suffered most from demonetisation — they were also those who had backed the BJP's 'Hindustan for Hindus' campaign — were also the ones who backed him. The capacity to motivate people to suffer hardship in the national cause, as Modi did in the aftermath of demonetisation, is a trademark tool of mass leaders. Most notably Winston Chu­rchill did it during the second world war when British resources were at an ebb.

Modi and the BJP under his leadership have keenly understood the huge benefits that mobilisation offers. From the Indian independence movement under Mahatma Gandhi, who brought people together during the non-cooperation movement, the salt march and much more to the Nazis who mobilised the masses on economic issues and race, there are obvious benefits from firing up the people on a single agenda. Gandhi, whose first mass mobilisation effort in India was the Khilafat movement, appealed at various stages in the freedom struggle to the peasants and industrialists, to the elite, the political moderates, and the extremists on either side of the ideological divide.

This requires a national project. On the economic front, both parties — the BJP and the Congress — are ideologically more secular and it becomes a matter of who has the better delivery system. On the ground that would mean who is more successful. But, that does not provide the avenue for mass mobilisation. As Vajpayee realised, all the work put in between 1998 and 2004 — the high GDP growth achieved in the first four years of UPA-I was a creaming off of the economic programme of the Vajpayee government — could come to nought because of one bad campaign slogan played up on a massive scale by the opposition.

Mobilisation at the right time goes beyond administrative failure. It works better to camouflage this fact when institutions are weak, as has happened under Modi. This is expected when a powerful leader who single-handedly wields enormous powers is at the helm of affairs.

It is perhaps relevant to ask why the left parties have lagged behind in the public perception in India despite having mass programmes as an integral part of their campaign method. As atheists, the left had a problem in finding a place among the masses.

It also took the left parties a long time to go beyond class and accept caste as a reality in India, even though they fought discrimination of every kind, including caste. Unlike, the two big parties, they often tend to do some serious hairsplitting on ideology. For instance, regular folk find it difficult to understand the reason behind the CPI's split in 1964 that led to the formation of the CPI(M). Alliances, easier for other parties, is a difficult proposition for the left parties, especially the CPI(M). They need to first collaborate in joint struggles over a long period before deciding whether they can work together. Importantly, the views of the Indian left on human rights, on privatisation, on Kashmir and such sometimes appear too layered to comprehend.

There is nothing more disadvantageous for a political party than a bored electorate. Mass mobilisation shakes people out if their indifference. They find ways to implead themselves in a national cause. The sense of participation drives the adrenaline. On election day, this gets the numbers. Yoga or Swachh Bharat or even 24x7 election management, cleverly presented, has the potential for providing stability to governments and hope for future electoral victories.

ananda.majumdar@mydigitalfc.com