Why Modi Wins Elections – By M J Akbar
Women are the nodal caste in his radical re-characterisation of varna…
NOT MUCH MYSTERY in the mystery question, unless your address during the last decade has been a blind alley in the Anglosphere zone of Delhi. Why does Prime Minister Narendra Modi win elections? The nub of this electoral phenomenon is the rise of electoral consciousness among underprivileged women: in the Modi decade this has accelerated from arithmetical to geometrical progression through economic empowerment and social reform. The poor, across most traditional denominations, have found their leader, and women have discovered deliverance.
In our traditional equation, men earn the money and women provide the food. Women are the guards and guardians of the family. They convert the combined earning of a family into the essentials for survival and perhaps the occasional touch of comfort, or festive joy. This is changing but has not yet changed. The periodic agitation by women in many states for prohibition is based on the fear that too much of a man’s earnings will be wasted on alcohol before it reaches home. The woman’s earnings are always safe, for women by nature think of family before themselves.
Prime Minister Modi sealed a deal with women that began with sanitation, Jan Dhan banking, kitchen-cylinders, MUDRA bank loans, and with the Garib Kalyan food security programme begun during Covid. Five kilograms of rice or wheat, and one kilogram of dal came free to every home. Every single family in need received it. No one checked the name on the door. Caste and creed were irrelevant. The free food fed 800 million Indians at a time of existential insecurity and has now been extended to 2028. It is the largest welfare scheme in history. In one decision, Modi eliminated the greatest fear of the marginalised woman. Why would women abandon the leader who had become an annadata?
Food, light, roof, gas, water, sanitation, health, education.
Not a single home left out because of sectarian identity. It did not
matter whether you voted for Modi or not; the food arrived.
Women are the nodal “caste” in Prime Minister Modi’s radical recharacterisation of varna. “All women have one caste,” he has said in a public speech and urged women to protect their unity to enhance their interests. His four castes are the poor, young, women, and farmers. Poverty must be eliminated from lived experience; the young are the future; women are the guardians; and farmers feed a nation. He has defined modern governance for Indians and added a complementary challenge to casteism and communalism. Identity is defined by economics, not birth or religion.
Why do women vote for Modi? It’s a no-brainer.
