Economist and author Surjit Bhalla on his book Citizen Raj, which chronicles the history of Indian elections since 1952 to the present.
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00:00 media, especially the English speaking media, I don't know much about vernacular media or
00:05 the Hindi media, is very heavily biased, was very heavily biased against Modi and is still
00:13 heavily biased. I think this is a heritage of the past. If you notice that now whenever
00:22 there is a, the Muslim is a victim, the media really, really plays it up. And as it should,
00:31 I have no objection to that. But what I do have an objection to is that when a Hindu,
00:37 when a Muslim commits an equally violent act, it doesn't get much appearance in the media.
00:52 Hello and welcome to Outlook Bibliophile. Today we have ace economist, fanatic cricket
00:57 fan and movie buff, Dr. Surjit Bhalla to discuss his new book Citizen Raj. Surjit, you were
01:05 one of the really brave ones to call the elections much before even the exit polls and the talk
01:11 around it started. And you got it pretty close. Can you tell us what is it that you knew that
01:18 we didn't?
01:19 Well, as you know, I've been working on elections for the last 25, 30 years and forecasting
01:26 elections. Some you get right, some you get wrong. But I must emphasize that when I made
01:34 the forecast, I was very nervous. I checked with the editor in the end of January that
01:41 at that time, the consensus was the BJP on its own would get 180 seats to 200 seats.
01:50 And there was all this talk about who will take over, Modi will not be PM and so on and
01:55 so forth. And I was getting the results, which I put forth in the book that the BJP would
02:01 win on its own without any help from any of the allies. So how did I get it right? So
02:09 that was, first I was nervous, I was unsure, the conventional wisdom was completely. As
02:16 you know, I've been working on this and I don't do my forecast based on opinion polls.
02:23 I do my forecast based on analysis of historical data and the swing model, which is the standard
02:34 forecasting model.
02:35 It may be a bit late to ask this now, but when you were travelling around the country
02:40 just before the elections, did you sense this Modi wave, at least of this strong a wave?
02:47 I did and we talked about it. And especially in UP, what one saw was that everybody we
02:59 talked to, a lot of the issues that people thought would play a very strong role, were
03:06 not playing a strong role in the travels that we did, both in West Bengal and in UP, more
03:14 in UP. So what were the factors that we thought would really play out a lot? One was Balakot.
03:23 And while national security was an issue, but relatively a minor one. What people talked
03:32 about were cows, freewheeling cows and how they were all badly affected. And people were
03:40 talking about how they actually saw benefits to themselves from the Modi regime. These
03:52 are poor people, we are not talking about you and me. These are poor people who actually
03:57 the benefits that were meant for them, for the first time they were seeing this. So we
04:03 saw that whether you were voting for the Congress or voting for the BJP, they all mentioned
04:10 that yes, their lives had improved, whether it is chulas or whether it is toilets, we
04:16 saw so many toilets, places were relatively cleaned.
04:21 You mentioned as in the India travels, one of the issues you thought was important was
04:25 about the cows. In fact you spent a whole chapter in the book about the cow politics.
04:30 So why is it that soon after re-election, the main news, not main, a few tidbits of
04:38 news that we have heard again is about lynching and this cow vigilante. You argue so well
04:44 in the book that this is not going to work. Why is it still on the national news?
04:51 There is a deeper question there Satish and if you know that in my book I also discuss
05:00 about riots and what has happened in terms of crimes against individuals, crimes against
05:09 communities, riots etc. Look, I think, so my short answer to that is that in my view
05:19 and I also discuss it quite openly in the book that the media, especially the English
05:25 speaking media, I don't know much about vernacular media or the Hindi media, is very
05:31 heavily biased, was very heavily biased against Modi and is still heavily biased. I think
05:39 this is a heritage of the past. If you notice that now whenever there is a Muslim is a victim,
05:50 the media really plays it up and as it should. I have no objection to that but what I do
05:58 have an objection to is that when a Hindu, when a Muslim commits an equally violent act,
06:06 it doesn't get much appearance in the media. So I think either this is a heritage that
06:13 they are a minority, I think as I mentioned in the book they have been discriminated against
06:20 whether it be education or various other forms and maybe that's why the intellectual media
06:28 community feels that it needs to bend over backwards for them. I don't know.
06:33 But to be coming back to specifically about this lynching, what you are saying is that
06:37 the media plays these things up, correct? At least a section of it. But I think a part
06:43 of the media also feels that the condemnation of something like this is not strong enough
06:48 from the government, from Mr. Modi. There is that feeling too.
06:56 Let me break that up. It's a very important question. Let me break that up in two parts.
07:02 One is condemnation by the party, by officials, whether bureaucratic or politicians and the
07:10 second is condemnation personally by Mr. Modi. On the latter, that is condemnation by Modi
07:19 himself. I think I have argued in my columns etc. that it is a bit unfair or a bit incorrect
07:28 or whichever way you want to call it that Mr. Modi should comment on any of these because
07:35 he is going to get himself into a trap which is avoided. The second part, however, for
07:44 the party, for officials etc. there should be condemnation of the highest order. So I
07:51 think that is also now improving. That is you are beginning to see the condemnation
08:00 etc. from responsible officials. You saw Gautam Gambhir, you are a cricket fan, I am a cricket
08:08 fan. It's beginning to happen. In the end, actually it is a law and order situation.
08:12 It's a law and order problem. The police and the authorities should just sort of put a
08:18 stop to this. That's it. That's it. And actually that's absolutely right Satish. It is a law
08:23 and order problem and there is no excuse. Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Assayi, whoever is there,
08:28 that is irrelevant. You know, another sort of a contrarian viewpoint or a theme that
08:34 is there in the book which I found, you are saying that RSS actually does not help BJP
08:41 get votes. How is that? The RSS was a strong force or would have aided the BJP in the past
08:52 prior to Mr. Modi coming on the scene. I see. And I think it is the Modi effect and I try
08:58 and give estimates as to how many extra percentage points Modi as a leader of the BJP helped
09:08 the BJP itself. So, the counterfactual is if Advani had run the 2014 election and we
09:19 all speculated on that, the BJP wouldn't have got as many votes, number one. And number
09:27 two, the data by caste, etc. may have shown that the RSS is coming in and helping the
09:35 BJP. But I really think, and this is an important part for all of us to understand and which
09:42 I keep emphasizing whether it is economics or cricket or politics, India has changed
09:49 and we have a lot of our old bits with us. We never had fast bowlers before and now we
09:59 have one of the best fast bowling attacks. Did you ever think that was possible? No.
10:04 But that's how India has changed.
10:06 [Music]