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Every party in the world, and, by extension, the government, claims to be the real people's voice. From INC's (Indian National Congress) purported Nyay Patra to the clause 'People's democratic dictatorship' in the Chinese constitution, parties and governments worldwide spend vast sums of money, time, and energy on documentation, establishment of rules, and coming up with potential public policies to amp up their electoral, and thus, the legitimacy game. The above-stated fact has been pushed to the extreme in budding democracies like that of Eastern European countries - according to a Polish report, the PiS (Law and Justice) party single-handedly outspent all its rivals in its electoral campaigning. The same could be said of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) in India as well; The Hindu estimated that over 55% of all the spending by political parties was accounted for by the BJP alone. Outside the realm of expenditure, in a desperate attempt to cling to power, the ruling parties in countries like Poland and India are actively trying to subvert the checks and balances of the governmental mechanism - the BJP tried this by bringing the 99th Constitutional Amendment Act, i.e. NJAC (National Judicial Appointments Commission, struck down by the Indian Supreme Court in 2015). Similarly, the PiS tried tinkering with the Polish Constitutional Court ever since it came to power in 2015. Despite the gargantuan nature of such efforts, the elections in 2023 (Poland) and 2024 (Indian Lok Sabha and EU elections) appeared to tell a different story. Through this article, I endeavour to analyse the ideas and developments driving far-right movements in Poland, why the PiS and the BJP failed to reach their supposed objectives through these elections and prospects regarding their electoral and power outcomes.
India and Poland are similar in myriads of aspects post the abrupt collapse of the Soviet Union. While India has had a functioning democracy since 1951, a Balance-of-Payments crisis in the year 1990 lurched India towards the Washington economic consensus, spearheading liberalization and globalization of the Indian economy and ushering in a new era for the Indian populace. Poland, on the other hand, suffered draconian rule under a military junta as the final days of the Polish People's Republic ticked. The coalition era began in India alongside economic reforms; actual democratic competition was underway for the first time in the life of the Indian Republic, except for the short duration immediately after the Emergency. From an age perspective, Poland's democratic institutions seem pretty relatively new.
However, we must keep in mind that the overall socio-economic experiences of both nations were pretty similar post-1991, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Poland embarked on an ambitious 'shock therapy' model, which succeeded in materialising. Alongside political realignment with Western institutions such as NATO and the EU, Poland's GDP per capita swelled exponentially, growing by over 150% of its 1989 statistics (according to 2018 figures). So, all was well, right? Why did the political far-right surge in Poland and India, then?
Migration and its outsized impact on Poland and India
A critical feature similar to the rise of both the BJP and PiS has been the migrant bogeyman, with 2015 being a ground-breaking year for the EU (European Union). Angela Merkel's 'Wir schaffen das!' (We can do this) was not accurately a sentiment shared by everyone in the EU. There was a marked disparity even within Germany herself - with the former East Germany electing hard-right parties like the AfD (Alternative Fur Deutschland) in record numbers. Multiculturalism was tasting storms in the former Soviet turf. Despite separation from the Eastern bloc years earlier, Poland and East Germany share similar cultural sentiments towards migrants. Restive governments in Poland and Hungary petitioned against EU-wide migrant quotas, while sub-national governments in Germany took to banning burqas in public servant capacity, for example.
Poland has been a unique case for several reasons. For one, Polish public perception about the prevalence of Muslims in their country has been one of the most inconsistent with official censuses, among all European countries. Part of this could be credited to the ruling party's iron-clad control of state media; even Donald Tusk's new government, elected in 2023, could not undo the prestige damage the PiS had so subtly conducted regarding state media. With back-channel control and oligarch control of media houses in India, Poland and India are remarkably similar in the media department. Only the ways of control vary, while the outcomes have been the same.
Secondly, just like India, Poland has had extensive historical tragedies that influence its cultural-national consciousness. Poland as a state did not exist for 123 years until World War 1 concluded. Polish borders have been revised extensively with the Polish 'resettlement' (alternatively termed forced population displacement) campaigns thrusted upon by the authoritarian Soviet regime as a hallmark of Stalin's enduring repression and tyranny. Irredentism in the form of Greater Catholic Poland (a pipe dream to restore the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) or Akhand Bharat is something quite mainstream in our respective political consciousness. The Ukrainian, Russian, and Nazi German massacres of Poles (see Katyn, Volhynia and Eastern Galicia) are etched permanently in the Polish consciousness. Hence, one might see occasional reports of the Poles' resentment against Ukraine until 2022. I would further argue that the hatred of Ukrainians by Poles was superseded by the hatred of Russians, which made Poland double down on its assistance of Ukraine against Russian aggression from 2022 onwards. This instance is very similar to the Partition tragedy faced by us Indians.
Thirdly, while economic prosperity has delivered the Polish and the Indian population a better quality of life and a greater variety of choices, inequality has worsened dramatically post-liberalisation for both economies - this gives outlet to the anti-environmental, anti-liberal and anti-globalisation, protectionist project of the right-wing groups leading to disadvantaged young men to subscribing to the same ideology (for example, take a look at the anti-Valentine’s day protests). This also explains why upper-caste men vote in more significant percentages for the BJP while the Congress, while historically casteist, now receives more diverse votes due to its 'modi'fied rhetoric.
Lastly, the perceived racial, ethnic, and socio-cultural disconnect between the migrants and the host population actively leads to discrimination and ghettoisation. In the populist project of these parties, they claim that Hinduism or Sanatan Dharma is indispensable to the idea of India, while Catholicism is the vanguard of Polish conservatism. Unofficial alliances with religious leaders, who wield significant influence among vast swathes of the Polish and Indian population, help make politico-religious messaging look more enticing.
Farmers' movement, similarities and differences
A curious difference can be noticed regarding the farmer's plight in both countries. The anti-government tone of both the farmer movements has echoed worldwide, with the Polish case being exceptionally prominent when it came to pan-EU protests against farming policies in the bloc. Both are centred around the core identity of being a 'farmer' in these tumultuous times and serving the nation selflessly without self-consideration. Identity politics play a huge role in both our countries.
However, the similarities end there. Polish farmer movements are border-centric and work in conjunction with the more significant migrant issue. In the Indian case, however, the ideological moorings are pretty different and have more in common with the social justice aspect. Also, the reason I used the term 'politically right' at the beginning of my passage is to differentiate between political and economic ideologies, and in this segment, the BJP tip-toes the economically 'Left' stance, endlessly working on welfare schemes and still supporting Public Sector Undertakings (the number of PSUs are increasing every year). Hence, a cumulative term, broadly encompassing BJP’s ideologies, would be ‘Hindu Left’, with the term ‘Hindu’ reflecting BJP’s commitment to stratification based on religious lines. Farmers in India are protesting for government subsidies and MSP. At the same time, the Confederacy Party that the farmers broadly support in Poland is anti-government and quite libertarian; it advocates for a flat tax, opting out of pension-based payments, and promoting more economic freedom for small businesses. In short, alongside social stratification, we see a tie-up with classical liberal economic policies, in Poland.
The farmer movement in Poland is heavily influenced by anti-Ukrainian sentiment owing to cheap grain imports from Ukraine, which in turn reduces the income of the farmers within the EU bloc. In contrast, the Indian farmer movement has nothing in common with anti-Bangladeshi sentiment. It is situated around the heartland of North India (i.e., it is region-restricted). However, the support for PiS and the Confederation Party is in areas bordering Ukraine, unlike the Indian scenario.
Fragmentation and even more fragmentation
If anything, the results of 2023 and 2024 show how the far-right project has been rolled back in both countries. EU parliamentary groups have been completely fragmented; new supra-national political groups are emerging in the EU parliament, such as Patriots for Europe, Europe of Sovereign Nations and so on. This fact goes on to show that the far-right project has failed in the coordinational aspect, and that a lack of a unified bloc could not capitalise on anti-incumbency sentiment across most nations in Europe. Both the PiS and the BJP lost their parliamentary dominance; the opposition is back to ruling Poland (while in India, we have the Leader of the Opposition for the first time since 2014). Meddling with the government mechanisms, government excesses in the case of tinkering with the courts or electoral practices (for example, the Electoral Bond scheme), rolling back rights in both countries (e.g. abortion in Poland and usage of UAPA indiscriminately and the patriarchal regulation of live-in relations in India) and, lastly ignorance of critical issues that appealed to most of the voters in both the countries led to the result that we are seeing today.
Hence, it is safe to conclude that the far-right populist measures are, in effect, only short-term stopgaps to chronic societal fluxes, and to live in harmony and make effective decisions that appeal to all parties in a nation, only honouring the constitution and the democratic process can heal polarised societies we see today in both old and new democracies alike.
References
Npr. (2024, July 3). It's the biggest election year in modern history. Will democracy prevail? NPR. https://www.npr.org/2024/07/03/1198912778/its-the-biggest-election-year-in-modern-history-will-democracy-prevail
Przybylski, W. (2018). Explaining Eastern Europe: Can Poland's Backsliding Be Stopped?Journal of Democracy 29(3), 52-64. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2018.0044.
https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/elections/spending-big-bjp-accounts-for-55-of-the-poll-expenses-of-all-political-parties-put-together/article68045772.ece
This insightful article adequately captures the dynamics of political and social landscapes in Poland and India. Its nuanced comparison of the impermanence of the rise in far-right popularism with the lasting power of democratic values is enriching. A good read 👍🏻
ReplyDeleteExcellent and very informative. Keep it up Parth!
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