Harishchandra Jr goes to college

The BJP opens up a path to defeat

In my quest to make sense of the political world and to explain the inexplicable, I often fall back on referring to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs table.*

Of course, real world motivations are quite complex - but I am a simple creature who enjoys reductive pigeonholing to preserve my sanity while reading the news.

To this end, it explains why Trump got elected in spite of his abominable personality. His topics → immigrants as criminals (yellow), inflation (red), address higher priority needs than Kamala’s topics → democracy & freedom (purple/blue), Ukraine (blue), and peak purple word salads.

Climbing the needs hierarchy tends to be an occupational hazard for Western political parties. They often calculate that enough people have the red and yellow layers fulfilled and that they can then get on with the green, blue and purple. It never lasts, a Trump or Farage resets the system by quickly running up the polls with messaging from the bottom.

This pyramid, created by Abraham Maslow from the US, does a great job of explaining American elections. As an Indian, trying to apply it to the rationale and motivations of my countrymen, it works… but the pieces take some squeezing in and one is left with a feeling that it can be improved upon a tad. Indian voting is primarily concerned with the topics of societal relationships - religion and caste (green), heavily intermingled with safety and security (yellow). The diagram is also incomplete.

Forgive a small digression but let’s fill in the missing element.

The story of Raja Harishchandra:

There are countless retellings of the tale, but essentially - the righteous king is forced to sell everything, including his wife, son, and eventually himself, into bondage. He then works at the cemetery as a Chandala’s stand-in, collecting immolation fees, and is unable to perform the cremation of his son (death by snakebite) due to his own penury. At each point in the story, he sheds various layers - kingship, wealth, subjects, relations, freedom, caste, everything - with complete equanimity. Harishchandra, being a great soul, is already liberated from the human need pyramid. His tribulations are merely divine tests to confirm the same. Eventually the son is revived back to life and kingship restored. A Deus in persona plot ending.

It is of significance that this is the story the very first Indian feature film in 1913 chose to tell. Dharmic states of enlightenment and peak aspirational spirituality are about denying each layer of this pyramid through sheer practice, diligence and ultimately willpower. Essentially transcending humanity into the divine by rejecting all needs.

This goal enters political life in strange ways. Gandhi’s vision of post independence Swarajya was idealizing every village to be a transcendent circle of needless independent divinity, displaying both incredible naivety and pathetic geopolitical awareness. It is remarkable that he is not panned more for it.

And so our modified Indic pyramid can be redrawn as below. I merged the yellow and green layers as safety and security in India has a lot to do with a sense of belonging to a caste or religion, especially w.r.t voting. A quick example for clarity:

UP & Bihar, the political heartland due to demographic weight, are known to be slightly lawless states. They tend to be far more lawless when the Yadav + Muslim dominated coalitions win. And yet, their core vote bases remain perfectly intact election after election. The voting percentages barely shift single digits as each caste only truly feels secure with their people on top. Winning is just a matter of hacking everyone else’s need triangle, something the BJP has proven itself to be adept in.

As India moves towards a middle income country, politics has largely moved out of the red** and now sits squarely in that second layer. The BJP has won 3 elections dancing around that zone. With the new UGC rules (caste based anti discrimination regulations in colleges) they have foolishly moved into the blue - prestige for the lower castes. Reservations already chew up large proportions of education and government jobs in the country. The advance has been relentless, and the BJP has only hastened it along.

This is a political miscalculation. Blue layer fulfilment for some, comes at a cost to others. Draconic new anti discrimination laws threaten the safety and security of the general category castes (traditional BJP vote banks). What happens to the GC middle and lower middle classes locked out of opportunities, subject to extortion on false complaints? Simmering resentment just needs a political outlet, new alliances can be cobbled together amidst grievances at the pyramid bottom. All it needs is a charismatic figure to give the caste equations a shake up and promise priority need fulfilment.

Maybe some great souls can leave these worldly concerns with pyramid transcendence. The rest of humanity is resigned to the climb, filling in the levels as they go, and they will vote for anyone who promises to help.

I leave you with a final thought.

What is the fate of Harishchandra’s revived son - Rohitashwa if the kingship was not restored. Will he be able to go to college? In his destitution, who can he place his trust with to aid his need fulfilment exertions?

* Yes, I do see the rainbow colouring. Consider me leaving it alone is as an act of reclaiming the Indra Dhanush.

** This is not to claim that India is out of the red zone. It isn't, but fulfilling the roti-kapda-makan (food-clothing-shelter) is now mentally entrenched as an unassailable right. Successive governments are both extremely sensitive to inflation and stay well clear of penny pinching the subsidy budgets. The only real change is whose face they put on the bag of flour.