Dispatch #85:Political preferences of the Indian middle class - Part 2

In this dispatch, we will closely look at the voting patterns of the Indian middle class in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections

Source: ECI

In the previous dispatch, we saw how the higher turnout of the upper middle and middle class in the 2014 elections and their strong views on government largesse led to a 12% pro-BJP swing. The class-based voting staged a comeback in 2014 because of the rise of the ‘neo-middle class’, a social category that is aspirational and has started climbing up the social mobility ladder due to economic liberalisation.  However, 5 years later, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections class lost its salience as voters across all classes voted for the BJP. Sridharan argued that there was ‘little difference in voter preference across the 4-class division’. 

Let’s first look at the class composition of the Lokniti survey respondents as shown in Table 1.

Source: Sridharan (EPW)

The rich class increased from 11% in 2014 to 14% in 2019; the middle class shrank from 36% to 22%; the lower class was at around 34% and the poor increased from 20% to 30%. 

Class turnout was also quite interesting in 2019. While the difference between the turnout between the poor and rich (or upper class) was 7% in 2014 (Poor=60% and Rich=67%), this difference shrank to 1% in 2019 (Poor=66% and Rich=67%). The overall inter-class turnout differential was small in 2019 compared to 2014 as reflected in Table 2.

Source: Sridharan (EPW)

The turnout for the rich and middle class from rural India was higher than their urban counterparts as seen in Table 3.

Source : Sridharan (EPW)

Table 4 shows the class-wise party preferences in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. A significantly high percentage of the poor voted for the BJP. It went up from 24% 

In 2014 to 36% in 2019. The overall class differences in party preferences became narrow in 2019. But what was most interesting was the fact that the poor voted for the BJP twice as much as for the Congress (36% vs 17%).

Source : Sridharan (EPW)

On further examining the data, we find that even though the poor followed the ‘poor-voter-paradox’ as explained in the previous dispatch, the ‘new social bloc’ that supported the BJP comprised of upper caste, OBCs. SCs and STs. This pattern from the survey broadly followed the national vote share pattern. Table 5 illustrates how the BJP got votes across the class and caste with the upper caste voting pro BJP which has always been the case traditionally.

Source : Sridharan (EPW)

 Sridharan explains:

There is also a kind of Hindu consolidation if one wants to call it that, with upper castes, OBCs. SCs and STs very broadly following the national vote share pattern with the upper castes in particular voting highly pro-BJP, but even the SCs are broadly in line with the national pattern. What emerges is that there is a much higher spread in caste/community voting patterns, even if we leave out Muslims.

Looking at the data above, one can conclude that the ‘class polarisation’ in party preferences seemed to have been muted. This means that the pro-BJP votes in the 2019 elections came across the class and caste with Hindu consolidation. Christophe Jaffrelot in his article titled ‘Class and caste in the 2019 Indian election - Why do so many poor have started to vote for Modi?’ has explained this phenomenon of class losing its prominence and the rise of caste as the fulcrum of politics. He argued that the BJP’s strategy to bring various small and poor OBCs (non-Yadavas) and SCs (non-Jatavas) helped the party gain significant support, thus blurring caste polarization. He explains:

In the 2009 and 2014 elections, the poorer the voters were, the less BJP-oriented they were too. The situation changed in 2019 when the PM appeared to be equally popular among all the strata of society including the poor. If class has lost some of its relevance in explaining the results of the 2019 elections, caste is showing some resilience. The caste-based strategy partly explains the above-mentioned class element as the small OBC and Dalit jatis that the BJP has wooed are often among the poorest and upper caste poor vote more for BJP than their co-ethnic rich anyway.

This leads to the question: How important were the economic policy-related issues to an average voter in 2019?

The Lokniti survey found that only 43% of the respondents felt that economic issues were important while 57% of respondents indicated other issues to be important. The reason why less than half of respondents indicated that economic issues were important was because 65% of the respondents were either completely or somewhat satisfied with the current government at the Center. Negative economic issues such as unemployment, inflation etc. were most important for only 26% of respondents.

The welfare outreach by the government helped them gain a lot of credit and support. In addition, Modi’s leadership and perceived lack of an alternative and the nationalistic fervour post-Balakot airstrikes created a pro-BJP environment. 

This raises a fundamental question: Why do the lower and poorer classes vote on the same lines as the elite (rich and middle class)?

One of the probable reasons, according to Sridharan, was right-wing populism with anti-elite attitudes, ethnonationalism and authoritarianism gaining a lot of salience. 

Another major factor was the ‘poor-voter-paradox’. As explained in the last dispatch, poor voters routinely vote for parties that represent the interests of the rich and elite because of 3 reasons:

1. Programmatic distributive shifts (like anti-poverty programs) undertaken by elite parties

2. Patronage distribution 

3. Distracting appeals of identity politics.

All three factors played a critical role in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The Lokniti survey found that a significant proportion of the respondents received either public funds or benefits from various welfare programs during the 2014-19 period. Combine this with ethnonationalism and anti-minority sentiments, you have a situation where the class polarization got blurred. 

Sridharan concludes by adding:

My speculation is that the relative absence of significant class difference in party preferences in 2019 is the result of a complex interaction between growing Hindu identity politics, perceived strong and effective leadership, upward or aspirational class identification and effectively implemented welfare programs.