While the result of the Lok Sabha election of 2024 – which Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost but still managed to find his way to office- was a shock to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership as its propagandistic claims lay scattered, it is evident that much has changed in the eighteen months that have since elapsed.This change has principally allowed for the disruption of processes and institutions which emanate from the Constitution of India devised through a lengthy consultative process by those who defeated colonial rule principally through Mahatma Gandhi’s mantra of non-violence – in the process rejecting appeals for the use of violent methods advanced by some, including Savarkarite protagonists, activists and propagandists, and their intimates – the ‘one- soul- in- two- bodies comrades’ of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), for whom Savarkar remains the great preceptor.Modi is now right on top, it is clear to see. More, his opponents appear to have been pushed into the shade. In the overall political scheme, the loose glue that held up the INDIA bloc around election times earlier has begun to look oozy, if the recent Bihar election is any guide. Within the Congress party – the centrepiece of the opposition bloc – its inner cohesion in the states raises questions, to wit the unprepossessing sight of the long-drawn internal power struggle in Karnataka.This impacts public perceptions negatively even among those who recognise that the Savarkar-lineage BJP is not a normal political party; that it is indeed an entity that seeks to envelope and overwhelm state and society through force, if necessary, in order to perpetuate itself in what might essentially turn out to be a one-party system, whatever the trappings.A regime and ideological ecosystem asserting totalitarian control over state and civil societyIt’s clear the Congress cannot endlessly delay the firming up of its organisational basis. Influential interventions in Parliament by its leaders on occasion, their occasional public speeches that cut ice and routine regime denunciations (although on viable grounds), smart video clips by the party’s spokespersons, and even the very impressive and positively received long marches of its most dynamic leader, Rahul Gandhi, are far from enough in getting the party over the finishing line in elections in most states since the party now exists in these only as a faint memory.That’s no way to challenge or contest a regime and ideological ecosystem which may be more than halfway into asserting totalitarian control over state and civil society by playing upon religious sentiments and traditions of the religious majority, by making leading elements of the mainstream media dance to its tune and thus control the principal propaganda arteries, by appeasing big business and the wealthy elements of the professional classes, and increasingly by politicising the uniformed services.To the shock of many, leading lights and cadres of the police and the armed forces of the nation stand subverted. They are now seen to submit themselves unselfconsciously to religious rituals as public displays (quite unlike in the not so distant past) even as a young officer of a religious minority group was recently dismissed from service for showing courteous reluctance to be a part of the religious ceremony of others, with the Supreme Court of India blurting unctuous nonsense to make this possible.Such developments potentially aggrieve large sections of India which fought for her freedom from colonialism marching together in unity, and not as separate religious, caste, linguistic, or ethnic battalions. A disunited face could have offered no fight at all.Given this backdrop, in the time since the last Lok Sabha election, it was no surprise at all- although something of a shock in the larger scheme of things – to see Union home minister Amit Shah’s harrumph in Parliament recently when he declared –for the record – that he and Prime Minister Modi belonged to the ideology of the RSS – a paramilitary outfit banned by the “iron man” of India, Sardar Patel, the country’s first home minister, on the suspicion of Gandhi’s assassination.It’s hard to believe that they – or either of them – will walk into Parliament in the foreseeable future wearing the RSS uniform – khaki “half-pant” or shorts, shirt and belt with a peculiar “topi” or cap, or in the recently effected full trousers avatar of the military-style get-up. That might be mildly amusing but in reality, a reminder of Germany’s Brown Shirts.But the RSS assemblage also has a “lathi” or “danda”, a traditional attack weapon common in India. Shah didn’t carry one when he expounded on his ideological link. But what he did do was to not fail to go into a common expletive when defending the Election Commission, though that’s no business of his. This was the equivalent of carrying a “danda”. A home minister free to utter a “gali” or common expression of abuse is new to India’s parliamentary ethic. It is distasteful. It is unprecedented. It is intimidatory.At least we can’t now pretend we weren’t forewarned.Of course, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and Andhra Pradesh CM N. Chandra Babu Naidu are babes in the wood and had no inkling of what they were pitching for when they rescued Modi’s sinking boat in 2024.The former is of course a willing accomplice in executing the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar which played manipulative havoc on the Bihar electoral rolls. Not a single “ghuspaithia” or foreign (Muslim) infiltrator was reported by the Election Commission to have been found though that was the prime intention of the SIR exercise. Naidu made the appropriate noises when the SIR concept was first mooted but has since then gone into a state of repose.Elections now seem a heistSince the last Parliamentary election, in which the governing party tasted defeat, manipulating the vote has emerged as the most visible, the most risible, method to undermine the democratic character of India. The SIR has turned out its best in-built, systemic, example to assure the regime its best pathway to power. But before the SIR launch, pushing in more voters than there were names on the voters’ rolls seemed to be the preferred technique – Maharashtra and Haryana being strongly alleged examples. This was followed by a change in laws to deny the public video documentation of the voting process. At other times, it was deleting the names of bonafide voters. This was the Karnataka model. Elections now seem a heist.We are living in extraordinary times. When voters voice suspicion, they are denied vital documentation on how they voted. Laughably, the justification is that privacy of individuals will be compromised! But why look that far? The Election Commission itself has been subverted and compromised.Its selection is not that of an autonomous national institution charged with conducting and superintending elections in the world’s largest democracy. The law to select the members of the Election Commission has been changed. Now the poll body has been reduced to a bunch of bureaucrats whose job seems to be to uphold the ruling party’s interests and claims. A lot is likely to come to light when the cookie crumbles.The question begs itself: Why does the government desire total control over the poll body? An added question: Why does the ruling party fight and go to any lengths to win every single election there is- that of a social club, a panchyat, municipality, state Assembly or Parliament? Remember, in Chandigarh not long ago, the poll in-charge turned out to be a BJP member and made the winners lose fraudulently. Luckily, in the Supreme Court he was found out.It’s not rocket science. BJP wants to win – by hook or by crook – every election that is announced. That is the only way it can be in a position to make rules and laws, or change existing ones, to widen its ideological pathway to the formation of a Hindu Rashtra. Also, a stranglehold over elected bodies enables the party to control the purse strings and the budget. Thus it may cut funding for the needy, as proposed changes to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGA) would seem to suggest, or fatten its own “suit-boot” constituency.Those who do not accept this mode of thought need to go to the people to explain in a systematic, organised fashion how they are being short-changed, not merely raise rhetoric and slogans two months before an election. That’s like a debating club.Anand K. Sahay is a veteran journalist.