2024 Was India’s Year of Reckoning: From Political Shifts To Global Realignments – News18

Last Updated:December 27, 2024, 11:55 IST

In many ways, 2024 has been a year of reckoning for India, both domestically and on the global stage. It has been a year of hard lessons, strategic pivots, and a renewed sense of purpose

India is now a country increasingly looking to establish itself as a major global player. (IMAGE: PTI FILE)

This will be the last Straight Talk of 2024. So, a recap is essential. After all, what a year this has been. To call it a rollercoaster ride would be an understatement, but it still comes closest to best describing what India witnessed through the past 12 months.

The year began with grand celebrations across the country. The reason, as you would vividly recall, was the Pran Pratishtha at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. This was a monumental moment in independent India’s history. A day when India reclaimed one of its most important places of worship. Effectively, it was a declaration of India now truly being a civilisational state – where the government and administrative setup joined hands to celebrate this land’s rich cultural and spiritual heritage.

India in 2024: What Changed Nationally and What Remained Same

Mind you, the consecration of the Ram Mandir took place just about 100 days away from the Lok Sabha elections. Therefore, conventional wisdom suggested that the BJP would earn tremendous goodwill from the public, which would translate into votes and help the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) seamlessly sail past the 400-seat mark in the Lok Sabha.

However, on the ground, the tide had turned. It turned so silently that almost all pollsters failed to catch a whiff of it. The Opposition, which managed to come under the “INDIA” umbrella, took on the BJP on three major issues – the supposed threat to the Constitution, fearmongering over reservations being scrapped, and the economy, especially unemployment. This was perhaps the first national election since 2014 when the Congress outsmarted the BJP on social media.

Never mind how they achieved this. After all, we are now truly in the age of “saam, daam, dand, bhed” politics.

Video clips were edited and taken out of context, outright lies were spread over the Constitution and reservations and a narrative was spun that if Narendra Modi’s contingent was not stopped immediately, there would never be another election in India. That was sufficient for the BJP’s Lok Sabha strength to crater from a peak of 303 to just 240 seats. Today, the Central government is functioning largely on the shoulders of Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP and Nitish Kumar’s JDU.

Lies are powerful. Especially when they are spread in a post-Covid world, which has seen most incumbent governments lose elections. The BJP, to its credit, has retained power in a country as diverse and as complicated as India. The post-Covid global headwinds brought governments down a pack of dominos. Indians, however, voted for continuity – albeit, not without teaching the BJP a lesson in humility.

The key lesson BJP learned from 2024 is never to take the Indian voter for granted. To never ‘guess’ how many seats the electorate will give the party. To never assume that the Opposition is a thing of the past. As is now evident, the Opposition is alive and kicking – as it should be in a democracy.

But was it just the BJP’s onus to learn some lessons in humility this year?  After all, the INDIA bloc, especially the Congress, seems to have learnt all the wrong lessons from June 4.

It is a fact that the BJP was denied even a simple majority on its own in the Lok Sabha. However, the Congress, for a third straight national election, failed to cross the 100-seat mark. In fact, the BJP alone won more seats in this year’s Lok Sabha election than the Congress has won in all three general elections since 2014. The BJP is still the party ruling India. Narendra Modi is still the Prime Minister. Amit Shah is still his most trusted deputy and the country’s Home Minister. In fact, most of the Prime Minister’s top team has remained unchanged.

Yet, after June 4, the Congress, its allies and their ecosystem believed that they were the true winners. That, in hindsight, was a grave miscalculation.

The Congress, for one, assumed that since it had trumped the BJP in Haryana during the Lok Sabha polls, it would obviously be gifted power in the assembly elections. The Congress machinery became so complacent and overconfident that they lost Haryana to the BJP in the most humiliating fashion possible. The macho narrative of the “INDIA” bloc evaporated after its stunning defeat in Haryana. What has happened since has only reinforced the belief that the BJP still dominates the politics of India.

To the BJP’s credit, it worked silently on the ground along with the RSS to ensure a victory in Haryana. That was another lesson the BJP drew from the Lok Sabha elections – to not take the RSS for granted. So, bridges with the parent organisation were rebuilt and the might of the BJP machinery was unleashed first in Haryana, followed by Maharashtra.

The story which unfolded in November in Maharashtra is all the more spectacular from the BJP’s point of view. Here was a state which dealt a grave blow to the NDA in the Lok Sabha polls, only to return power to the ruling Mahayuti come November in a landslide verdict. The stakes in Maharashtra were higher than they were in Haryana, and the fight was much tougher. Yet, the BJP managed to script electoral history in the state as it turned its fortunes around in less than five months.

The politics of the state has been rewritten completely, with Sharad Pawar’s NCP and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena now struggling to stay relevant, while the Congress still tries to make sense of the tsunami that just swept it off the shore.

In many ways, 2024 showed just how quick and adept the BJP is as a political organisation. If the Lok Sabha elections unmade the aura of the saffron party, the subsequent elections in Haryana and Maharashtra remade it.

India and the World: Was 2024 the Year of Strategic Realignment for India?

National politics captivated most of us for the better part of 2024. However, India is now a country increasingly looking to establish itself as a major global player. Its international standing has risen by leaps and bounds over the past few years. The cherry on the topping is the fact that India now has a stated goal – to become a developed nation, or Viksit Bharat by 2047.

It goes without saying that for any developing nation to harbour such ambitions comes with a host of associated risks. For starters, the West – which thinks of itself as the sole guardian of democracy and liberal values – begins taking a keen interest in what moves you make as a nation. If the global hegemons get even the slightest hint of developing countries keeping their own interests and sovereignty above all other considerations, the whip is pulled out.

For India, 2024 has been a year of realisations. Perhaps we invested too many resources in trying to build a robust partnership with the West, especially the United States. In what would obviously happen at the behest of Washington, Canada publicly accused India of orchestrating extrajudicial assassinations on its soil. The intended targets were all Khalistanis, who the West has conveniently refused to act against despite repeated threats they make against India and its integrity.

In fact, pressure on India has been building up for quite some time now. It started when India openly started buying Russian oil. Again, this was a decision made in pure national interest. Yet, the West was very annoyed with the fact that India was not falling in line and distancing itself from Moscow. This year’s allegations, first from Canada and then from the US, mark a turning point in how India views the West. It has realised that for the West, India will always remain a post-colonial nation in the Global South – which dare not punch above its weight.

How was this message sent across? Well, Sheikh Hasina has been ousted from power in Bangladesh. An Islamist takeover of the country is now underway. The strategic balance has been shifted – quite deliberately so – to hurt India. We now have a situation where Bangladesh, under its new caretaker regime, is making drastic moves to build a “strategic partnership” with Pakistan while continuously antagonising India and doing little to protect Hindus and other religious minorities. Soon enough, we may see Bangladesh resembling “East Pakistan” again, and this will be done just so that certain global powers can have significant leverage over India.

Read More: Straight Talk | Bangladesh Risks Becoming ‘East Pakistan’ Again By Turning Its Back On India

India appears to know exactly what is happening. So, 2024 has also been the year when India and China have begun talking to each other – warmly so, I may add. Disengagement along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) appears to have been achieved, and both countries are now working to de-escalate and restore normalcy to bilateral relations. If successful, India would have sent the West a stunning message – we can exchange physical blows with China when needed, and also resolve differences with Beijing when need be. To do so, India needs no external help.

Meanwhile, India’s relations with Russia are only growing from strength to strength. Despite tremendous Western pressure, India has held its ground. If pushed harder, India would not be completely averse to the idea of formalising a Russia-India-China (RIC) setup. After all, if India can be a part of Quad, it can very well also engage at a strategic level with Russia and China to address the concerns of the Global South.

In many ways, 2024 has been a year of reckoning for India, both domestically and on the global stage. It has been a year of hard lessons, strategic pivots, and a renewed sense of purpose. At home, the electorate demonstrated its power to humble even the strongest political forces, reminding every player that democracy in India is vibrant and uncompromising.

For the BJP, the message was clear: overconfidence breeds complacency, and the voter cannot be taken for granted. For the Opposition, it was a cautionary tale against mistaking fleeting victories for lasting change. The realignment of national politics continues, with the BJP proving its resilience in states like Haryana and Maharashtra, while the Opposition grapples with sustaining momentum.

Globally, India has faced the complexities of a multipolar world, learning that strategic autonomy is both a privilege and a challenge. The shifting sands of international relations—from the West’s increasingly transactional approach to the emerging possibilities with China and Russia—underscore the tightrope India must walk as it seeks to fulfill its vision of Viksit Bharat by 2047. The events of this year have fortified India’s resolve to prioritise its sovereignty and interests above all, even as external pressures mount.

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.