The BJP-led NDA’s celebration of Narendra Modi completing 12 uninterrupted years may prompt a question: what exactly is a governing party asking voters to think about when it asks them to see how long it has been in power?
The question deserves attention because democratic elections and political anniversaries are fundamentally different things. Elections are prospective in nature, asking voters to exercise their choice of political players vying to navigate the unseen future of public life. But anniversaries of stints in power invite reflection on the passage of time. They encourage citizens to look back rather than forward. When a governing party places a milestone at the centre of its public messaging, it is doing something slightly different from what governing parties usually do. It is asking voters to think not only about where the country is going, but also about how long the present political arrangement has endured.
