In Industrial organization, study of competitiveness and market power in industry, there is a famous model called ‘linear city’. It was first developed by Herold Hotelling. The model can be described as follows: suppose there is a road of length 1 km running parallel to the beach. Two eateries are deciding where to locate. The footfall of consumers is evenly available across the length of the road. The model says that these both the eateries will locate in the middle. The model is way of thinking - when preferences of consumers are spread over a range, how firms would like to position themselves to grab maximum profit through maximum market share.
The analogy of road representing consumer preferences can be used to describe voter preferences as well. For this discussion, I am focusing on religious politics in India. So, one extreme of this road means extreme right-wing position – which sees India as place where all non-Hindus are under total control of Hindus in the short run and no non-Hindus in the long run. Other extreme of this road is total denial of religious politics – a country where religion plays no role in deciding political and economic opportunities and increasingly lesser role even in terms of social behaviours. For the sake of the discussion, first extreme (Hindutva extreme) is called right and will be measured as 1 while remaining extreme is called left and measured as 0. Voters have political positions from 0 to 1. And they are going to choose the political position closest to them. For example, suppose voter is located at 0.3 and there is a considerable left party at 0.05 and almost central party at 0.45 then voter chooses the one at 0.45 since 0.45 – 0.3 = 0.15 is closer for this voter than 0.3 – 0.05 = 0.25.
Before the advent of AAP, key political players in India, UPA and BJP, were placed as follows: UPA was somewhere between 0 and 0.5, perhaps closer to 0.2. BJP was between 0.5 and 1, may be around 0.7. So, voters from 0 to 0.2 and 0.2 to 0.45 will vote for UPA while remaining 0.55 will vote for BJP.
This is a very simplistic description. The better way to describe voter preferences in India is 70% voters are evenly spaced between 0.65 to 1 while remaining 30% are evenly spaced between 0.65. Essentially, large fraction of voters has political positions on right of the centre while smaller proportion is on left. In that case, on this religious politics road, being at 0.2 will lead to about 21% votes while being at 0.7 will bring 79% of votes. Two implications follow from this model. Once religious politics is in the play and there are only 2 parties, essentially politics will shift to place which has 50% voters on right and left each. Due to uneven distribution of voters, such place will be on right of the centre. This perhaps describes how Congress pitched itself in first 40 years after independence.
Second, if right party shifts to further right, let say to 0.8 then it opens an opportunity for other party to emerge on right (between 0.5 to 1) but on its left (between 0.5 to 0.8). The third party can locate itself just left of the now extreme right party, let say at 0.79. In that case, most right party gets 40% votes from 0.8 to 1. Most left party gets around 23% of the votes while new ‘somewhat less right’ party gets remaining 37% votes. More rightward is the shift of most right party, greater is the space opened for third party.
In other words, new party mimics the old right party but with somewhat underplayed manner. As one can guess easily, this is precisely what AAP is doing.
So, there is no wonder that AAP is playing all soft Hindutva moves once we see it as an entrant party that thrives in a space between old left and old right. Numbers I have chosen in previous discussion are merely illustrative and I am wrong in assuming only one party on left. What matters is position of most rightward party on the left.
But the implications are clear. If BJP mover further rightward, AAP grows unless voters also shift to right of BJP, that is they turn even more ‘right-ous’ than BJP. Or if voter preferences are not as extreme as I have portrayed, there is greater vote share on left, than AAP need not be very close to BJP and can pitch itself more in the middle while mimicking BJP to keep hold on right as well. But if parties on left, Congress for example, starts moving towards centre then AAP will move closer to the left of BJP. This is perhaps a best explanation for AAP asking for Laxmi and Ganesh pictures on currency notes.
From the BJP’s point of view, AAP is the most proximate threat and hence needs to push it further leftward. In general, BJP would like to push all parties to as much on the left as possible while for other parties moving closer to BJP but remaining on its left is a move in their interest – what Shivsena (Uddhav Thackrey) is trying to do – remaining close to BJP but also making somewhat leftward move. As BJP takes further right positions, it will open space for more right parties and best course for any such right party is to be as much right as BJP but on BJP’s left. So there is no surprise if Modi and Kejariwal are increasingly going to look alike.
What truly matters is how voters’ positions are and how invoked they are. They are not constant, but also not changing very rapidly. If many voters align with considerably extreme positions on right, then party with considerable right position will have dominating share of votes and all parties, barring extreme left, will have rightward bias in their politics. But if that’s not the case, then moving deep in right will not be the optimal strategy for existing right party as it will open a space to hold for third party which puts itself in the middle. The other possibility that has not yet shown signs of materializing is an emergence of party on right of current most right party, a party that makes look BJP a party on left!
Mimicking strategy of AAP reduces BJP’s gains of moving further rightward and increases the gains for Congress of shifting closer to right of the centre. But if Congress can never be seen as a close left alternative to AAP, then AAP has nothing to lose from mimicking BJP.