Election Diaries 2024

A Documentary Series on the Indian General Elections 2024

The high-stakes Indian elections of 2024 were fought on a deeply unequal playing field. The incumbent party, the Hindu nationalist BJP had access to staggering financial resources and controlled all state institutions. The pollsters, the media and the BJP itself were confident of winning a sweeping majority of 400 seats, that would allow them to change the Indian constitution and usher in their Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation). From the second phase of the elections, the BJP campaign turned increasingly virulent and communal, foreshadowing the majoritarian future that lay ahead.

But the eventual results reflected if not a defeat of the communal forces or a victory for secularism, a prioritization of bread-and-butter issues. Social welfare, employment, education and public health appeared to have mattered more than religious polarization and the politics of disinformation and hate.

The BJP was reduced to 240 seats and had to ally with smaller secular parties as coalition partners in order to govern for a third successive term. The 2024 elections tripped up Hindutva’s onward march, if only for a brief moment… these election results would provide an interregnum, a respite, a calm before the eventual storm.

The Election Diaries produced by CeMIS (the Centre for Modern Indian Studies), comprise nine documentary films that tell the story of the 2024 Indian elections for different stakeholders, encompassing different issues over diverse locations, linguistic regions and states. From the possibility and potential of queer representation in electoral politics, to the contestation and appropriation of cultural symbols and caste politics in Tamil Nadu; from the survival of Muslim identity politics in Hyderabad to the ethnocentrism of son-of-the-soil versus outsider politics in Meghalaya; from the awakening of a social movement in Karnataka that combats Hindu majoritarianism to the aspirations and frustrations of political activists and local youth in small town Uttar Pradesh; from an analysis of the election manifesto of a visionary Leftist leader in Kerala, to a story of redemption and political survival in West Bengal, to a stirring grass roots campaign in Bihar, Election Diaries 2024 is a reflection of the anxieties brought about by the seemingly inexorable march of Hindu majoritarianism, as also the fierce, and oftentimes heroic struggles of oppositional parties, movements, and individuals in the battle for a continuing democratic future for India.

Download the Catalogue of Films

A CeMIS (Centre for Modern Indian Studies) Production