Indian Politics from Ideological framework - 1: Understanding the present dysfunction

This article has also been published in Fair Observer: http://www.fairobserver.com/article/indian-politics-understanding-present-dysfunction

Image Courtesy: Vishal Bhatt: www.facebook.com/wizard.vishal  

The present political setup in India is dysfunctional. In order to understand this, it is very important to understand how we have arrived at the present. Here’s the explanation in brief:

In the pre-independence era (before 1947), Indian National Congress was the biggest nationwide political party [see article- The Brief History of Congress Party]. It was thriving on propagating optimistic progressive future vision for all Indians, irrespective of their caste, religion, class, language and any possible divides. Indisputably, Congress was highly inclusive and progressive party in those times.

            Apart from this centrist perspective of Congress, there were rival political ideologies of mainly, Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha and Communist Party, having support in some sections of society. Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha were in a way mirror organizations with respect to religious politics. Muslim League’s efforts were aimed at securing socio-economic rights of Indian Muslims and their politics was based on spreading anti-Hindu propaganda and fear among Muslims – “Support us; else you will be slaves of Hindu Banias and Brahmins for the rest of your lives”. Hindu Mahasabha’s narrative was rightwing, nationalistic and to oppose both divisive Muslim League and inclusive Congress, which attempted to have dialogs with Muslim separatists [Mahasabha deemed such dialog as appeasement]. Whereas, the communists were striving for a socialist political setup and were idealizing Soviet Model. It is noteworthy to mention that all of these parties opposed the widely-popular civil disobedience campaigns led by the Congress Party to achieve Indian independence from British rule. Hatred towards Congress was such great as these parties did not bother forming indirect alliance with the British as these parties not only refrained from participation but also obstructed Congress during the historic Quit India movement of 1942. Despite their tiny stature, these parties helped Congress with establishing a political equilibrium at a centrist perspective, which eventually got ruptured due to partition of India.

            Many historians, political scientists and sociologists have talked a lot about innumerable negative consequences of India’s partition. But, hardly anyone has mentioned its effect on the Congress party. The partition was based on absurd religious divide – naming Muslim majority areas as Pakistan and Hindu majority areas as India. Almost entire Muslim League shifted to Pakistan, which resulted in an Islamic country. And because of nationwide stronghold of Congress, which was centrist, India attained a pluralist democratic structure. Nonetheless, bloody partition had raised rightwing pressure on the political equilibrium. Also, the absence of any significant non-Congress Muslim voice in political sphere had created vacuum for Minority politics. These factors tilted Nehru’s Congress towards left to balance the rising rightist momentum and to protect the rights of the minorities. This point is well supported by an excerpt of a speech in the Loksabha on 21^st December 1955, by Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India¹,

“....if I may venture to lay down a rule, it is primary responsibility of the majority to satisfy the minority in every matter. The majority, by virtue of it's being a majority, has the strength to have its way: it requires no protection. It is a most undesirable custom to give statutory protection to minorities. It is sometimes for example, to backward classes, but it is not good in the long run. It is the duty and responsibility of the majority community, whether in the matter of language or religion, to pay particular attention to what the minority wants and to win it over. The majority is strong enough to crush the minority, which might not be protected. Therefore, whenever such a question arises, I am always in favour of the minority.”

            In this post independence period (in 50’s & 60’s), though India led the ‘non-aligned movement’ due to its enormous moral-power in the world, it was going through a gradual leftist swing silently. This leftist shift of Congress further corroborated as India deepened ties with the (former) Soviet Union. The socialist economic policies were adopted and the state controlled almost all key areas of the country's economy, either centrally or on a state-wise basis. The rigorous state laws and License rules put a great degree of restrain on the free execution of industrial policies. Even the farmers, along with the business personnel, found themselves to be at the receiving end of rigorous state control policies and high taxation². Poverty and unemployment were widespread throughout Nehru's governance. When Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi (or Ghandhy), came to power in 70’s and 80’s, India became more socialists with nationalization of banks and oil and coal industries. The economic picture got further grim. Indira’s commitment to socialism and minority politics is reflected by the fact that earlier India was declared as a sovereign, democratic republic, but in 1977 through constitutional amendments, two terms were added to the preamble of the Indian constitution– ‘secularist and socialist’³. In addition, government policies and programmes increasingly targeted the axis of religion and caste and special privileges were provided to religious minorities and socially backward communities. When incentives are targeted at groups of people based on castes and religion, voters belonging to these groups find incentives to vote as one unit. This political strategy is popularly called as “Vote-Bank Politics”. It is needless to mention that if a strategy works once, it is bound to be repeated again. Congress’ formula was then adopted by various regional parties, each trying to please their respective vote-bank. This regressive election winning strategy, which ignores the big picture of comprehensive long term growth and security, has continued till date by most parties and in most elections.

            However, such political strategy created a vacuum for the right-wing politics. Indian government never really had enough resources to provide services and incentives to entire population. For most part, it ended up favouring religious minorities and socially backward communities. Given the extreme poverty at every level from individual to state in country, policies like – state negligence for Kumbh Mela and subsidies for Hajj travel, negligence of high-caste poor while quotas in jobs and college admissions for religious minorities and backward communities irrespective of their economic conditions- increasingly made the higher caste Hindus wonder about their political representation. Amidst this increasing feeling of political isolation among the people of majority, the Ram temple issue acted as catalyst and rightwing politics gained nationwide momentum in late 80’s and 90’s. One can now easily understand how come Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had won only 2 seats in 1984 Loksabha election, emerged as the biggest party with 187 seats in 1996 election, within the span of only twelve years. And it formed government in 1998 and became the first non-Congress party to complete its full term. It resumed economic reforms, which had begun in 1991 but had stalled after 1996, and established “economic feel good factor”. However, it could not secure win in the following election in 2004. BJP’s loss can be explained in brief as following:

·    It won election from rightist position, but adopted centrist position on most of the issues including Ram temple, Kashmir and relations with Pakistan. This clearly disappointed its right-wing supporters. Publicly expressed differences between BJP and RSS (Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) support this point.

·      Middle class neutral urban masses, who supported BJP with hope of bringing in some change in the political culture, found themselves being betrayed by BJP’s silence and inaction after 2002 Gujarat riots, in which Muslims formed a high proportion of those killed. In addition, Muslims are politically much stronger than many other communities in India and with help of liberal Hindus they have been able to generate a strong nationwide campaign against a few BJP personnel for perceived non-action. [It is noteworthy to mention that more tragic riots have occurred in India in the past. For e.g., anti-Sikh riots in 1984 directly linked to Congress party, ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pundits (Hindus) in 1990 by fundamental Islamists, anti-Hindu & anti-Buddhist violence in North-East by Christian militant organization National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and so on, but they failed to generate such nation-wide relentless agitation due to lack of political muscles.] 

Congress’ leftward shift has left limited room for the leftist parties to gain nationwide significance. However, there has been a newly realized room for Dalit politics in recent years. Since ancient time, Dalits have been at the bottom of the social hierarchy in the Indian society. Congress has always projected itself as a ‘Dalit-friendly’ party, and it has been successful in attracting Dalit candidates and voters to some degree. But, in this decade, Bahujan Samajwadi Party’s (BSP) emergence, as a single majority party in the most populous hence most politically influential state of Uttar Pradesh, has hinted new political permutations. BSP is ideologically a party for Dalits, but it is projecting openness for higher castes and religious minorities in order to realize political expansion. Parties like BSP along with support of leftist parties have potential of creating a third front to have national significance and to challenge Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).  

            Today’s India has supposedly these three choices – UPA, NDA or the third front. The UPA won last two elections in 2004 and 2009, respectively. Its win in 2004 can be attributed to NDA’s failure as explained earlier. In 2009, it won mainly because...

·       increase in economic prosperity, awareness in masses about India’s economic boom, and international praise of India’s growth story created positive momentum despite global financial crises

·    perception of Dr. Manmohan Singh, the prime ministerial candidate, as an honest man in the masses and introduction of historic Right to Information Act helped with establishing image of transparent governance

·       programs like National Rural Employment Guarantee Act helped market pro-poor image of Congress

·       BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, Lal Krishna Advani, lacked popular appeal

Present Scenario
     Dr. Singh, who served as finance minister in Narasimha Rao’s government in 1991 and who is an eminent economist, is the person given credit for India’s economic liberalization. During the earlier term, 2004-2009, Congress had restricted degree of freedom to implement financial reforms as it needed support of the left-parties to stay in power. But, this time it had enough seats and faced no such limitations. Naturally, people were having high expectations for economic reforms. However, almost all those expectations have fallen flat so far with no significant reforms at all. The government is crippled with one scam after another coming out in public. By all accounts, it is perceived to be one of the most corrupt governments of Indian history. The Congress is completely clueless while dealing with corruption and repeatedly its claims of clean governance have proved wrong. Whenever it is attacked, it counter attacks BJP and other parties and cites alleged charges on their personnel, but fails to respond to charges against itself. In addition, it goes back to the minority politics card, projecting itself as the only inclusive nationwide party, while attacking its major rival BJP of communal polarization. It is repeatedly failing to understand that by doing so, it is only getting further away from the majority, corroborating the widespread perception about itself as ‘minority appeasing party’. Moreover, Congress has still not succeeded in coming out of the image of ‘party of political dynasty’. It simply is unable to function independently, without support of Nehru-Gandhi family. How can a party establish meritocracy in country, if it chooses ministerial candidates who are either from a particular family or loyalist to that family?

               One the other hand, BJP is a highly confused party. It calls itself a rightist party but takes rightist, centrist or even leftist positions on different issues. For e.g., it opposed to nuclear deal with the US and opening up of the retail sector, issues that a rightist party would initiate. It also changes its stance on the same issue depending on whether it is in power or in opposition. For e.g., on Kashmir issue, Vajpayee, former Prime Minister when BJP formed government, advocated dialog with all stakeholders including Pakistan. But, since BJP has shifted to opposition it has taken a hard-line approach and is completely against any kinds of dialog with Pakistan. More importantly, it is in dilemma about what ‘Hindutva’ is and finds it difficult to discuss issues like demolition of Babri Masjid and rightwing radicalism. It seems that it has realized that in order to have majority, it cannot afford to make minorities feel insecure. But, by trying not to take stand against minorities; it disappoints its right-wing fundamentalist supporters. Thus, BJP is walking on a more thin ice. Though BJP led NDA’s governments in various states are doing much better than Congress governed states, it desperately needs a strong leader in Delhi to help re-establish connection with the masses like Vajpayee had.

            The Third-Front is too fragile at present and it is not yet empowered enough to challenge either UPA or NDA. In addition, the poor performance of the leftist parties in the recent elections has decreased their national significance. Some regional parties having bad experiences of both Congress and BJP usually join this front. And in the past, such coalitions have formed governments but remained unstable, as parties would withdraw support if their demands are not met.  

            Given these three options – 1) corrupt and minority subservient UPA 2) confused and faceless NDA and 3) all of the above with higher instability the Third Front; and all three focusing on respective vote banks rather than on all of Indians; I strongly believe the present political setup in India is dysfunctional.       

Then what is the way out? See article my next article: Solutions through Value-based Centrist Pragmatism

I welcome your comments....

Reference:

¹Kar, S. B. (2011). Nehru and communalism. Orissa Review. Retrieved from: http://orissa.gov.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/2011/Jan/engpdf/55-56.pdf

²Economic Policies of Jawaharlal Nehru. Retrieved from: http://www.mapsofindia.com/personalities/nehru/economic-policies.html

³Forty-Second Amendment to the Constitution. Ministry of Law and Justice of India. 28 August 1976. Retrieved from (25/12/2011):  http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/amend/amend42.htm.