Image courtesy: INKCINCT Cartoons
India
needs a paradigm shift in how politics is played at the centre [please see the article: Understanding Present Political Dysfunction]. From the close
observations of state elections, one can infer that mere vote-bank politics has
not much worked after year 2000. Voting trends1 in state elections
in India can be described as below:
1947
– 1980 : Incumbency trends, which means party in power
gets re-elected
1980
– 2000 : Anti-incumbency trends, which means party in
power fails to get re-elected
2000
– Present: Performance based trends,
which means party in power gets re-elected if perceived to be delivering good
governance and development.
In most cases, the parties which have retained power
successively in this decade have focused on growth and development whether it
is BJP in Gujarat, BJD in Orissa, CPI(M) in Tripura, Congress in Delhi or JDU in Bihar. This
recent trend demands a new type of political paradigm and rethinking of
ideology that works. India, today, needs a political ideology that delivers
concrete results and resolves issues, rather than approach of ‘kicking the can
down the road’ until issues become major crisis; an ideology that is more than
philosophical theory and is related to growth and development of individual
citizens; an ideology that common citizens relate to, and which is not limited
to political journals and blogs of a few “intellectuals”.
I would like to propose the political ideology of “Value-based
Centrist Pragmatism (VCP)”. Let me explain what exactly I mean by it.
All Indians, across all divides (i.e., religion,
caste, language, region, gender, culture), are defined as a single unit,
CENTRE. Term ‘Centrist’ emphasises focus on this singular unit. It is inclusion
of all different voices. Depending on the issue, views of representatives of
all stakeholders is given due consideration, rather than selective inclusion
and exclusion. Even all extreme voices are heard and multiple perspectives are
acknowledged.
Some people may argue that it is not possible to
secure interest of all the people all the time, and occasionally, politicians
have to take decisions that ignore interest of individual(s) or group(s). This
ideology of VCP rejects such assertion. It is assumed that interest of all of
human-being is interrelated to one another, directly or indirectly, in
long-term. If a country has to progress, all must get on board. The art of
politics lies in the ability to convince all relevant representatives of the
CENTRE that a particular decision is in their interest.
By the term ‘Pragmatism’, the importance of
resolution of issues is underscored. A country with enormous diversity and
population like India cannot afford to ignore practicality. VCP demands measures
that influence both hard development [i.e., infrastructural development] and
soft development [i.e., Human Development Index (HDI) and Knowledge Economy
Index (KEI) of the CENTRE]. Pragmatism points out the functionality of politics
and effective governance. Furthermore,
ideology of pragmatism pushes for rational and scientific approaches to
governance. Predetermined ideological biases have no value in decision making,
but comprehensive history (and not selective facts) is utilised for gaining
contextual understanding in addition to present ground realities. Social
programmes are taken up as social experiments. Programmes are taken up based on
needs assessment of the target population; specific outcomes are measured; and
the results are communicated to the citizens. Cost-benefit and cost-effective
analyses are declared in media and citizens are involved through public
discussions.
This centrist pragmatism will help see issues from
wider perspective as one would think about the entire population, the CENTRE, critically
and scientifically. For e.g., all these years the political discourse on
reservation for backward communities and religious minorities for college
admissions has been tragic, as it puts high-caste people against these
beneficiary communities. The politics being played in this issue is a classic
example, where all communities are disappointed and frustrated, and neither
equality of opportunity nor social equity is in sight. The real issue is the
pathetic state of higher-education in India. According to the World Bank report
only 1 in 10 of Indians has access to higher education2. In order to
cater to the higher education demand, India needs about 400 more universities
at present. So, the real solution is to open up higher education sector with appropriate
regulations and clear guidelines and revolutionary building up worlds class universities. If everyone interested in
higher education finds access, where’s the question of reservation and who
gives a s**t about it? If the politics would have been based on VCP, instead of
vote-bank appeasement, all communities would have come together to expand
access to higher education in these past 64 years, rather than fighting
internally, and India would have had the largest highly skilled labour force driving
the world through its intellect today.
The term ‘value-based’ is included to discard the negative pragmatic approaches to solutions. For e.g., India has relatively
cheaper labour market, which gives India an advantage for attracting foreign
investment. Policies that sustain availability of cheap labour through
restricting higher education access to some group of people can be described as
pragmatic, but not value-based. Such unethical pragmatic approaches have no
place in VCP ideology.
The real strength of this ideology is that it is not
exclusion of any of the present political ideologies, but it is the inclusion
of all. Thus, it is absolutely possible for any party leader to adopt this
ideology and still remain revered party-person. In fact most of the leaders,
who are considered progressive, can be described through this ideology
irrespective of their party.
Role
of individual Voters: Ideology of Value-based Centrist Pragmatism
demands voter neutrality. Voters must realize that there is no point in being
loyal to any party. Vote for a party that performs, that’s it. It doesn’t
matter if a party is left, right or centre, as long as its candidate is a value-based
pragmatic centrist and is willing to take measures that can influence HDI and
KEI positively.
India has wasted a lot of time, energy and resources
in needless political filibuster for so long. Issues like where a temple or
mosque should be, or what’s the religion/caste/surname of a politician, have
exhausted Indians. In addition, the politics of fear by present parties is not tolerable at-all, with Congress spreading fear of Hindu fundamentalists, BJP propagating fear of Muslim extremists and the leftists spreading fear of capitalism and religion-by-itself. India needs hope, not fear. Value-based centrist pragmatism ideology enables to have
scientific ethical solutions for securing long-term wellbeing of all Indians. Let’s
hope the younger generation will not suffer the same political suffocation as
the present generation does, and will see a functional political scenario,
which is a win/win for all.
I welcome your comments....
References:
1NDTV
Convergence Limited. (2010). Battle ground Bihar with Prannoy Roy.
2The
World Bank Group. (2011). Education in India. Retrieved from (29/12/11): http://www.worldbank.org.in/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/INDIAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:21493265~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:295584,00.html
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