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Wednesday, Mar 02, 2005

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Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Lessons from the poll verdict

By Harish Khare

The new Indian voter has rejected those political leaders and parties that refuse to practise the idiom of modern organisation and remain indifferent to the demands of good governance.

A PLETHORA of sound-bytes on the counting day last Sunday produced an instant judgment: the Congress as the leader of the United Progressive Alliance had divided the "secular" vote in Bihar and Jharkhand. Those who wish the Manmohan Singh Government well are understandably unhappy that the UPA's political momentum stands slowed down. Arjun Singh and M.L. Fotedar, two senior leaders who were asked to negotiate the best deal for the Congress, have been designated as the fall guys.

The "division in the secular vote" argument overlooks the most striking leitmotif in the verdict in Haryana, Bihar and Jharkhand: the family as the model of political organisation produces aberrations for good politics and earns the voter's disapproval. The verdict in these three States once again underscores the limits of the regional party as the anti-thesis of the national party organisation. The verdict also suggests that the polity is changing, even if the political leaders refuse to change their organisational culture.

Take Haryana first. If the Congress scored there massively, it is not because of any innovative leadership alternative proposed by the party. The Congress won because the voter in Haryana wanted to punish the Indian National Lok Dal for reducing the entire State to a one-family fiefdom. The citizen was helpless against this suborning of the constitutional arrangement; but when he got a chance, he unhesitatingly voted against Om Prakash Chautala and his family rule. The vote for the Congress was not a "secular" vote; it was a rejection of the family model and the bad politics the model produces.

Jharkhand: If the Congress-Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) combine failed to dislodge the Bharatiya Janata Party Government in the State, it was not because the voter suddenly became enamoured of the "saffron/communal" crowd. The genesis of the Jharkhand debacle can be traced to that great affliction, family. In this case, the game was lost because of the JMM leader, Shibu Soren's love for his family over his long-standing political comrades. Mr. Soren believes in the family mantra: I have led the "movement", my family made sacrifices and hence my family has an entitlement to the top leadership slot. This was not acceptable to Stephen Marandi and other workers.

A political party, by definition, is a secular, modern organisation; any device to convert it into a family outfit would sooner or later produce unwholesome political choices and would yield only diminishing dividend. Because of this mindset that regards the chief ministership as a family trophy, Mr. Soren looked for "loyalists" while making the candidate selections. In the process, he ignored the genuine party workers and set up independent candidates against the alliance partner, Congress, all because of a consuming desire to claim the "crown" for the family. Even when rebuffed by the voter, Mr. Soren remains in thrall of the family mantra. Ironically, none of the secular friends in the UPA family deemed it prudent to make "gurujee" see the folly of antagonising a senior colleague like Stephan Marandi.

Bihar: More than Haryana, it was in Bihar that the voter finally decided it was time to end the 15 years of one-family rule. And this family rule has taken Bihar disquietingly far away from all the ideals of good governance and good politics. The day after the third phase of voting, the Rabri Devi Government ordered the release of the Siwan Member of Parliament, Shahbuddin, who demonstratively threatened to do "anything" to ensure the family's interests. What was also increasingly evident was that the longer the family stayed — or was allowed to stay — in power, the greater would be the struggle to bring the State back into the fold of lawful authority. What began as a genuine movement to secure political power for the socially backward communities became a Yadav enterprise and then degenerated into a family venture. Inevitably, it produced all the familiar aberrations. But Lalu Prasad managed to secure a kind of immunity for his family rule because he firmly positioned himself as a secular icon. The "secular-vote-divided" argument does not make much sense because Mr. Lalu Prasad's entire strategy was predicated on dividing the anti-Lalu vote. If the 2004 UPA alliance had managed to replicate itself in 2005, Bihar would have witnessed a repeat of Andhra Pradesh (2004) and Madhya Pradesh (2003). Just as Madhya Pradesh had come down to a pro- and anti-Digvijay Singh choice and Andhra Pradesh a pro- and anti-Chandrababu Naidu option, Bihar too had congealed into a massive anti-Lalu mood.

In fact, till a few months ago there was considerable glee in the Rashtriya Janata Dal camp that Ram Vilas Paswan was collecting friends. Mr. Paswan was seen as mopping up most of the `upper' caste "bahuballis", thereby intrinsically weakening the BJP/Janata Dal (United)'s capacity to mobilise votes. Always the brinkman, Mr. Lalu Prasad knew that a deep anti-incumbency mood had gripped the State but calculated that if the "secular" friends divided the anti-RJD votes, he would still walk away with a working majority. The secular-communal divide argument did not work its magic in Bihar this time because there was no "communal enemy" at the Centre to be vanquished. Nor could Mr. Lalu Prasad position himself as a victim (who was being done in by an `upper'-caste-biased Central Bureau of Investigation). For much of the Bihar electorate this time Mr. Prasad was the tormentor, rather than the tormented.

Thus "the-Congress-divided-the-secular-vote" argument cannot be pushed beyond a point. The most debilitating division occurred because of the feud between Mr. Lalu Prasad and Mr. Paswan. Just like Nitish Kumar (a Kurmi leader), Mr. Paswan too could not feel easy in a social coalition that had been transformed into a Yadav arrangement. Electoral coalitions do not survive long in the absence of a social concord between the alliance partners; what Bihar has been witnessing and will probably continue to witness is further fragmentation because of the failure of the political parties and the leaders to reconcile the claims and interests of their respective social constituencies.

As long as social interests are allowed to remain unaggregable, there would be political and electoral fragmentation. Unfortunately, Bihar (as also Uttar Pradesh) has developed a culture of using muscle power and criminal gangs to force a taming of social rivals. Beyond the psychological gains and losses at the Centre, and irrespective of the secular-communal divide, our political leaders must understand that old politics will not do in a new polity. They have to learn to listen to the new grammar of changing aspirations in the Indian society and the polity.

The Indian polity began changing in 1991and the dramatic shift in the economic paradigm has produced a new voter who may still be mired in the caste identity but he now sorts out his identity problem in an increasingly integrated India, an India that is confidently getting itself entangled with a globalised economy. Constitutionally mandated empowerment combined with the rites of electoral democracy has addressed the social identity angst.

The new Indian voter is not prepared to allow the political leaders to maroon him in islands of threatened social identity, just as he would reject the vendors of communal divisiveness. He would most certainly walk away from those political leaders and parties that refuse to learn and practise the idiom of modern organisation and remain indifferent to the demands of good governance and wholesome politics. This is the only message of the verdict in Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana.

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