Positive Verdict

Editorial, Economic and Political Weekly

The major outcome of the elections to the Lok Sabha and the assemblies in a few states can be summed up as the prospect of a relatively stable government at the center, the strengthening of centrist politics and federal tendencies as compared to before the elections, the relative decline of identity politics and the beginning of a paradigm shift in Indian politics towards renewed focus on governance and development.

BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, along with the two allies who prefer to stay outside the alliance, the Telugu Desam Party and the Trinamul Congress, have a combined majority of 24 in the Lok Sabha of 543. There is a possibility of this lead going up when elections are held to the four constituencies where polling had to be deferred on account of floods. This insulates the government from blackmail by small constituents of the coalition. The Indian National Lok Dal, for example, has not seen any point in following up its demand for rolling back the recent diesel price hike with a threat to withdraw support if the demand was turned down. Only the Telugu Deasm is in a position to reduce the government to a minority on its own. The fact that it has chosen not to join the government but prefers to extend support from outside, instead of impairing the prospects of stability, actually strengthens them. This is because TDP leader Chandrababu Naidu’s decision to keep his exit door firmly open would act as a restraint on the most potent source of instability for the government: the aspirations of the Hindu organizations which have links of varying closeness with the BJP.

The RSS, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajarang Dal and other organizations championing hindutva are happy that the BJP has come back to power. But given that the BJP’s strength in the house remains static at 182 and it is dependent more than ever on the continued support of its allies, these organizations are deprived of the freedom to aggressively pursue their communal agenda. Except for the Shiv Sena, all the BJP’s allies have a secular outlook and value the support of non-Hindu voters. If the Hindu organizations misbehave and the BJP-led central government refuses to act, the coalition is likely to collapse. The BJP as much as the Hindu organizations cannot but be acutely aware of this vulnerability. This is likely to deter adventurism on the latters’s part.

Differences of opinion on basic policies is unlikely to wreck the BJP-led coalition because, except in regard to secularism and nuclear weapons, there is a virtual consensus among the major political parties, inside and outside the NDA. Differences on nuclear weapon polices are minor within the coalition.

The one real source of instability is power-sharing. The BJP and its allies have more experience in this now than in the past and have learnt, from the AIADMK’s setback in these elections that the electorate does not take kindly to parties that disrupt a government of which they are a part for their own petty ends. If the ruling alliance learn to hold regular consultations among the coalition members on an institutionalized basis and there is no reason why it should not, this ceases to be a problem.

Centrist politics has been given a boost by two developments: the BJP’s willingness to evolve away from its sectarian vision and the revival of the Congress. The moratorium declared by the BJP on the controversial demands for a Ram temple at the site of the demolished Babri mosque, a uniform civil code and scrapping of Article 370 is certainly less than renunciation of its erstwhile sectarian world view. At the same time, it is more than a ruse to win votes. The simple fact is that democracy is forcing the BJP to leave its communal agenda behind. And this pressure will remain so long as the vast majority of voters refuse to be communalized. Being hemmed in, within the ruling alliance, by parties with secular moorings and centrist views on most matters make the BJP more of a centrist party than in the past.

The revival of the Congress might be less than apparent, given the steep fall in the party’s Lok Sabha tally form 141 in 1998 to 112 in these elections. But it has increased its vote share and commanded the support of 28.4 percent of those who voted in the Lok Sabha election. Of the five states that elected their legislatures alongside the Lok Sabha elections Karnataka and Arunachal Pradesh have gone to the Congress and so can Maharashtra if the party shows a modicum of sense in its dealings with the breakaway group, the Nationalist Congress Party. More significantly, the Congress is back in the reckoning in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar – being out of the race altogether for the 139 Lok Sabha seats from these two states is a handicap that the Congress does not have to worry about any more. Even as appendage to the Nehru dynasty, the party stands to grow further, provided it learns the lesson offered by its come-uppance in Bihar and Tamil Nadu that it is bad politics to rally the corrupt and the incompetent to fight the communal.

Another development that strengthens centrist politics is the clear message from the electorate that the identity politics sans governance has run out of steam. The Asom Gana Parishad in Assam and the RJD in Bihar have been marginalised in these elections. It is not that the RJD has grown any less keen to give voice to the backward castes, chiefly the yadavs, of Bihar or champion the cause of the minorities in that state. But there has been terrible dearth of governance there. And the electorate has punished the party for that as decisively as the electorate of Andhra Pradesh has rewarded the TDP’s credible commitment to development. The Samajwadi Party’s gain in seats in UP, albeit with a reduced vote share, and the BSP’s advance might seem to disprove the argument that identity politics has weakened. But only so long as two other factors are not taken into consideration. One, both parties have been trying, desperately to widen the social base of their support from the narrow stratum championing whose identity they had risen to initial prominence. Of the BSP’s candidate this time, less than half were dalits. The SP has been wooing the upper castes assiduously. Two, both the parties gained additional seats in the course and as a result of the UP electorate’s effort to punish Kalyan Singh government for its comprehensive failure to provide governance.

The BJP, of course, has been in a sense the biggest identity party of all. The drubbing it has received in UP – its seats have come down from 57 to 29 – show that three years talk of Ram rajya and hindutva does not compensate for malgovernance of the worst kind. The moratorium declared, at the national level by the BJP on its controversial demands is a moratorium by that party on identity politics. By aligning with the BJP and risking minority votes, were identity politics the principal consideration, Chandrababu Naidu gambled that voters would attach more importance to his commitment to development. And the gamble paid off. The punishment dealt out to parties in office in Karnataka, Orissa, UP, Delhi and Rajasthan in conjunction with the endorsement of good governance in Adhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and even Madhay Pardesh where the Congress’s vote share went up even if its tally of seats did not, shows that anti-incumbency is nothing more than a euphemism for the voter’s response to bad governance. Let there be no doubt about it – parties have been put on notice; voters want governance first and foremost.

The BJP and the Congress have been chastened on one count. There is no charisma of the central leadership or a single achievement that drives voters across the country to unquestioning support. State level and local level issues decide who will become the Prime Minister. This realization is as significant in strengthening the polity’s federal foundations as the dependence of he ruling coalition on the support of a clutch of regional parties.

On the whole, a surprisingly positive denouement for an election that was supposedly devoid of real issues.