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by Mitu Sengupta
On May 16th, some 60 percent of India’s 714
million-strong electorate delivered a definitive victory to the Congress-led
United Progressive Alliance (UPA), giving it a commanding 262 seats in India’s
543-member parliament. The UPA’s
principal opponent, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the
Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), took a severe beating, dropping
down to 160 seats from the 181 it had claimed in 2004.
The UPA quickly made up for the shortfall of 10 seats it
needed to reach an absolute majority. A
range of smaller parties and independents offered the new government
unconditional support, raising the UPA’s working tally to 322 seats, a
comfortable margin that has firmly reversed the prediction that India was
headed for a weak coalition government, strung together by a cluster of
demanding regional parties or the Left.
Prior to last Saturday’s verdict, all eyes were on the
Bahujan Samaj Party (the BSP), the regional party associated with India’s Dalit
community, the lowest Hindu castes once known as “untouchables,” and
its leader, the rough-speaking Kumari Mayawati, who is currently the chief
minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s most populous state (states are akin to
Canadian provinces, and chief ministers akin to premiers).
The BSP was expected to win more than half of UP’s 80
parliamentary seats, guaranteeing it kingmaker status, and Mayawati a crack at
the top job of Prime Minister. Such
hopes were swiftly dashed, however, when the BSP bagged only 21 seats. The Left parties — also viewed as possible
kingmakers — suffered an equal hammering, losing in even their bastion states
of West Bengal and Kerala. In West
Bengal, this was the worst showing in 32 years for the Left’s frontrunner
party, the Communist Party of India Marxist (CPM), which has governed the state
without pause since 1977.
This is certainly a moment of triumph for the Indian
National Congress (the Congress party), the 124-year old organization that was
born out of India’s struggle for freedom from British colonial rule. On its own, the Congress has won 206 seats,
its best performance since 1991 (it failed to win more than 150 seats in the
last four elections, leading to speculation of its permanent demise as a national
party). Manmohan Singh, a former
economics professor, is the first Prime Minister since
1961 to be voted back after completing a full five-year
term.
In India, the judgment is being widely read as a vote for
stability and “development,” and the refreshing ability of a
“maturing” electorate to look beyond the divisive politics of region,
religion, and caste.
It’s also being interpreted as a personal victory for the
“incorruptible” Manmohan Singh, and more importantly, for Rahul
Gandhi, the 38 year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty (India’s first Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was his great grandfather, Indira Gandhi, his
grandmother, and Rajiv Gandhi, his father).
Gandhi is arguably the most influential among the party’s top brass. An elected member of parliament from UP, he
is said to be hugely popular among India’s 100 million or so young (under-30)
voters. Gandhi’s glamorous looks, frank
talk, and “natural” political savvy are seen as central to the
Congress’s surprising resurrection, especially in UP, leading to rumours that
Gandhi may replace the elderly Singh as Prime Minister in a couple of years.
But the Congress’s resurgence owes to more than a few
sparkling personalities. It rests, more
broadly, on the revival of an important skill from its glory days, particularly
under Nehru, when the party would consciously absorb, into its platform, core
elements of the policies and priorities of its critics and opposition
parties. The Congress rode to success on
this strategy through the decolonization process, and for thirty years following
independence in 1947, when it governed the country uninterrupted, drawing many
separatists and would-be revolutionaries into its fold. Yet this tactic is not necessarily a
progressive one, as the Congress isn’t particularly selective about what it
takes from its opponents. As we see
below, it tends to mirror both the best and worst in the system.
Building by borrowing. . .
Sensing its decline in the last decade — defined by the
rise of minority and coalition governments at the centre — the Congress has
shifted closer to its three most important opponents, the BJP, the BSP, and the
Left.
Let’s turn, first, to the BJP, the party associated with
“Hindu nationalism” (Hinduism, India’s dominant religion, is
practised by about 80 percent of the population). The BJP has earned worldwide notoriety for
its anti-minority stance. However,
according to several reputed India-scholars, including elections specialist
Yogendra Yadav, the party has tempered this position (though arguably not the
intention), possibly out of recognition that pinning one’s electoral hopes on
bashing Muslims, building more temples, and banning cow slaughter simply won’t
work in a country of India’s staggering diversity (Hindus are acutely divided
by region, language, and caste, and many low castes have better relations with
Muslims than they do with upper-caste Hindus).
The more sellable aspect of the BJP’s agenda is its
standpoint on “national security” and foreign policy. Here, however, the Congress has shuffled
extraordinarily close to its long-time adversary. It stole the BJP’s thunder by being
uncompromisingly tough on Pakistan, especially following last November’s
attacks on Mumbai, when Indian investigators alleged that most of the
assailants were Pakistani citizens. In
line with its new stress on internal security and zero tolerance for terrorism
(“enough is enough”), the Congress supported the creation of a
central investigative agency, and the reintroduction of the draconian
Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), both of which the BJP has wanted for
years. Moreover, while the BJP has
always called for a stronger strategic alliance with the United States,
especially in the face of America’s “war on terror,” it was the
Congress-led government, under Manmohan Singh, that outdid its rival in this
department, forging a controversial agreement on civil nuclear cooperation with
the US.
Notably, it was Singh, rather than a BJP stalwart, who
referred to former US President George Bush as India’s “great
friend.”
Turning to the BSP, the party’s pro-Dalit agenda is
hardly as revolutionary as it once seemed.
When lower caste parties such as the BSP first surged to power in the
1990s, their impact was admittedly nothing short of radical. India’s electoral landscape was changed
forever, along with the elite bent of its politics and institutions.
Over the next decade, however, the chief demand of the
caste parties — of setting aside (“reserving”) between 25 to 50
percent of government jobs and legislative seats for lower castes — was met in
many states, including several governed by the Congress. The Congress also soaked up large numbers of
lower castes into its ranks, and rushed to renovate its image as champions of
their cause, supporting affirmative action for lower castes even in the private
sector.
Mayawati is certainly an intriguing figure, which might
explain the overstatement of her possible role in national politics,
particularly by the international media.
A low caste woman of humble origins with no ties to any political
dynasty, Mayawati’s fans have likened her against-all-odds achievement with
that of Barack Obama’s. But Mayawati is
also among India’s most transparently corrupt politicians, and spends more
money erecting statues of herself than on the people who’ve brought her to
power. It’s patronizing to assume that
Dalits will overlook such transgressions and blindly vote along caste lines
and, indeed, quite understandable that they’ll back the Congress, which also
claims to represent their interests while sustaining a generally cleaner
impression.
Finally, let’s turn to the Left. There’s no denying that the sustained
buoyancy of the Indian economy has assisted the Congress. India grew at roughly 8% per annum for four
of the five years the UPA was in power, and even now, amid a severe global
slump, it is the world’s second fastest growing economy.
Yet for the poor, who are the bulk of India’s voters,
such claims to affluence are meaningless if there’s no direct impact on their
lives.
In fact, exit polls indicated that the aspect of
“development” that mattered most to those who voted for the UPA had
to do with the government’s redistributive interventions in the economy. Two costly schemes were specifically
mentioned — the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) program, which
guarantees 100 days of paid work to the poor, and a loan-waiver plan for
indebted farmers.
But it is to the Left that the Congress owes the pro-poor
tenor of its economic strategy, a fact that Congress heavyweights, such as
Jyotiraditya Scindia, have acknowledged in the past week, albeit somewhat
mutedly. It was under pressure from the
Left — which provided external support to the UPA from 2004-2008 — that the
Congress implemented programs such as the NREG, and even pushed through some
social security legislation for India’s impoverished un-unionized workers. It was the Left, furthermore, that prevented
pro-market hardliners in the Congress from pursuing liberalizing reforms too
aggressively, particularly in the financial sector, thus shielding Indian banks
from the toxic assets that are at the root of the current global crisis.
It is highly unfortunate that the Left, especially the
CPM, failed to claim sufficient credit for these important shifts in emphasis,
and instead, became embroiled in a bitter controversy over land acquisition and
fair compensation at Singur, a site offered by the CPM-run West Bengal
government to Tata Motors to manufacture its $2,500 car, the Tata Nano. This controversial decision was opposed by
several thousand farmers who’d potentially be displaced by the project, and set
off a wave of protest that was supported not only by opposition leader Mamata
Banerjee — whose party, the Trinamul (“Grassroots”) Congress, is
part of the UPA alliance — but also by high-profile environmentalists, such as
Medha Patkar, and Left-oriented public intellectuals, such as Arundhati Roy.
But has it backed itself into a corner?
While parties that borrow from their opponents’ agendas
are good at winning elections and even hobbling through a full term in
government, they aren’t particularly good at delivering consistent policies,
and are often rattled to paralysis by what typically trails their success –
the thick deluge of ferocious criticism from opposition parties, which clamour
to reclaim lost space and usurped ideals.
The problem is all the more acute in a federal system like India’s,
where the party governing the centre can ill afford to lose sight of the need
to win state-level elections.
Despite Saturday’s electrifying outcome, the Congress is
in a tight spot. On the economic front,
this may be good news — but on other issues, such as India’s relationship with
Pakistan and civil liberties, the outlook is grim.
Encouraged by their apparently strong mandate, pro-market
enthusiasts in the party are already talking about picking up the pace of
economic liberalization and venturing into politically combustible areas such
as privatization and labour flexibilization.
But too strident a move in this arena will surely re-empower the Left,
enabling it to trounce the Congress and its allies in the West Bengal state
assembly elections, which are slated for 2011.
Privatization may also alienate Dalits and other lower castes, since
job-reservations for these groups currently apply only to government-run
companies. Mayawati may very well stage
a come-back, especially if she dusts off her disrepute as India’s ill-gotten
“slumdog millionaire.”
In the longer term, the Congress will probably want to
soften the harsh pitch of its anti-terrorism legislation and anti-Pakistan
rhetoric, along with its burgeoning reputation as the United States’ loyal ally
in the war on the Taliban, “Islamic radicalism,” or (even more nebulously)
on “terror.” Many Congress
insiders see these as fundamentally against the grain of the party associated
with India’s freedom struggle, the principle of non-alignment, and the
personality of Mahatma Gandhi — the country’s legendary conciliator — and, on
a more practical level, as too easily given to inflaming persistently volatile
Hindu-Muslim tensions.
But any backpedalling on this front will surely
strengthen the BJP, allowing it to re-group in its stronghold states in
northern and western India. One might
note that the BJP has retained its grasp on the key state of Gujarat, and that
too, under the direction of its hardnosed chief minister, Narendra Modi, who
egged on anti-Muslim mobs in the bloody riots that rocked the state in 2002
(the BJP has won in 16 of Gujarat’s 26 parliamentary ridings).
There’s little doubt that despite its losses, the BJP
remains the Congress’s principal opponent.
Indeed, in order to keep the BJP at bay
– and the eyes of its supporters locked instead on the
Congress — the new government may very well strengthen the more militaristic
and uncritically pro-American planks of its foreign and “internal
security”
policies. Rather
than opposing the BJP with gusto and determination, the Congress-led UPA may,
in predictable form, echo some of its worst aspects. This is perhaps the most worrying dimension
of the UPA’s return to power.
Mitu Sengupta is Assistant Professor at the Department of
Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University. See, also, Mitu Sengupta, “Sri Lanka’s
Hollow Victory: Why Hammering the Tamil Tigers Will Not Bring Peace”
(Rabble.ca, 4 May 2009).
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May 25, 2009
government, history, Indian Elections