HVK Archives: Vacuum in politics
Vacuum in politics - The Hindustan Times
Amulya Ganguli
()
17 May 1997
Title : Vacuum in politics
Author : Amulya Ganguli
Publication : The Hindustan Times
Date : May 17, 1997
Nature abhors vacuum, as every schoolboy is taught. In Indian politics, however,
misgivings remain about how the space vacated by a declining Congress will be
filled. It is not a new fear. Among the early claimants for the empty spot were
the Leftists, and one of their stalwarts, M. Basavapunniah, expressed his
apprehensions about the post-Congress scenario way back in 1985.
Describing the Congress as a "leading party of the country" - a compliment carries
considerable weight when it comes from an adversary - Basavapunniah said, "we will
not be happy if this party goes down without the emergence of a viable democratic
alternative. Such a situation will help imperialist and regressive forces to
dismember the country. Our concern for the Congress is because it affects our
future. We want to take over a united and not a fragmented India."
The imperialist angle is, of course, a typical communist bugbear. Of greater
relevance is the reference to "regressive forces", a possibility which occurred to
Rajni Palme Dutt. He wrote in 1969 that as a result of the communist split of
1964, "the second place (in the Lok Sabha in 1967) went to the right-wing
Swatantra ... while next to it the other main reactionary party, the Jan Sangh,
increased its representation from 14 to 35 seats. This advance of right-wing
reaction, at a time when popular dissatisfaction with hitherto dominant Congress
politics was giving rise to the demand for a new course, was a dangerous warning
signal."
If the veteran communist could anticipate the future growth of "right-wing
reaction", he would have been shocked beyond words. Besides, he would not have
been pleased to learn about the communists' contribution to this growth, for the
Leftists and Rightists were in the same camp between 1977 and 1989, hastening the
Congress' downfall. So far as the Leftists are concerned, the anti-Congress
policy has backfired, for the chief beneficiary has been the BJP.
But, strangely enough, for all its recent spectacular gains, the BJP, too, is
uncertain about its readiness to step into the breach. What is more, even the
recent debilitating turmoil within the United Front has not dispelled the BJP's
doubts. On the face of it, the present situation is tailor-made for it. Not only
is the Congress going down, its proximity has made the United Front disaster-prone
as well. As a result, the BJP's claim that only it can provide a stable
government should be more credible. But there is nothing to indicate that the
party will take a giant leap forward in the next election.
The reason is two-fold. Just as the BJP's anti-Muslim image is preventing it from
extending its sphere of influence, its other image of being a party of honest,
disciplined individuals has come to be questioned, especially after Shankarsinh
Vaghela's revolt. What is more, notwithstanding its claims of being ready to step
into the Congress' shoes at the national level, it has had to play second fiddle
in virtually all the States where it is in power.
In Maharashtra, it is the other untouchable of Indian politics - the Shiv Sena -
which is ruling the roost while the BJP remains very much in the background. In
Uttar Pradesh, the BSP led by the notoriously unreliable Mr Kanshi Ram is very
much in the saddle, so much so that it is not yet certain whether Ms Mayawati will
step down to pave the way for a BJP Chief Minister after the stipulated six
months. In any event, the BSP has ruled out any alliance with the BJP outside UP,
thereby pouring cold water on Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee's vaunted National
Democratic Front.
In Haryana, Mr Bansi Lal, the hero of the Emergency, calls the shots. (The BJP has
another Emergency hero in its ranks - Mr Jagmohan.) Only in Rajasthan the BJP has
its own Chief Minister, but the Government secured its majority by luring in
outsiders. From playing a secondary role in the States, therefore, it will take
an enormous effort for the BJP to come to power at the Centre, either on its own
or even as leader of the NDF - if it is allowed to be at the head by the
temperamental Mr Kanshi Ram, who takes pride in being the "biggest opportunist."
The only alternative for the BJP is to shed its anti-Muslim image which is a
"myth" according to Mr Vajpayee who intends to convince the BJP's would-be
partners that "aligning with us will not cost them votes." But dispelling a myth
built up over decades and sustained by the patriarchs of Nagpur will not be easy.
Besides, any such move will be castigated as dishonest, will confuse and alienate
its hard-core supporters, anger the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and end up causing more
harm than good.
Arguably, had the BJP been a single organisation, like the other parties, and not
the member of a parivar, it might have had limited success if it made a serious
effort to dispel the "myth", although even that is doubtful given its long
majoritarian tradition. But it cannot make any move in that direction without
breaking its umbilical ties with the RSS-led parivar, Which is out of the question
because it would amount to disowning the Hegdewar-Golwalkar legacy, the very basis
of Hindutva philosophy.
At present, the BJP leaders maintain a deafening silence on these two stalwarts,
and especially the anti-Muslim outbursts in their books, Bunch of Thoughts and We
or our nationhood defined, lest they frighten off their would-be allies. But the
essence of these books - that the Muslims are aliens with doubtful loyalty - is
what the average BJP supporter genuinely believes and any move to take a new line
cannot but undermine the party's base.
Hence, the BJP is caught in a dilemma where it suspects it has reached the highest
point of its political graph. To go further up, it has to make a major policy
change - indeed, a total ideological turnaround - but, first, that will neither be
believed nor will be possible and, secondly, it can initiate a downward slide.
So, the vacuum created by the Congress' degeneration remains. Basavapunniah's
hope of the Leftists taking over India is also unlikely to be fulfilled, either
through a people's democratic revolution (as the jargon goes) which the veteran
Marxist must have had in mind, or even via the bourgeois parliamentary system.
The Leftists, too, have reached the top of their graph and cannot hope to go up
any further.
What blighted their prospect much before the collapse of their ideology was the
split in their ranks, mourned by Rajni Palme Dutt. The break-up into CPI, CPI-M
and the numerous CPI-MLs meant that their cadres and leaders were dispersed into
many groups, which were often more intent on fighting one another than on opposing
a common enemy. How influential the communists would have been if they could
boast of Mr Jyoti Basu, Mr Indrajit Gupta and someone like Chandrasekhar Prasad,
the promisihg youth leader who was gunned down in Siwan in Bihar, being in the
same party.
But the very splintering of the communists not only into several CPIs but also
into organisations like the Revolutionary Socialist Party or the Socialist Unity
Centre is indicative of the long-prevalent ideological confusion in their ranks,
perhaps leading inevitably to the demise of Marxism. Given their current state
where all that the communists can hope is somehow to retain their precarious hold
on West Bengal and Kerala, it does not seem likely that they can live up to
Basavapunniah's expectations. If anything, they have become weaker than what they
were in his time because their stints in power have robbed the communists of much
of their earlier sheen.
If the communists have declined, the Janata Dal - the other party with all-India
pretensions - never grew. It remained dependent on the personal influence of
leaders like Biju Patnaik in Orissa, Mr Ramakrishna Hegde in Karnataka and Mr
Laloo Prasad Yadav in Bihar, with the result that their death or political
disability sorely undermined the party's position. Today, its identity is lost
within the United Front.
Evidently, then, it is beyond the capacity of any one ideological group of either
the Left, the Right or the Centre to fill the vacuum created by the Congress'
decline. Perhaps even the Congress will not be able to do so even if its fortune
improve under a new leadership. Fronts and coalitions seem to be the only answer
at present despite apprehensions about the consequent instability.
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