Author: Mahesh Rangarajan
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: January 2, 2001
Introduction: If Vajpayee's ship,
Naidu will not find it easy to land on the shore
The Andhra Pradesh chief minister,
N. Chandrababu Naidu made a little-noticed comment during the rumpus over
Ayodhya. India, he said, had little time to spare for non-issues that both
the ruling combine and the opposition spent so much time on. The heart
of the country lay in the villages, and his party was focusing all energies
on the problems faced by the farming community. Naidu's comments provide
food for thought, and literally so.
The political backdrop to his concerns
needs some elaboration. With its contingent of 29 members of parliament
in the Lok Sabha, his formation is by far the largest non-Hindutva ally
of the Bharatiya Janata Party. But it has kept a distance and never joined
the National Democratic Alliance. Atal Bihari Vajpayee told Telugu Desam
Party MPs, they could have the moon if they only entered the ministry.
A senior MP quipped they had the moon in hand already. Making play of the
"Chandra" in the chief minister's own name conveyed another message: he
is the captain of his ship and does not want a rival power centre emerging
in his party.
The party has for some time been
watching its poll ally try to expand its base in the state with some anxiety.
There is clearly a vacuum, with the Congress having lost two successive
assembly elections and the left in serious, and possibly long-term, decline.
The opposition has tried to gain support via agitation against the power
tariff hike, leading to a partial if temporary rollback on the part of
the government.
The appointment of Bangaru Laxman
as party chief was intended to send a powerful message to the Madigas,
the most populous Dalit community in Andhra Pradesh, that they were being
courted. M. Venkaiah Naidu as minister of rural development is doing all
he can to cash in on political returns from projects funded by the Centre.
Bandaru Datatreya seeks to woo the backward classes. Though it has grown
in all the three regions of the state, the Hindutva force has built up
its most impressive base in the Telengana region. For now, it cannot afford
to go on its own, but it has become a significant presence in a province
where it was once a marginal force.
But Naidu faces deeper challenges
than those caused by the surface currents of party politics. In an interesting
reversal of its past, the TDP is today the premier party of reform. This
is the third incarnation of the organization, first founded in 1983 by
the late N.T. Rama Rao, to reinforce a sense of atma gauravam or Telugu
pride. Once out of power for a five-year spell in the Eighties, the late
leader instead made a pro-poor appeal the centre-piece of his strategy.
Rice at subsidized rates and prohibition were his twin planks, but once
in power, the party soon found the coffers empty. It then embarked under
Chandrababu Naidu on its present course of action.
Though known outside the state for
his affinity for e-governance, the chief minister has had a second, possibly
equally significant, track. His is a party traditionally led by the rural
rich peasantry, with a sizeable marketable surplus and dominance over the
institutions of local self-government. The coast, with its early start
in the Green Revolution has been the fount of the TDP's power, with the
Kamma community's enterprise having set the stage for its political ascendancy
under non-Congress rule. Hence, the farmer's markets, the creation of rural
assets via voluntary labour and the encouragement of water-users' associations.
In all this, the party is only facilitating
the process of wealth creation in the countryside and trying to spread
the benefits through collective institutions to reduce social tensions.
Co-operatives have less red-tape to bother about and forest-users' associations
and women's thrift groups have been given a helping hand.
The problem is these impulses are
often in direct conflict with the demands of the rural poor and the lower
middle classes. Unlike Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh or at least most of the
interior has had a long tradition of landlord domination. Even today, it
has more agricultural landless labourers than any other state in the Union,
including Bihar. Much of its agricultural prosperity is more fragile than
it looks. A shift in market trends or a series of natural calamities, and
the entire picture changes for the worse.
For a variety of reasons, many unconnected
with the present regime in Hyderabad, the state's agricultural economy
faces a crisis. Tobacco faces a glut. New crops once seen as harbingers
of progress are facing unforeseen problems. Through the later Nineties,
edible oil imports wiped out a nascent sunflower farming, which had much
potential for linkages with industry. Oil palm cultivators have seen the
price drop for two years in a row and do not know whom to turn to. Poultry,
both eggs and chickens, had boomed but are now in downturn.
Worst of all, paddy is in poor shape.
This explains the strident tone of the chief minister's remarks, when he
demanded parity with Punjab and Haryana. The Food Corporation of India
has been quick to step up purchases of paddy. If N.T. Rama Rao coasted
to office on the slogan of rice at two rupees a kilo, his son-in-law's
fate hinges to a great extent on how far he redresses the claims of paddy
farmers. Unlike in the past, the drive to switch to alternative crops has
run out of steam. Hence, the tug of war with the Centre in which the state
rarely gives an inch. What are at stake are not just the rice cultivators'
fortunes, but also the fate of the local ruling party.
There is a counterpart more relevant
to the forested parts of Telengana, the hotbed of left-wing extremism.
Forest co-management aimed at giving adivasis and women a stake in forest
wealth is being diluted seriously for the first time. Under pressure from
large corporate houses, joint management is being used as a cover to hand
over large tracts of land for market-led timber production. This has already
led to strong local protests.
The dilemmas in the state are not
unique, but the context is. Maharashtra has raised its tariffs in power
and Karnataka is all set to do so, but neither is on the same scale. Conversely,
no chief minister has courted industry as assiduously, but compared to
his neighbours he has much less to show for all his efforts. Worst of all,
unlike opposition-led state governments, he can hardly lay all the blame
for his failings at the door of New Delhi. If Vajpayee's ship sinks, Naidu
will not find it so easy to land on the shore.
Andhra Pradesh, in any case, is
not the easiest of provinces to preside over. Its sheer size makes for
great disparity. Regions within the state have sharply contrasting social
and economic profiles. The rich-poor gap is greater than in any southern
state. And to add to it all, it has a highly centralized polity, with major
decisions all flowing from the chief minister's office.
Naidu has survived many turns in
politics. He began in the Congress and joined the TDP after it came to
power in 1983. He rose to a key party post and eventually ousted his father-in-law.
More impressively, he made it a central player first in the United Front
and now with the NDA. The test, however, will lie in how he tackles the
crisis on the ground. Only effective redress of grievances can avoid a
hard landing in the days and months to come.
(The author is an independent researcher
on ecology and political affairs and former fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum
Library, New Delhi)
