Ironic Euphemism for Brazen Betrayal
by Swapan Dasgupta
There is a small minority of Indians who grew up in cities and hill stations where the British influence lingered for a decade or two after Independence. Of them, there must be another lot that developed a liking for the oh-so-English fudge — an extremely rich confectionary made with sugar, butter and milk with a light flavouring of cocoa or vanilla or even chocolate.
I have always preferred the fudge to either lozenges or toffee. There is nothing that gives me greater pleasure than landing up in a quaint English town or a village fair in the ‘Shires and buying a small packet of creamy fudge from one of those sensible ladies who run those quaint tea shops. It is one of those simple pleasures of life — as worthwhile as re-reading an Agatha Christie whodunit on a holiday.
Unfortunately, life isn’t all that uncluttered. Like the perfectly innocuous terms ‘gay’ and ‘queer’ that have been misappropriated by determined crusaders of ignoble causes, fudge no longer conjures happy images of innocent childhood. The term is more commonly associated with a sleight of hand, deceit and manipulation. In the age of innocence, this fudge would have been shunned; in today’s world of cleverness, it has become a political attribute, a byword for canniness.
Take the battle of figures involving Minister for Railways Mamata Banerjee and her predecessor Lalu Prasad Yadav. In her intervention in the Lok Sabha on July 9, Mamata revealed that Lalu’s claim that the Indian Railways was in the pink of health with a cash surplus of Rs 90,000 crore was worse than an eyewash — it was a fudge. “One cannot talk about the income and skip the expenditure part,” Mamata told the House, “after spending Rs 28,200 crore on account of the Sixth Pay Commission award for two years, we are left with a cash surplus of Rs 8,361 crore.”
It is a misfortune that the significance of this scandalous revelation by the Railways Minister has, by and large, escaped the political class. What Mamata was alluding to wasn’t a minor miscalculation or an accountant’s error. She was suggesting that her predecessor wilfully misled both Parliament and the nation. Worse, her revelation of the true state of railway finances pointed to the fact that the Budget has lost its sanctity and that official statistics are fudged.
The significance of the fudge is awesome. Less than a year ago, the corporate sector was shaken by the disclosure that Satyam Computer had misled its shareholders about the true state of the company’s finances. The company has been charged with criminal conspiracy, its auditors have been sacked and its chairman is behind bars and may well receive a stiff prison sentence. If Lalu is guilty of concealment and misrepresentation, it follows that his offence is no less severe than that of the hapless Ramalinga Raju. If Raju is prosecuted for playing havoc with the money of investors and banks, does Lalu and, for that matter, the Railway Board get away by fudging the accounts of a corporation funded by the taxpayer? There cannot be different sets of laws for the private and public sector.
Nor does the buck stop here. Lalu was a member of Manmohan Singh’s Government and was repeatedly praised by the Prime Minister for his remarkable performance. Surely the Prime Minister now owes the country an explanation? So far he has been silent.
Fudging, it would seem, is fast becoming a national preoccupation. In suggesting that the fiscal deficit of India stood at some 6.8 per cent of the GDP, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee need not be charged with Laluism, but he was certainly guilty of inexactitude. The figure, as he well knows and as do economists, is only a partial representation of the true state of public finances. If non-Budget items such as the deficit of States, oil bonds and fertiliser subsidy are added to the list, the real fiscal deficit is likely to approximate between 12 and 13 per cent of a falling GDP.
The implications of this are staggering. It means that the Government is bequeathing to the country a debt burden that will haunt the present and the future. Yes, there is a law enacted in 2003 that makes it obligatory for a Government to pursue the path of fiscal responsibility. But the Government has unilaterally waived its own responsibility for following the law — on the ground that exceptional situations warrant exceptional remedies. This means that there is very little faith in the Government actually carrying out its commitment to lower the fiscal deficit in the next two years. If the monsoons don’t come up to expectations, the profligacy with public finances will continue merrily and be justified.
The issue is not so much whether or not the Government has a right to pursue voodoo economics. That privilege cannot be taken away from an elected Government. The more important question is the ethics of selective revelation, bordering on concealment, what in everyday parlance is called fudging. If you doubt what I am saying, just correlate the official claim of a negative rate of inflation with the soaring consumer price index.
At one time, particularly after smooth public relations professionals started regulating the flow of information, many Western Governments were charged with being a hostage to spin. In India, the quality of non-cricket spin is still amateurish. But we have moved to a higher level of political management. We are now a nation driven by fudge.
What a shame, it isn’t the real thing.
(This article was first published in The Pioneer on July 12, 2009.)
On Education: System, not Exams, Causes Stress
by Swapan Dasgupta
An understandable desire to make a quick mark in the fiercely competitive world of politics may have prompted Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal’s radical proposals to overhaul India’s schooling system. However, in shedding tears for the examination trauma suffered by lakhs of school children, not to mention their parents, Sibal forgot to ask a simple question: Why have the public examinations held at the conclusion of classes 10 and 12 become a cause of so much anguish?
In most developed countries, the debate over schooling centres on declining standards. Many educationists have expressed concern that the examinations are no longer an adequate test of a student’s actual worth. In Britain, for example, the GCSE for 16-year-olds are seen to be less demanding than the old O-levels. Likewise, many university authorities feel that the A-level examinations for 18-year-olds are inferior compared to the International Baccalaureate.
Developing countries such as India have a different set of problems. There is, of course, the question of standards. But this is balanced by two additional concerns. First, there was a need to ensure access to education for all but particularly those children whose parents and grandparents had suffered from either illiteracy or, at best, managed ‘class 8 pass’. Second, there was the more complex question of tailoring education to meet the requirements of the economy.
When S Nurul Hasan presided over the abolition of the 11-year schooling system and introduced the 10+2 system in the mid-1970s, he was guided by the firm conviction that the primary purpose of schooling was not to steer a maximum number of students into India’s over-stretched university system. Hasan believed, maybe even sincerely, that the public examinations at the end of class 10 would be the last occasion a majority of school children read text books. A majority of 16-year-olds, he believed, would either join the labour market or undertake some job-oriented vocational training. The remainder would go on to a more scholastic education and only the top layer of the 18-year-olds would enter universities.
Needless to say, it hasn’t quite worked out the way Hasan imagined. To cope with the problem of supply exceeding demand, employers simply raised the entry-level requirements. Today, for example, a class 12 pass is the minimum requirement for a police constable and a bus driver. Hasan imagined it would be class 10 pass. The result is that the schooling system has to cope with two very different sets of demands. There are those who just want a certificate that will make them eligible for menial jobs and there are those who want schools to prepare them for university. Balancing the two is at the best of times difficult but they have been made doubly complicated by political pressure. To prevent the established middle classes from being the natural beneficiaries of a scholastic system where the quality of schools and teachers play a major part, Governments were forced to establish a system of equivalence. In plain language this involved the creation of an examination system where the advantages of social origin would be nullified and the students of a cash-strapped Government school would not feel disadvantaged.
In practice this meant that students would no longer be tested for their critical faculties, their ability to handle knowledge and their creative acumen. These, it was believed, would place students from better-off backgrounds at an advantage. Instead, it was felt that rote-learning and increased weightage on modularisation would be the great leveller because it lessened the subjective element in evaluation. To lessen the disparity in English language skills, for example, the thrust was no longer on the use of idiomatic language but on the ability to regurgitate a defined pattern of usage. Indeed, those students who have an easy command over English and are in the habit of reading books have often been marked down against those who know their text books inside out.
The trauma suffered by children preparing for board examinations is not on account of the hard work they have to put in. The disorientation is caused by the sheer mindlessness of the learning process and the equivalence process inherent in the evaluation.
In an ideal world, the authorities should have approached the problem by trying to secure better schools, better trained teachers, innovative pedagogy and more opportunities for bright kids from deprived social backgrounds. Rajiv Gandhi had the right idea when he started the Navodaya Vidyalayas in district towns. Sibal should have focussed his attention on a mushrooming of such schools of excellence throughout the land, particularly in the poorer regions. Instead, he has taken an easy way out by proposing to make the class 10 board exam voluntary. This is not going to solve the problem. Instead, the proposal to make school education uniform and regulated by one authority is certain to add to mindlessness. With one board, the challenges of diversity are going to be compounded by the problems of volume-a recipe for even more modularisation.
The paradox of India is its great unevenness. The education system tries to balance the brilliant, the plodder, the mediocre and the sub-standard under one roof. The result is an inevitable levelling down process. It is time politicians recognise that different levels of attainment cannot be accommodated under one roof. To be meaningful, to cater to the requirements of a dynamic, modern and increasingly globalised economy, and to satisfy the growing aspirations of an ambitious population, the one-size-fits-all approach has to be junked.
India is in need of a binary system which has to be sufficiently open-ended to accommodate social diversity. The country needs skills, but it also needs the ability to transform information into knowledge. If higher education has been defined by its centres of excellence, school education must have its share of the same.
(This article was first published in The Pioneer on June 28, 2009.)
Way Forward for the BJP
Swapan Dasgupta suggests the way forward:
I think that in the next year or two, the BJP has to recover its image of sobriety and become the intelligent voice of nationalism. As a starter, the party could consider sustained interventions on the following themes:
- Strengthening institutions of the state such as Parliament, judiciary, Election Commission.
- Opposing the political protection of corruption through a malleable CBI
- Arguing for prudent fiscal policies and an end to state-run inefficiencies
- Highlighting the achievements of its state governments
- A watchdog role to prevent weak-kneed responses to neighbourhood troubles and arm-twisting by the superpower
- A more equitable federal arrangement that devolves more resources to the states
I think it is important that the BJP imposes a two-year moratorium on elevating sectarian and identity-related issues to the top of the political agenda.The point is to demonstrate that BJP takes an interest and has views on subjects other than (what someone called) Mickey Mouse issues.
The BJP’s Hindu credentials don’t need reiteration. Its Ugly Hindu image has to be washed off completely.
Meanwhile, go full steam in the task of overhauling state units and trying to secure a meaningful foothold in the southern and eastern states. There has to be generational change at all levels.
Politicians face Credibility Crisis
by Swapan Dasgupta
With the second Manmohan Singh Government looking more like a Congress Government, it is possible that the illusion of single-party dominance is going to become the framework of political discourse for the next few years, or at least until there is a crisis which proves unmanageable. This effortless return to the mental parameters of the Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi era may not be a good reflection of ground realities. But the resounding post-facto endorsement of the chattering classes for the Ruling Party of India has, unfortunately, never been marked by profundity.
The natural corollary of this winner-takes-all mindset is that after being at the receiving end of some initial derision, the vanquished will be left to lick their wounds in private. Both the deflated Ministerial aspirants in the BJP and the frustrated puppeteers in the CPI(M) know that they have a lot of listening and explaining to do. But they also know that some perfunctory show of contrition will suffice to defray the immediate frustrations of the foot soldiers. Apparatchiks, particularly those who exist in a cloistered environment of the party offices, know that they can put off exercising hard options by falling back on the need to take a considered decision.
Time and events being great healers, a rigorous post-mortem can be shelved indefinitely if the immediate pressure to take remedial action can be averted.
It is paradoxical that despite functioning in a democratic environment, the internal regime of India’s political parties is grounded in committee room secrecy. This wasn’t always so. Till the late-1960s, the Congress, for example, had a reasonable degree of inner-party democracy. Elections to the All-India Congress Committee and its State counterparts were held regularly and were often fiercely contested. The annual AICC sessions were marked by speeches that were robustly critical of the Government’s policies and the party leadership.
Open, rumbustious discussion was also a hallmark of the Socialists. Ram Manohar Lohia fought bitter inner-party battles with the likes of Asoka Mehta, Chandra Shekhar, NG Goray and Nath Pai. His flamboyant followers such as George Fernandes, Raj Narain and Madhu Limaye were great votaries of the “change or split” path.
Communism in India was nominally wedded to the Leninist tradition of party organisation that ensured a paramount role of the Central Committee and Politburo-the proverbial vanguard of the vanguard. Yet, and particularly after PC Joshi injected intellectual vibrancy into the party in the mid-1940s, the undivided CPI boasted a culture of political discussion.
The subjects of concern-the class composition of the Indian state and the relevance of “bourgeois democracy” were two all-time favourites-may have been abstruse. There was also an exaggerated reliance on what Lenin “himself” or Mao Zedong may or may not have prescribed, and cravenness before discreet instructions from Moscow. However, despite these constraints, the political “line” was thoroughly dissected. The Communists moved seamlessly from “correctness to correctness”.
The tradition of political openness received a grave setback after the Congress split of 1969 and the Emergency. The emergence of an all-powerful leader and the dynastic principle meant that decision-making was arrogated to the one and only leader. In the 1990s, the Congress suffered three major electoral defeats. Yet, apart from one brain-storming session in Panchmarhi, the party did nothing to address the grave problem of political erosion. The Congress’ recovery in 2004 and the awesome advance in 2009 owed little to any well considered plan of rejuvenation. It was an outcome of happy circumstances.
Rahul Gandhi has proclaimed his intention of democratising the Congress. The intention is noble and suggests that the heir apparent may have cottoned on to the root cause of the decline of political culture-a problem he has tried to circumvent by making politics into a caste. However, the extent to which the Congress reverts to its original moorings will depend on the calibre of its top leadership. It is one thing to promote inner-party democracy in the good times. Bad times often prompt a regression.
Curiously, it is the BJP which faces a problem not dissimilar to that of the Congress. If the Nehru-Gandhi family acts as an adhesive in the Congress, it is the RSS which plays Pope in the BJP. The BJP’s problems have multiplied on two counts. First, the RSS has eroded its moral authority and social influence thanks to its unwillingness to face contemporary realities. Second, success in electoral politics has triggered a breakdown of ideological certitudes and added to the charms of aggregative politics. The RSS has tried to hold things together by command. Diktat has replaced informed choice and this enforced regimentation has in turn stymied the party’s renewal.
After Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani, the party’s presidents have lacked the depth to pursue creative politics. Since the defeat in 2004, the BJP has curtailed inner-party debate, not least because the minders and their nominees have lacked the competence to handle intellectual scrutiny.
Restoring the credibility of politics and the political class is a national challenge. As democracy strikes deep roots, more and more people want a say in how parties behave and who they project. The Primary was once an American quirk but it has now become crucial to the British system as well. In India, people are offered choices on election day but have no say in determining the shortlist. To strengthen the quality of democracy, a system of constant interaction involving the top and the bottom is imperative.
The country pays lip service to the argumentative India; it is time to show similar respect to the arguments.
(This article was first published in The Pioneer on June 7, 2009.)
BJP needs a Change of Priorities
by Swapan Dasgupta
International communism did politics a colossal disservice when it turned ‘revisionism’ into an expression of visceral abuse. The implications of this snarling revulsion were more than polemical grandstanding. Ideology became a cover for rigidity, the perpetuation of textual certitudes and craven hero worship. Critical inquiry, a precondition for intellectual evolution, was consequently shunned and denounced as a betrayal of the faith.
Curiously, it’s not merely ideological outfits that have been affected by the fear of revisionism. Middle-of-the-road parties centred on pragmatism, common sense and some nebulous principles (such as freedom, nationalism and equality) have been casualties too. The British Labour Party spent 18 years in the wilderness for its failure to recognise that the country had changed, whereas it had not. Its Conservative rival lost three successive elections before it realised that the key to recovery was an image overhaul. Under David Cameron, the Conservatives are no longer a party of stuffed shirts and plummy accents; modern Toryism has imbibed Britain’s new cosmopolitanism.
After two consecutive defeats which also signal the end of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-L K Advani era, the BJP is confronted with precisely the choices that will prompt shrill charges of revisionism. The 2009 defeat was awesome. The BJP lost the incremental gains it made in the 1990s; its support in a growing middle class fell sharply; and it failed to capture the imagination of the youth. For the BJP, the 2009 loss wasn’t just a managerial disaster; it was a resounding political defeat.
Confronted with adversity, ideological parties are often inclined to retreat into their political ghettos. The assumption is that the fall in electoral support is linked to a loss of ideological purity. For the BJP, such a step has a particular attraction since it was the conscious reinforcement of its Hindu identity that catapulted it from a low of two seats in 1984 to 161 seats in 1996. This clout enabled it to gather regional allies and be in power at the Centre for six years. Today, there are voices within arguing for a re-emphasis on Hindutva, the dissolution of alliances and a greater reliance on the RSS. Will an approach that paid dividends 25 years ago yield similar returns now?
The past is not necessarily a guide to future action. Hindutva emerged as an alternative idea of India in the wake of the collapse of the Nehruvian consensus. First, there was a definite impression at the time that a Congress party steeped in disrepute no longer had the political direction to confront separatism and sectional pressures on the polity. Secondly, there was widespread exasperation with the slow pace of economic development. By 1980, it was clear that the licence-permit-quota raj had become a drag on the country. Yet it was not until 1991 that the first tentative steps were taken to unshackle India’s entrepreneurial spirit. Hindutva appeared in this interregnum. Finally, there was a freshness to the idea of Hindu resurgence which appealed to Middle India, more so because the BJP promised a “party with a difference”.
What has changed in the 21st century? To begin with, India is far more globalised and cosmopolitan than at any point since independence. There is a greater inclination to look outwards and imbibe lifestyle shifts. These have corresponded to a demographic shift, resulting in a younger India. Secondly, growth of global Islamist terror has made Indians far more appreciative of the need to insulate India from sectarian strife. Finally, unlike the shambolic 1990s, there is a sense of self-confidence among Indians and a belief that their country can face the world on its own terms.
The BJP has been insufficiently sensitive to these developments. Intellectually, it has not moved beyond the formulations of the 1990s. Today’s Hindu is no longer beleaguered. Rising prosperity has contributed to a gentler, pop nationalism marked by good-humoured flag-waving in cricket matches. Indians don’t feel threatened but, at the same time, are repelled by bigotry. The BJP must candidly recognise that assertive Hindutva marked by hate speeches and moral policing is seen as ugly mirror images of the Taliban. The spectacle of old and middle-aged men oozing sanctimoniousness and droning on about India’s ancient inheritance belongs to a bygone age. It also reeks of hypocrisy because the integrity quotient of the BJP isn’t worth showcasing.
Hindutva is only a fraction of what the BJP stands for. Its larger image is, however, dominated by it, not least because the party gets exceptionally agitated only on issues of religious identity. The BJP, as someone put it, has become a caricature of the pious and severe Pandeyji or Mishraji who teaches Sanskrit in schools. Its natural attraction as a party that shuns dynasty and is partial to deregulation and enterprise is offset by its old-fashioned cultural face.
Modern India isn’t necessarily partial to Congress babalog. It, however, abhors the values the BJP is seen to stand for at present.
In politics, image and perception are everything. Today, Hindutva has become an etymological obstacle in the BJP’s path, diverting attention from the party’s impressive record in governance. The party should consider freezing it in the way Jawaharlal Nehru quietly shelved Gandhism after independence. Enlightened nationalism, good governance and modernity must become the party’s priorities.
(This article was first published in The Times of India on June 4, 2009.)
PM Can No Longer Bask In Inaction
by Swapan Dasgupta
If past political conduct is anything to go by, there is a strong case for believing that the Congress leadership took an inordinately long time to decide on the new Council of Ministers because it was buffeted by an infuriating array of pressures that are always difficult to handle. These ranged from alliance compulsions, fierce personal ambitions, community and regional pressures and the overweening desire to have a stake in the so-called ATM ministries.
Despite the large-heartedness with which the baring of fangs was viewed by a country desperate to get back to a semblance of governance, the first hiccups of Manmohan Singh’s second innings indicated that old-style politics is still firmly entrenched. The first statements by the new Law Minister and the HRD Minister also indicated that identity politics is still alive and kicking. The surfeit of English-speaking progenies of the fat cats of yesteryear and the Prime Minister-in-waiting’s two-day-stubble style statement shouldn’t distract from the cynical (or is it reassuring?) belief that it takes more than an election to change the ground rules of Indian politics. As one of the more erudite colonial chroniclers wrote about the attempts to break down the caste system, “ripples on the surface leave the depths unmoved.”
Yet, there is a more charitable view of the quiet kerfuffle that generated countless hours of speculative chatter. And this has to do with the root of the confusion: the uncertainty over the mandate.
It’s a no-brainer to say that Manmohan Singh’s victory was a vote for a stable, five-year Government. But beyond this vote to strengthen the hands of a decent, well-meaning Prime Minister, there is a complete lack of unanimity over what is the mandate. The argument that Indians prefer a middle-of-the-road approach is reassuring but anodyne. It also goes against the grain of the vocal assertion by the babalog brigade that people want a generational change.
The 79-member Team Manmohan makes a mockery of freshness. The real decision-makers are those who cut their teeth in politics in the heydays of either Indira or Rajiv Gandhi. They are experienced but also quite jaded and not normally given to original thought. The wannabe Obamas have been left to grace TV studios and revert to page-3 glamour; they are expected to guard their inheritance, not make policy. Even the completely redundant Ministry of Sports and Youth Welfare escaped their clutches.
Maybe, the “new look” is being kept on hold for the inevitable mid-course transition when the Prime Minister is expected to assume a less exacting responsibility on Raisina Hill. The ambiguity of the mandate may be reflected in the wariness to experiment with impetuosity but it has graver policy implications. The Congress fought and won this election on a basket of issues. There was, of course, the anti-BJP and anti-Third Front dimension of the campaign whose relevance ceased after the results. Then there was the expensive Bharat Nirman campaign which proffered very different imageries ranging from the trip to the moon, modern highways, youthful energy, happy students with computers, smiling peasants and the NREGA. This Indian kaleidoscope was bound together by a stated concern for the aam aadmi.
The triumph of imagery over substance is at the root of the confusion that has gripped the new Government. Many Congress MPs believe, and with good reason too, that the priority to social expenditure in the past five years helped the party ward off anti-incumbency and recover ground among the poorest of the poor. This, coupled with some token minorityism, it is said, was the prime factor behind the Congress reclaiming the social coalition that was lost in the 1990s. The implication is that the new Government must rediscover the legacy of Indira Gandhi with some modifications and press on with ambitious NREGA-type programmes.
The only problem with this triumphant return to big Government socialism is that the requisite resources to fund the creation of an elaborate welfare State may not be as easily available. With the growth rate down sharply from the boom years, a global slowdown, high interest rates, tax collections down and the fiscal deficit at an all-time high, the Government no longer has the elbow room to address all facets of the Bharat Nirman imagery. It has to exercise hard choices — at least till high growth returns.
It is simply a question of resources. A desire to do everything at once will necessitate two measures: sharp tax increases and disinvestment. Any significant tax hikes will further erode competiveness and anger a middle class which voted quite resoundingly for the Congress. Disinvestment, while extremely desirable, is an ideological no-no.
Ironically, it is the successful please-all election campaign that is making choice difficult. Owing to political compulsions the Government has lived in denial, pretending that India was somehow insulated from the global economic crisis. Worse, the political class swallowed this disingenuous piffle with the result that the Government is now faced with unmanageable expectations. The India-lives-in-the-villages poseurs dream of an European-style welfare net with Indian-style leakages; industry wants modest interest rates and infrastructural upgradation; the middle class desire low taxes and aspire for a better quality of life; and the international community wants India to regulate farmers subsidies and carbon emission. All these can’t be met simultaneously.
The easy problem Manmohan faced was deciding who should or should not be a Minister. His most daunting challenge is defining the Government’s priorities. For five years he was the good guy; now the management-by-inaction approach won’t do. Just because the BJP got thrashed in the polls doesn’t make its prescription of “strong leader, decisive Government” any less relevant and desirable.
(This article was first published in The Pioneer on May 31, 2009.)
An Effortless Return to the Indira and Rajiv Gandhi Era
by Swapan Dasgupta
The extent to which life can be cruel on the loser was best illustrated by the hapless Amar Singh imploring a TV anchor, “Don’t laugh at me.” The occasion was the Samajwadi Party’s gratuitous letter to the president of India offering “unconditional” support to the Manmohan Singh government. The triumphant Congress has so far ignored the gesture. With the second Manmohan Singh government looking more like a Congress government (with some extras thrown in for colour and ethnic flavouring), it is likely that the illusion of single-party dominance is going to become the framework of political discourse for the next few years, or at least until there is a crisis that proves unmanageable. This effortless return to the mental parameters of the Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi era may not be a good reflection of ground realities. But resounding post-facto endorsement of the chattering classes for the Ruling Party of India has, unfortunately, never been marked by profundity.
The natural corollary of this winner-takes-all mindset is that after being at the receiving end of some initial mockery and derision, the vanquished will be left to lick their wounds in private, away from the intrusive glare of the media. Both the deflated ministerial aspirants in the Bharatiya Janata Party and the frustrated puppeteers in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) know that they have a lot of listening and explaining to do. But they also know that some perfunctory show of contrition will suffice to defray the immediate frustrations of the foot soldiers. Apparatchiks, particularly those who exist in a cloistered environment of the party offices, know that they can put off exercising hard options by falling back on the need to take a considered decision. Time and events being great healers, a rigorous post-mortem can be shelved indefinitely if the immediate pressure to take remedial action can be averted.
It is paradoxical that despite functioning in a democratic environment, the internal regime of India’s political parties is grounded in committee-room secrecy. This wasn’t always so. Till the late-1960s, the Congress, for example, had a reasonable degree of inner-party democracy. Elections to the All India Congress Committees and their state counterparts were held regularly, and were often fiercely contested. The annual AICC sessions were often marked by speeches that were robustly critical of the government’s policies and the party leadership. Additionally, there were ginger groups such as the Congress Socialist Forum, which played a role in mobilizing the ‘progressive’ wing of the party. Open, rumbustious discussion was also a hallmark of the socialists. Ram Manohar Lohia fought bitter inner-party battles with the likes of Ashoka Mehta, Chandra Shekhar, N.G. Goray and Nath Pai. His flamboyant followers, such as George Fernandes, Raj Narain and Madhu Limaye, were great ones for exercising the ‘change or split’ option.
Communism in India was nominally wedded to the Leninist tradition of party organization that ensured a paramount role of the central committee and politburo — the proverbial vanguard of the vanguard. Yet, and particularly after P.C. Joshi attracted a cream of intellectuals into the party in the mid-1940s, the undivided CPI boasted a vibrant culture of political debate and discussion. The subjects of concern — the class composition of the Indian State and the relevance of ‘bourgeois democracy’ were two all-time favourites — may have been abstruse. There was also an exaggerated reliance on what Lenin ‘himself’ or Mao Zedong may or may not have prescribed, and cravenness before discreet instructions from Moscow. However, despite these constraints, the political ‘line’ was thoroughly dissected at different levels and transmitted both upwards and downwards. The communists moved seamlessly from ‘correctness to correctness’, having internalized the party line with both passion and conviction.
The tradition of political openness received a grave setback after the Congress split of 1969 and the Emergency. The emergence of an all-powerful leader and the dynastic principle meant that decision-making was abrogated to the one and only leader. This may explain the steady stream of regional leaders and social constituencies that felt stifled and broke away from the Congress, never to return. In the 1990s, the Congress suffered three grievous electoral defeats and a complete washout in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal — states that accounted for more than 160 Lok Sabha seats. Yet, apart from one brain-storming session in Panchmarhi, the party did nothing to address the grave problem of political erosion. The Congress recovery in 2004, and the awesome advance in 2009, owed little to any well-considered plan of rejuvenation. It was an outcome of happy circumstances.
Rahul Gandhi has proclaimed his intention of democratizing the Congress, beginning with the Youth Congress. The intention is noble, and suggests that the heir apparent may have cottoned on to the root cause of the decline of political culture — a problem he has tried to circumvent by encouraging the growth of political families. However, the extent to which the Congress sheds sycophancy and reverts to its original moorings will depend on the calibre of its top leadership. It is one thing to promote inner-party democracy in the good times. But bad times often prompt a regression.
Jawaharlal Nehru loved debate because he possessed an intellectual rigour that his successors lacked. Nehru could coexist with the likes of P.D. Tandon and Pandit Sampurnanand because he believed they could be defeated in debate. Indira Gandhi couldn’t countenance the likes of Morarji Desai, K. Kamaraj and Atulya Ghose in the same party because her leadership style was based on manipulation and instruction. She was temperamentally suspicious of leaders with independent standing.
Curiously, it is the BJP which faces a problem not dissimilar to that of the Congress. If the Nehru-Gandhi family acts as an adhesive in the Congress, it is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that plays pope in the BJP. The BJP’s problems have multiplied on two counts. First, the RSS has lost its moral authority and social influence, thanks to its unwillingness to face contemporary realities. Secondly, success in electoral politics has triggered a breakdown of ideological certitudes and added to the charms of aggregative politics. The RSS has tried to hold things together by issuing whimsical three-line whips on organizational and political matters. Diktat has replaced informed choice, and this enforced regimentation has, in turn, stymied the party’s renewal.
After Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, the party’s presidents have lacked the depth to pursue creative politics. Since the defeat in 2004, the BJP has more or less shed all pretence of inner-party debate, not least because the RSS minders and their chosen nominees have lacked the calibre and self-assurance to handle challenges. After the May 16 defeat, there is a strong possibility that a beleaguered RSS may insist on eschewing all debate altogether and settling for greater control. If that happens, the future of the BJP may be bleak.
Restoring the credibility of politics and the political class is a national challenge. As democracy evolves and strikes deep roots, more and more people would want a say in how parties behave and who they project. The Primary was once an American quirk, but it has now become crucial to the British system as well. In India, people are offered choices on election day, but have no say in determining the shortlist. No wonder stories of the sale of party tickets abound. To strengthen the quality of democracy and the efficacy of political parties, a system of constant interaction involving the top and the bottom is imperative. David Cameron’s reinvention of the British Conservative Party suggests a possible way. It is time the political culture incorporated the argumentative Indian.
(This article was first published in The Telegraph on May 29, 2009.)
Why Rahul Charmed Voters
by Swapan Dasgupta
In December 1984, Rajiv Gandhi secured by far the most categorical endorsement from the Indian voter. The landslide victory was described by many as the ‘sympathy wave’ that arose from Indira Gandhi’s assassination. However, chroniclers also noted that the grief over Indira’s death was accompanied by an expectation of change. Rajiv, it was clear even during the campaign, was different from the run-of-the-mill khadi-wearing Congress leader. His idiom was markedly different, and even anti-political in many respects. As Arun Singh, his close associate with whom he fell out subsequently, put it evocatively, Rajiv symbolised the coming of age of the “Beatles generation”.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. Some 25 years after Rajiv’s famous victory, it is tempting to see parallels with the just concluded Lok Sabha poll. True, the mandate for the Congress is nowhere as categorical and the party’s candidate for the top job is far removed from all manifestations of youthfulness. Yet, it is undeniable that the crucial swing votes which enabled the Congress to win more than 200 seats on its own came from two sections that are in the frontline of change and modernity: The middle classes and the youth. The inference is that, as in 1984, the Congress received an endorsement both for the present and for the future.
Disaggregated surveys will reveal the magnitude of ‘modern’ India’s support for Congress but the instant conclusion is that Rahul Gandhi helped tilt the balance in favour of the incumbent. His energy and willingness to take risks complemented the note of reassurance provided by Manmohan Singh. These considerations will weigh heavily on the Congress when it charts its future course.
To reduce the appeal of Rajiv in his prime and Rahul in this election to merely a function of age would be unduly simplistic. The Congress didn’t field that many ‘young’ candidates this election. Most of its candidates were tried and tested political functionaries-in fact often the very ones who received a drubbing in the 1990s. In Delhi, where the party registered its most categorical victory, only two of its seven candidates corresponded to the so-called new look and both had tasted their first parliamentary victory in 2004. In Uttar Pradesh, where the party recorded a spectacular advance, its victorious candidates were mostly old political hands. There were about five exceptions.
This is not to suggest that the impact of Rahul in this election has been exaggerated. Rahul, it would seem, bolstered one of the main attributes of the Prime Minister: He enhanced the decency quotient of the Congress.
The association of decency with the Congress may seem quite galling for a generation that still remembers the Emergency, the high-handedness of Sanjay Gandhi, the brazen cover-up that was attempted during the Bofors controversy and the bribery of MPs that occurred during Narasimha Rao’s regime. To this may be added the wheeling-dealing that took place during the trust vote last July.
Why were these misdeeds of the Congress overlooked in the 2009 poll? One of the obvious answers is the moral equivalence drawn between the Congress and BJP. The BJP, which was once noted for its disciplined dedication, was perceived to be as much a problem as the old guard of the Congress. The Congress’ integrity quotient didn’t rise; the BJP’s fell dramatically in the past decade.
If there was a dismal but level playing field between the Congress and the BJP on the integrity front, the Congress stole a march over its rival on the decency front. Manmohan came across as upright but politically somewhat innocent, and Rahul’s appeal was his energy and earnestness. This doesn’t imply that LK Advani was viewed as being disreputable. Advani commanded respect but it was a veneration that was befitting the family patriarch. The BJP’s “majboot neta” campaign would have been spot on if voters saw the election as a presidential contest involving Manmohan and Advani. Unfortunately for the BJP, the people not only voted for their today but also their tomorrow. On the latter count, the BJP didn’t have a message. The idea of a Resurgent India which the BJP successfully sold in the 1990s was lost in transmission this century.
This disconnect owes quite substantially to the party’s low decency quotient. The fact is that there is something in the overall ethos of the BJP which argues against a new common sense that has developed in India. The BJP has not fought any election on the basis of assertive Hindu nationalism since 1996. Its best victories were won on the strength of bread-and-butter issues of stability, development and anti-incumbency. Gujarat 2002 was the only exception. Despite this, the party has come to be associated with menacing communalism of the Ram Sena and Kandhamal varieties and tasteless hate speeches. Against this, Rahul’s innocent earnestness and desire to “do good to people” has been preferred. The BJP has been seen to be caricatured politicians cast in the 1990s mould; Rahul and Manmohan are viewed as non-politicians and, therefore, more decent.
But the Congress isn’t the only beneficiary of being more responsive to the new common sense. In Orissa, Naveen Patnaik has redefined the calculus of electoral politics on the strength of his personality. After a decade in power, Patnaik’s command over the vernacular remains halting and his Government’s achievements are modest compared to, say, Gujarat. But Patnaik exudes sincerity, epitomises personal integrity and, despite his ruthless streak, doesn’t correspond to people’s mental image of the ugly politician. He personifies the blend of sincerity, uprightness and humility that voters have found irresistible.
These are also the qualities the people upheld in 1984 and have reaffirmed once again in 2009. With Rajiv, the euphoria proved woefully short-lived and triggered the Mandir-Mandal backlash. If the Manmohan-Rahul experiment falters, the reactions could well be equally spirited.
(This article was first published in The Pioneer on May 24, 2009.)
Congress Won Conclusively
by Swapan Dasgupta
There is a facile explanation that many of those who neither anticipated nor wished for a Congress victory in the general election may fall back on. It goes something like this: the Congress and UPA surge was contributed by its spectacular successes in Kerala, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu where its principal opponent was either the Left or another constituent of the ramshackle Third Front. The implication is that the NDA by and large held its ground.
Such an explanation would be an exercise in complete self-delusion. The harsh reality which should be obvious to all is that the Congress won the match quite conclusively. The formal numbers may suggest that the pre-poll UPA will need some outside help to cross the 272 barrier but this nominal under-achievement does not distract from the magnitude of the Congress’ achievement. There was a national swing to the Congress and India is posed for a stable Government which, barring some intentional act of self-destruction, should last a full term.
The NDA has not merely fallen significantly below its own psephological expectations; it has been rejected by the electorate. Perhaps the rejection is not quite so categorical as that suffered by the Left and the partners of the Third Front (with the honourable exception of Naveen Patnaik). But this is really a debate about whether a 80 run defeat is worse than an innings defeat. After the 1991 election, The Economist had a report entitled, “The winner came second”, testifying to the BJP’s surge and its ability to dominate the agenda. This time there is not even pretence of a moral victory. The winner has taken it all.
In the coming days, debate in the BJP is certain to centre on the question: what went wrong? Such a debate is not only necessary but welcome. Unfortunately, past experience suggests that the discussions often veer in the direction of the peripherals. There will be hand-wringing over the “internal sabotage” in Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand; speculation over why Om Prakash Chauthala rather than Bhajan Lal was chosen as the coalition partner in Haryana; mutterings over whimsical choice of candidates in some seats of Uttar Pradesh; and the inevitable back-biting over the campaign in the mass media.
It is not that these concerns are unwarranted. However, presuming that everything had turned out perfectly, the BJP and NDA would, at best, have improved its tally only marginally by, say, 15 seats. It wouldn’t have made any material difference to the outcome. Voters, it must be remembered, aren’t automatically swayed by the same concerns as activists.
In undertaking a post-mortem, it is important to not lose sight of the big picture. The BJP and NDA lost because voters found the Congress a more appealing prospect. The question then arises: was because the Congress did something right and the BJP something wrong? Or was it because the BJP did more things wrong than the Congress?
To be fair, the Congress didn’t run a particularly inspiring campaign. It was wracked by confusion over allies, inconsistent messaging and the burden of an economic slowdown and nervousness over the country’s security. Against these, it had certain definite plus points. First, it is prudent to recognise that the “weak” versus “strong” debate helped the Prime Minister and enabled him to play on his image of innate decency. Secondly, the Rahul-Priyanka duo gave dynastic politics a fresh lease of life by focussing on wholesome youth power. This was contrasted to the media’s mischievous association of the BJP with hate speech.
There were two important constituencies the BJP failed to attract in this election: the middle classes and the youth. Both these segments were crucial in ensuring the party’s performance in 1998 and 1999.
It may be unfair to blame the projection of L.K. Advani as the reason for this failure. The so-called age factor was neutralised by the projection of Manmohan Singh by the Congress. And Advani brought a large measure of unity in the party. What was not neutralised was the overall image problem of the BJP—as a party that is backward-looking, too shrill and insufficiently attentive to contemporary concerns.
Arguably, such a regressive image of the party may be a consequence of media-generated “false consciousness”. But the fact remains that this perception has percolated down to a very large section of the population. And the BJP has done precious little to counter it.
In the wake of defeat, there is always a strong temptation to retreat into a back-to-the-basics shell. This is based on the foolish belief that people didn’t vote for a party because it wasn’t sufficiently pure. The belief is as ridiculous as the suggestion that the Soviet Union fell because it wasn’t adequately socialist!
The BJP’s problem is ideological but not in the way the votaries of identity politics see it. Its lapses stem from a non-application of mind to contemporary issues such as economic and strategic policy—witness its indifferent performance in Parliament for five years. Where themes of governance have been meaningfully addressed, the BJP has done well. But this has been at the State level. At the national level, image has come back to haunt the party—a problem compounded by leaders who believe it is more important to please activists rather than be responsive to ground realities.
After two consecutive election defeats, the BJP may be confronted by a problem of relevance. It has to either reinvent itself or suffer the ignominy of steady marginalisation. The loss of all seven seats in Delhi by huge margins is a pointer to the price the party has to pay for its refusal to keep pace with the realities of a new India.
(This article was first published in The Pioneer on May 17, 2009.)
This Verdict will Force Leaders to Think Nationally
by Swapan Dasgupta
For a country confronted by two formidable challenges - an economic downturn of colossal proportions and a security threat stemming from a turbulent neighbourhood - the outcome of the General Election is reassuring for two reasons. First, the election has led to a stable government that will not have to succumb endlessly to the irritations of coalition politics and the threat of a mid-term breakdown; and secondly, it has produced a broad national mandate and not been reduced to a clumsy aggregate of different state elections.
The second point is particularly significant in view of the fears that the idea of India was not being translated into political reality. The election result should go some way towards forcing our leaders to be mindful of regions but also think nationally.
Regardless of the fact that there was no outright majority for any pre-poll alliance, Election 2009 was an unqualified victory for the Congress. Contrary to initial fears of greater political fragmentation, the Congress has succeeded in renewing itself quite spectacularly. It has won seats from all corners of the country and its gamble of distancing itself from regional players with personalised agendas has paid handsome dividends. Its decision to persist with the PM’s image of innate decency has proved a success, as has been its emphasis on the youth vote. In hindsight, the decision to have no truck with the Left was applauded by the people of West Bengal and Kerala. No wonder, Mamata Banerjee was unquestionably the woman of the match.
In 2004, the Congress didn’t win the election, the BJP lost it. Election 2009 is the nearest India has come to a positive mandate since Atal Behari Vajpayee won the day in 1999. With an estimated 9% swing in its favour, the Congress will be justified in treating the verdict as its victory.
Predictably, a mandate of this nature comes with onerous responsibilities. Spared the torture of having to constantly accommodate sectional demands, the new government has no choice but to perform. Having won the “weak” versus “strong” debate conclusively - the PM’s contribution to the victory should not be underestimated - Manmohan Singh must now live to the faith reposed in him and actually exercise the tough options. Will he take steps to curb a fiscal deficit that has become unmanageable? Will he inject a sense of urgency into the security establishment so that terrorists, and not citizens, become the hunted? The voters have been very generous to an incumbent government which allowed too many things to drift in the past five years. But the season for excuses ended on Saturday afternoon.
This has been a terrible election for the BJP. It is not merely that a truncated NDA performed worse than in 2004 but that two consecutive general election defeats has shown up its shortcomings more starkly. The BJP was lax about reading the writing on the wall in 2004 and lulled itself into believing that anti-incumbency would do the trick. It tried to juggle between the imperatives of a modern party with a strong policy thrust and the comforts of old certitudes. The end result was an identity crisis that led to the loss of allies, its absence from a large swathe of India and the truncation of a hitherto reliable middle class vote. In the 1990s, the BJP was the natural party of the youth; today, the Congress is the beneficiary of India’s demographic transformation. The party must ask why the children of BJP voters aren’t comfortable voting for the BJP.
After the 2004 defeat, the BJP desisted from asking the hard political questions that arise after a defeat. The belief that organisational consolidation alone can secure victory is self-deluding. The party’s surge in the 1990s and the Congress’ awesome performance in Uttar Pradesh weren’t on account of organisation. Voters are moved by politics. In the process, a ramshackle organisation gets thrown up. The BJP must once again ask the question it once addressed but has conveniently forgotten to ask of late: is it content to being a sectional player or does it want to be a serious contender for power?
If it wants to be a serious challenger to the Congress in the coming years, the party would avoid preaching to the converted. There is a vast constituency in India that is instinctively uncomfortable with the “Congress culture”. Yet, it is uneasy with a party that shows a lack of intellectual depth, shows inconsistency (as on the nuclear deal) and is perceived to be preoccupied with peripheral issues.
As a democracy, India needs both a strong government and a robust opposition. Unfortunately, this election has only thrown up only one of these. Fortunately, even that is a huge step forward.
(This article was first published in The Times of India on May 17, 2009.)