The verdict, in the recent assembly election in the state of
Bihar, has attracted a lot of interest across India.
The ruling coalition of Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)), and Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP), won a record 85% of the seats, 206 seats in a house of 243. Did this
huge margin of victory, signify a major shift in Indian politics? Is the
political agenda in India
being reshaped? What does this election really tell us about the future
political direction in India?
In Part 1, I look at the implication and impact of the Bihar assembly election, here.
In this the second part of the two part article, I try to look back at Indian politics, attempt to identify the various strands that dominated politics at one point in time or another - language, region, religion, caste, and find that there is a diminishing political return from various shades of identity politics that has set in. With identity politics in decline, could political ideology find a legitimate space in India?
Part 2: Evolution of Politics in India
In the first 15 years after Independence,
politics was dominated by the identity of languages, and the states were
reorganized along broadly linguistic lines.
In the next 15 years, poverty became the dominant element of
political discourse, cutting across various social fracture lines, and
encompassing different identities. During this phase, with nationalization of
major industries such as banks, energy and oil, textile, etc, India
entered a decidedly socialist era. But increased economic control, along with
the first oil price shock, led inevitably to political discontent.
Consequently, in the historic election in the aftermath of
the ‘Emergency’, in 1977, the INC lost power at the national level for the
first time. As the world watched, India
became the first major democracy in a developing country to undergo
constitutional transfer of power from one party to another. This was an event
of enormous political significance, empowering people, and entrenching
democracy.
But the parties that formed the new government, pursued the
socialistic economic vision with even greater rigour, and with the second oil
price shock of 1979, inflation touched 20% per annum, and the fate of the first
non-Congress government in Delhi
was sealed.
In the 1980s, while the INC regained power, and took some
tentative steps to reform the economy, the country was almost torn apart by
various sectarian movements. Bolstered by socialistic attempt to re-distribute
wealth, various political parties experimented with identity politics of caste,
religion, and region, in the hope of capturing the organs of the state. The
separatist movements in Punjab and Assam
gathered steam. A lot of blood was spilled throughout the 1980s, including the
assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.
At the same time, various caste groups attempted to organize
and mobilize politically, particularly in north India.
In an attempt to politically consolidate some of the backward castes, a
sweeping policy of reservation or affirmative action was proposed.
On the other hand, another kind of identity politics raised
its head. Hindu fundamentalists were already apprehensive of appeasement of
religious minorities such as Muslims, for electoral gain by the INC. Now the
same forces became concerned about social fragmentation on caste lines, and
sought to unite the Hindu majority of India
in to a cogent political force.
By the 1990s, while the separatists and secessionist
movements had by and large been controlled, the caste and religious polarization
completely fragmented Indian polity. This necessarily ushered in a new era of
coalition politics, and for the first time, Indian politics became really
competitive, for the first time. With people experiencing diverse political
options, routinely threw out the ruling side. This has been described as the
anti-incumbency syndrome. A point came, when a sitting legislator had barely
30% chance of getting re-elected.
Indian politics was again transformed. For the first time
political parties sensed an opportunity to gain power by winning election, and
by the same token feared the very real danger of losing power as well.
It is in this tumultuous political environment of the 1990s,
when political uncertainty prevailed, that India
began to reform her economy in a big way. This defied conventional wisdom that
political uncertainty will lead to an uncertain economic outlook.
It is precisely this political uncertainty which made the
political leaders and parties look for policies to improve governance and the
economic performance, in the hope of winning the favour of the voters.
Policies became a subject of discourse out of sheer
political necessity in an extremely competitive political environment. Just as
competition improves the economic efficiency, political competition sustained
the search for policies that might improve the prospect of getting re-elected.
As India’s
economic growth increased gradually from 6% in the 1990s, to 8% and then 9% in
the mid-2000s, politics of performance became a significant factor in
elections.
The second significant consequence of increased political
competition was the diminishing returns of earlier identity politics. While
politicians tasted power riding their favourite identity, be it caste or
religion, the voters began to relish the prospect of political competition, and
explore ways to force the political parties to perform.
The BSP, the party of the most oppressed castes, had made
its mark on Indian politics by rabidly polarizing caste opinon, and mobilizing
and consolidating its targeted caste groups. It came close to political power
in UP, propelled by narrow identity of its caste base. Yet, it had to rely on
the support of other parties representing other caste groups, in order to
cobble up the coalition with necessary numbers in the legislature. These
experiments continued throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, and each time
such coalition of expediency was quite short lived.
It is then, that the BSP, the party of extremely narrowly
defined caste groups, realized the need to broad base its political appeal if
it had to have any realistic chance of securing political power in UP. With no
caste group enjoying more than 20% share of the population, there was little
possibility of any party being able to secure political power on its own. For
over two years, BSP went about transforming itself from the party of the
Dalits, to the party of all, particularly the poor, appealing to virtually
every section of Indian society, caste and religions. While the other major
parties in UP sought to consolidate their voter base, BSP was the only one that
attempted to expand its base to other groups.
In the UP assembly election of 2007, BSP reaped the benefit
broad basing its appeal. Defying all predictions, it won the assembly election
on its own, and gained political power in India’s
largest state.
After 1977, when INC lost the national election for the
first time, and the1990s, when Indian politics became truly competitive, the UP
assembly election, of 2007, is perhaps the most politically significant event
in India. For
it showed the limits of identity politics, and established the political reason
for broad basing politics.
Real significance of Bihar
election of 2010
The assembly election in Bihar, in
2005, also exposed the limits of identity politics. For 15 years, RJD leader
Lalu Prasad enjoyed unquestioned political authority in the state. Yet, he
failed to grasp the political reality. While he tried to consolidate his
traditional support base, but his almost complete failure to maintain basic law
and order, and governance, meant that his voters were growing increasingly
dissatisfied.
One of the biggest advantage of the first past the post
election system is that even a small shift in support base can bring in big
electoral dividend in terms of seats. This greatly increases the prospect of
new political entrants to make their mark.
In 2005, in Bihar, as RJD’s political
fortune was fraying, its main coalition partners, the INC, and another local
party, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), moved away. As his vote base got divided, the
coalition of JD(U) and BJP gained the upper hand, and captured political power.
The election in Bihar, in 2010, only
reconfirms the basic thrust of this analysis. Increased political competition,
inevitably diminishes the political returns of identity politics as voters
begin to relish the greater range of political choices. Consequently, parties
are forced to look at ways of improving their performance in governance.
Indians typically have multiple identities in terms of
caste, language, religion and region, and the voters are increasingly aware of
the advantage of switching their identity to take political advantage of the
situation.
This is a fundamental lesson which Mr Kumar, the leader of
JD(U) and BJP coalition in Bihar took to heart.
Realising the fickleness of identity politics, he opted to improve governance
as a way to appeal to broad section of voters beyond any particular identity.
He moderated the caste based appeal of many in his own party, and convinced his
coalition partner, the BJP, to moderate their Hindu religious agenda.
At the same time, since identity loyalties are not
permanent, as his predecessor from RJD had learned at a high political cost, Mr
Kumar embarked on basic governance issues. This allowed his coalition to
increase their vote share by only 5%, getting about 39% of the vote in 2010
election, but ending up winning 85% of the seats. The major opposition combine
of RJD and LJP, secured 25% of the votes, but only 10% of the seats. The INC,
which increased its votes by 2% to 8%, won just 4 seats in 2010, compared to 9
seats in 2009.
Prospect for Liberal Politics in India
With identity politics running out of steam, and
distributive politics failing to keep up with the rapidly rising aspiration of
Indians today, the need for governance and development have clearly emerged on
the political agenda.
This is the first time in the 60 years of Indian democracy,
that the prospect of policies that boost performance of government and the
economic sectors are likely to get prime attention, out of sheer necessity of
political survival in the extremely competitive world of Indian politics. This
implies that policies would have to be formulated with much greater care, and these
would have to be politically viable. And since the ordinary voter is not a
policy expert, the only way to get the message out to the voter is by narrating
the policy proposals to the public through the filter of political ideologies.
Again, for the first time in the history of democratic India,
political parties have the need to adopt a coherent ideology in order to
explain the intricacies of policies to its voters. So far, Indian politics have
been largely devoid of ideology. All parties tended to adopt the dominant
ideology of the day, since their distinctive feature was identity. Ideology was
only seen as a providing a veneer to mask the base identities to which the
political parties traditionally appealed to.
But with increasing significance of political performance
for survival of political parties, policies are coming to the centre stage. To
make policies politically accessible to mass audiences, political ideology will
necessarily have to be developed. With diminishing returns from identity politics,
political ideology will emerge from the shadows to the forefront.
For liberals in India,
this is a once in a life time opportunity. For all these years, liberals were
devoted to their political ideals, but found very few takers. The liberals were
either swepat away by identity politics of one kind or the other, or their
ideological roots were seen as politically irrelevant, in an environment where
ideologies were not needed to differentiate different political parties.
Today, with the demise of identity politics, and rise of the
need for political ideology to distinguish themselves from one another, the
political environment seems opportune for a liberal renaissance in India.
Are the Indian liberals ready to seize their moment under the Indian sky!
This is the real significance of the Bihar
assembly election. It has reconfirmed the focus on governance that had emerged
over the past decade, while also confirming the limits of identity politics.
Indian democracy has always been very vocal, voluble and
full of colour. Yet, one of the most startling features of democracy in India
has been the near complete consensus on the core political beliefs of the day,
among most of the political parties.
Over the past century, as political freedom expanded around
the world, so too did economic freedom. Almost all the rich countries of today
are democracies. While the poor and developing countries are not typically
characterized by their weak democratic political institutions. India
has been a proud exception to that narrative.
India
retained her constitutional democratic republican character right through the
past six decades. But for the first time, with political competition
facilitating an environment for economic growth and improved governance, out of
sheer political necessity, the prospect of India
actually joining the ranks of those countries that are economically free,
politically democratic, and enjoying the highest standards of life seem to be a
distinct possibility.
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