Indian politics gets more fractious
As Pakistan goes through unprecedented turmoil under the confrontation launched by religious fundamentalists, India too is moving towards greater, if admittedly low-intensity, political strife and fractiousness. That is the most significant portent from the recent presidential election in India, undoubtedly the most contentious in its Independent history. The election for the first time installed a woman in Rashtrapati Bhavan, the former Viceregal Palace.
The ruling United Progressive Alliance and the Left parties, working with additional support from the Bahujan Samaj Party, won the election hands down. Their candidate Pratibha Patil claimed a larger share of votes in the electoral college than the proportion held by the three supporting groupings put together. Patil won 442 votes from parliament, 16 more than the combined strength of the three groupings. There was cross-voting for her in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Cross-voting was particularly strong in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat where the Hindu-chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party rules on its own. In MP, Patil polled 53 votes in place of the Congress-led alliance’s strength of 38 votes; in Gujarat, 57 as against 51; and in Rajasthan 63 votes instead of 61. In Bihar, Karanataka and Orissa, where the BJP rules in alliance, MLAs cross-voted for Patil. In Karanataka, she bagged 83 votes in place of the expected 65.
This erosion through cross-voting was the least of the losses of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Its biggest loss was political-moral. It ran a vicious, no-holds-barred campaign, raking up largely fictitious charges against Patil. And it lost both the election and some more of its credibility. The NDA stooped low because it knew that the numbers were loaded against its candidate, Vice President and BJP Rajasthan veteran Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. It had earlier insisted on a second term for President APJ Abdul Kalam, although that’s against the accepted convention. No Indian president barring Rajendra Prasad has served a second term. The NDA had itself refused a second term for KR Narayanan in 2002 and instead opted for Kalam. Clearly, it was bent on confrontation.
The NDA’s main charge against Patil was that she would be a mere “rubber-stamp” for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The underlying assumption is that Shekhawat would act as a counterfoil to Singh. This betrays a profound misunderstanding of the role of the Indian president Under the constitution, the president is not an alternative power-centre, supervisory authority, or last court of appeal. S/he enjoys only two prerogatives: the appointment of the prime minister, and the dissolution of parliament. Even these have to be exercised according to well-established norms. Otherwise, his/her role is largely ceremonial.
An assertive president who interferes with the working of the Council of Ministers can paralyse governance. India witnessed signs of this in the 1980s when President Zail Singh launched a confrontation with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Mercifully, this wasn’t repeated last fortnight through a victory for Shekhawat. The presidential election also exposed deep fissures within the BJP, especially in Gujarat. Gujarat is due to have Assembly elections this year. It has long been Hindutva’s laboratory, headed by Narendra Modi, infamous for the 2002 butchery of Muslims. That’s not all. Modi is probably the BJP’s most important leader after the Vajpayee-Advani duo.
Dissidence in the Gujarat BJP isn’t limited to cross-voting. Nine MLAs allied to former chief minister Keshubhai Patel have been suspended for “anti-party activities”. Modi has antagonised whole communities like the Patels and Kolis. His authoritarian style, his personality cult, and his inter-personal relationships, have earned him the hostility of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Ultimately, no BJP leader can thrive without RSS support.
The presidential election also saw BJP allies Shiv Sena, Trinamool Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) deserting it. Particularly grievous for the BJP is the loss of the Sena, its sole ideological partner, from Maharashtra. The NDA also failed to get support from the newly formed United National Progressive Alliance of regional groupings like the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Tamil Nadu-based AIADMK. It’s another matter that the UNPA is itself in tatters after the AIADMK’s Jayalalithaa voted for Shekhawat in violation of the alliance’s decision to abstain.
What stands out amidst all this is the BJP’s leadership crisis and the erosion of its role as the NDA’s nucleus. As BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi admitted (July 22): “We [in the BJP] will have to face the questions raised by the presidential election squarely; otherwise the NDA will cease to exist by 2009.” Party president Rajnath Singh has turned out a disaster, who proves that low cunning is no substitute for political skill, experience or stature. He tried to marginalise his rivals Arun Jaitley and Narendra Modi by dropping them from the parliamentary board. But they are staging a comeback.
The BJP’s intimidatory campaign during the presidential election only brought it ignominy. Now further ignominy is in store. Its vice-presidential candidate Najma Heptullah’s defeat seems almost certain, given the 401-to-240 support among MPs for the UPA-Left’s MH Ansari, a highly regarded former diplomat. The RSS is itself a divided house. It has sacked five pracharaks (full-time paropagandists), including the veteran Mahesh Sharma, general secretary of the important Vanavasi Kalyan Parishad, active amongst Adivasis. They were charged with “straying from the RSS ideology” and “leading a lifestyle” incompatible with their positions (read, corruption).
A silent but major change seems to be taking place in the RSS-BJP relationship. Its dimensions aren’t fully understood, but the RSS seems disoriented. It has abandoned its trademark Swadeshi and accommodated itself to the BJP’s neoliberal orientation. Because the RSS benefits from the loaves and fishes of office held by the BJP, it cannot convincingly preach moral virtue and discipline to it.
The RSS is only left with is its virulently anti-Muslim platform and social conservatism. The latter is on full display in its hysterical drive against sex education for adolescents.
The RSS no longer effectively plays its earlier role as the BJP’s ideological mentor, general political strategist and organisational gatekeeper. Rather, it actively interferes in the BJP’s day-to-day running. Rajnath Singh admitted to Outlook magazine that the decision to keep Jaitley out of the parliamentary board was “70 percent RSS and 30 percent my decision”, and that to drop Modi was 50-50.
The BJP can be expected to take increasingly sectarian and virulently chauvinist positions. Take the India-US nuclear deal. It wrongly contends that the new “123 agreement” will cap India’s nuclear arsenal. In fact, the agreement will allow India to build more nuclear weapons by dedicating indigenous uranium to military uses, while importing fuel for power reactors. The agreement must be faulted for being silent on disarmament, and for legitimising nuclear weapons, including those of the US. But that is not the BJP’s criticism. The BJP-NDA took the initiative to align India politically and strategically with the US. It’s pure hypocrisy for the BJP-NDA to rail against it.
But then, hypocrisy is the stuff of Hindutva. In the past, double standards helped the BJP play both sides of the street successfully. Today, they ensure that it falls between two stools. Demoralisation and defeat stare it in the face.
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