IndianExpress.com :: Whose moment is this?

IndianExpress.com :: Whose moment is this?

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Whose moment is this?
Seema Chishti
Posted online: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 at 2241 hrs Print Email
A rough guide to the watersheds in Indian politics

Seema Chishti
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The contours of the immediate crisis (or hectic political parleying) should become clear whenever the “trust vote” takes place — or at least somewhat. Explanations would be found for party lines drawn and redrawn, ever since the Samajwadi Party decided to save a secular (non-BJP) government and the Left parties decided to take it on. However, in all this fluidity, while the outcome remains unclear and all sorts of possibilities still exist — exactly as Shah Rukh Khan’s character had said in Om Shanti Om, “picture abhi baaqi hai” — it is clear that we are at critical political crossroads, as in 1977, 1989, 1991, 1996, 1999 and 2004. Each of these times saw a momentous shift which went on to colour perceptions, the polity, campaigns, slogans and the way our (the voter’s) vote was interpreted by politicians who had the ability to do so.

In 1977, what was once thought of as the most unlikely combination of parties opposed to the Congress came together to call themselves the Janata Party. They merged themselves into one single entity, rather than trying to draw up a common programme, to fight what they thought was the biggest enemy — the Congress, under attack for imposing the Emergency — as never before in free India.

Twelve years later, 1989 again dramatically, but in a slightly more evolved way (as there was no insistence on forming “one” party), saw a former Congress defence minister and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh take on his parent party, trounce it, and with about 150 seats, get the support of both a resurgent Hindu nationalist BJP and a Left, keen on playing a larger role on the national stage. However, after his dramatic resignation in 1990, one saw the Congress, also agreeable to providing “outside support”, enter the fray as a player. The Congress entered the picture as a big party content to allow other formations to rule, by supporting them from the outside. This was a big shift for the centrist party, which then scoffed at coalitions — a change not often recorded or acknowledged adequately. Analysts typically date Congress’s coalitional era only from the time of the Panchmarhi meeting when they formally spoke of the new reality of India.

In 1991, though, Chandra Shekhar’s government was brought down on the grounds that there was surveillance outside the house of the Congress party president, Rajiv Gandhi. However, an election in the same year, and Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in the midst of it, saw P.V. Narasimha Rao take charge as prime minister. This was clearly the phase when leaders representing the backward castes in the two states sending the maximum numbers to the Lok Sabha were elbowing out the Congress from there — its disappearance was near-sudden — and the phase, called “fragmented” at that time, was actually the consolidation of a different kind of politics. The announcement that the Mandal Report was being implemented had been opposed by all three major formations (the Congress, the BJP, even the Left), but it was precisely this which they opposed that shaped them, their policies and the politics of the time. The idea of the Third Front, a new way, appeared to take shape.

In 1992, the destruction of the Babri Masjid, with a Congress government in power in Delhi and the BJP in power in Lucknow, also seemed to put the brakes on the BJP’s mobilisation on the basis of Hindu nationalism, as well as breaking the “trust” of the Muslim vote share in the Congress in UP at least. Mulayam Singh Yadav emerged as its new claimant, not wholly, but at least in substantial terms.

In 1998, came the other big shift in politics, with the BJP emerging as a successful coalition manager, and the formation of the National Democratic Alliance. It was a watershed as there was general acceptability of the BJP as an efficient coalition leader, well-versed in the art of political management and give and take. The fact that it was not in power or did not carry the baggage of the “old and big ruling party” — which the Congress did — helped it here, and it was easy for it to accede to requests and yield territory. The early ’90s phase of shunning the BJP seemed over, at least for smaller regional parties. But this phase saw the emergence of a degree of cooperation between the Congress and the Left on the national political scene: when the NDA continued with business as usual after the Gujarat riots in 2002, “secularism” as a political war cry again became a rallying point.

Eventually, in 2004, the United Progressive Alliance came into being, and it appeared there were now two coalitions that were possible, a Centre-Right one and a Centre-Left one. This too was a turning point in India’s political scene.

The Indo-US nuclear deal — being a very important component of India’s position in the new world, in deciding what kind of India would rise to engage with the rest of the world and its neighbourhood — is a subject that should have invoked the kind of debate and passion that it did, on both sides. But with the “deal” ending up as the breaking point in ties between two big and serious formations, there are implications which go beyond what can be fathomed immediately, possibly by either observers or the players themselves. If the possibility of the Left ending up voting with the BJP to pull down a government is something surprising to many, then so is the fact of the BJP taking such a contrarian position against its own past policies when in power (which favoured a close and strategic tie-up with the United States). The Congress has rustled up a Deal rath and a slogan quickly — Atomic Deal hone do, deshwaasiyon ko chain ki neend sone do — referring to the power cuts that are supposed to be over with nuclear power coming in. But what other parties will say after the “trust vote” or the next elections is anything but clear. What is clear is that July 2008 has been a watershed.

seema.chishti@expressindia.com