Special articles Polity in Transition after the 2004 General Elections

The general elections of May 2004 in India saw the ousting of the National Democratic Alliance and the victory of a -led coalition. Though Indian politics has since undergone a significant shift, with the Congress entering into power-sharing arrangements with smaller formations, an unusual situation at the apex finds corollary shifts in the base of the body politic. The ascendancy of ‘regional’ parties and the increasing electoral clout of marginal groups have been major developments. How these forces will govern in an era of economic reform will influence India’s future. Political and institutional challenges will continue to matter, but whether or not the Nehru-Gandhi clan can restore the fortunes of their party is still unclear. It will also be worth watching how the opposition re-groups and how far the ruling coalition resolves internal contradictions.

MAHESH RANGARAJAN

ew electoral outcomes have been as stunning as the victory most powerful office in the world’s most populous democracy. of a Congress-led coalition in the polls, called some weeks Personal origin had ceased to matter except to her most deter- Fin advance held in May 2004 in India. As it appears, the mined adversaries. Even turning down the office enhanced her wheel has turned but come to halt at the same place. As with prestige as someone who could have had power but chose instead in 1971 and Rajiv in 1984, a member of the Nehru to renounce it. The new prime minister has take care to evoke family still holds the key to power in New Delhi. A younger her name at every turn. For the first time in India’s history and scion of the family, Rahul Gandhi also made his entry to the unusually for any democracy, the head of a party is seen as far Lok Sabha. His position is similar to that of his father, Rajiv more influential than the head of government. There is little and earlier his uncle, Sanjay when Indira Gandhi was prime doubt that in the eyes of the rank and file, Sonia has succeeded minister. There were also similarities with political rhetoric of to the mantle of familial power. But over a dozen political parties the past. Indira had coasted back to power in 1971 with the slogan, in India already have clan relationships at the centre of their ‘garibi hatao’, or ‘banish poverty’. Sonia Gandhi countered the power structure [Malhotra 2002]. But no family has been ‘foreigner’ tag with the promise that her party stood for the as intertwined with India’s history as the Nehru-Gandhis. Con- common citizen. gress governments have governed India for 40 of 57 years: for What is significant is the sheer length of time it took Sonia all but seven years a member of this one family has led Gandhi to enter the political arena. By contrast Indira Gandhi the government. became Congress president in 1957 when Nehru had been prime Yet appearances can be misleading. Congress has 145 MPs minister for a decade. In 1991, Sonia had been first choice of in a house of 543, just eight seats ahead of its rival, the Bharatiya the Congress working committee but she declined the post. She (BJP). As Yogendra Yadav observes, the Con- only relented seven years later when the party was faced with gress’ was actually a victory by default. Its allies scored much serious decline. In 1999, following the collapse of the Vajpayee more impressive gains.2 Sonia Gandhi’s scorecard must be placed government, she faced a serious attack on her leadership cre- in perspective. In 1971, Indira Gandhi led the party to a win in dentials on account of her foreign origin. Sharad Pawar, a veteran over 350-seats in a house of 520. The polity is now too fragmented congressman and former leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha to allow any party to claim a bare majority in the Lok Sabha. led the charge. The revolt underscored resistance to her candidacy The long era of Congress dominance is a thing of the past. Even among the upper and middle strata of the electorate. Sonia chose its share of the popular vote marginally declined in the 13th to play on her identity of a daughter-in-law, and while it is unclear general elections, and remains at a lower level than in 1996. if this was the chief cause, there has been a perceptible return Dominance is more elusive if one looks across the many to the older pattern, when the Congress had a clear lead among regions of a vast polity. Generalisations are dangerous given women voters.1 Criticism of her patriotic credentials on the the heterogeneity of cultures. Both Congress and BJP are now ground that she was an Italian-born Roman Catholic by the BJP marginal in the Gangetic basin states. Few governments have and its fraternal organisations helped her to reach out to religious ruled India without securing control of Uttar Pradesh: minorities. In 1999 she had led her party to second place in Narasimha Rao (1991-96) and Vajpayee (1999-2004) were among national politics; five years later she was on the threshold of the the exceptions. Congress last won a state election in Tamil Nadu

3598 Economic and Political Weekly August 6, 2005 in 1962, when Jawaharlal Nehru was still prime minister. Moreover, a series of state-specific alliances enabled the Con- Congress has been out of power since 1977 in West Bengal and gress to break out of grand isolation. The long spell of the NDA since 1989-90 in UP and . The party has had to align with government opened up space for cooperation between Congress Sharad Pawar even in an old bastion, Maharashtra. In Gujarat, and the Left, so that even while not sharing power they could it has not won a state level election since1985. The allies who come to a working arrangement. Congress also changed its stance now share power came together for a simple reason. Divided towards parties like DMK, which it once accused of abetting Rajiv they would have fallen: united they just about held their ground. Gandhi’s assassins. The over-riding pattern is very clear. Congress has had to stoop There are important social similarities with the kind of support to conquer. In the process, it has paid a price: many regional base Indira Gandhi enjoyed in 1980 but also critical political satraps have got a share of power. contrasts in the way such support was obtained. Indira Gandhi The new era of coalition government under Congress leadership was portrayed as protector of underprivileged groups such as is a product of strategic weakness and tactical flexibility. This , adivasis and Muslims. This time too Congress and its was clearest in Tamil Nadu. Since 1991, no one has ruled in New allies garnered well over half the vote of such communities, Delhi without a stable alliance that delivers the bulk of the seats who number 16, 8 and 13 per cent of the national electorate in the state. As the north has been fragmented, so the importance respectively. Two major -led political formations groups of the south in general has grown. Dependence on a regional ally entered into pre-poll pacts, in Bihar and Maharashtra. A third, is a pattern in Tamil Nadu; each regional party allies with a the was among the first to extend its support national party. Such deals are not new, having been pioneered once the results were declared. The revival of trust among the in 1971 when Indira Gandhi ceded the state of Tamil Nadu to religious minorities is of course closely related to the retrieval the regionalist DMK: the difference is that the Congress was then of support among the under-class groups. Their mistrust in the strong enough to hold onto power in New Delhi. wake of the Babri masjid demolition in 1992 was a major factor Nevertheless, the victory is impressive. Congress has worked in the Congress’ decline. The Sangh parivar’s strident campaign out agreements with some of the very forces that were once on Sonia’s foreign origins actually helped her reach out to implacably opposed to it. A tenuous set of alliances underpins excluded groups like women and lower castes.3 The Gujarat the present UPA government. Most prominently, the 61 member massacres of 2002 cemented the resolve of most though not all Left Front led by the (Marxist), the anti-Hindutva and anti-sectarian formations to join forces. It also world’s most successful Marxist party in any democracy has helped reach out to the beneficiaries of affirmative action or extended support even though virtually all its MPs fought and positive discrimination since 1990 in north India, i e, the other defeated Congress candidates at the hustings. Unlike in 1969- backward classes. Here, the Congress’ own halting and evasive 71, when the Communist Party of India was a key ally of the record in championing their cause was over-shadowed by the Congress government but did not have a substantial base of its new alliances it crafted. It was also able to benefit from the own, this is no more the case. Indira Gandhi had jailed several widespread antipathy to the BJP-led alliance, seen as a city- leftist and regionalist leaders during (1975-77). centred and upper-caste oriented formation by many such But now, prominent among those who backed Sonia Gandhi were voters. Then, there was no flight into the arms of the Congress, former anti-Congress socialists like Ram Vilas Paswan. In the but enough cracks in the middle of the social pyramid to topple past, the Congress had a long antipathy to precisely such a set the previous regime. of arrangements. In 1969-71 and 1991-93, Congress PMs gov- Yet, there is no simple return to the famous ‘coalition of erned without a majority but never thought of sharing power. extremes’ that underpinned Congress rule in north India for As recently as 1999, Sonia Gandhi dismissed talk of a Third or decades [Jaffrelot 2003]. The lower strata did not support the party Fourth Front. as in the past. The NDA retained a lead of 20 per cent among The long spell in opposition ranks led to rethinking old dogmas. upper-caste voters. Now caste and class are not synonymous but Practice ran ahead of theory. The Congress and Nationalist it is still true that higher social status is often, though not always Congress Party were adversaries in the Maharashtra state assem- accompanied, by easier access to education, political power and bly elections in 1999. They entered into a post-poll pact to form economic entitlement. The support of those very peasant castes a coalition government that served its full term in office. In 2000, and communities whose political assertion has played such a Congress supported and joined a minority government in Bihar central role in Indian politics especially since 1989, shows signs headed by Laloo Prasad Yadav. In the strategically crucial but of ambivalence [Yadav 2004: 5383-98]. There was a clear turn strife-torn state of Jammu and Kashmir where Indira Gandhi had away from the previous regime but as voters they preferred parties helped topple a legally elected government in 1984 by encour- like the to the Congress. The structure and aging defections, Sonia Gandhi opted for a very different tack. functioning of the UPA government rests in part on how far it In 2002, she endorsed a rotational arrangement by which Con- fulfils its mandate. gress and the regional People’s Democratic Party had alternate chief ministers. Adversity thus, played a role in shaping the fresh Coalition Compulsions thinking of the Congress leadership. In December 2003, it did far worse than expected in a clutch of state assembly elections in Much of this is related to the composition of the coalition and central and north-western India. A major factor in its rout in Madhya the compulsions of the different political entities that constitute Pradesh, its bastion for over a decade was competition for the it. The first genuine coalition at the federal level took office only votes of underprivileged groups with other pluralist parties [Mrug in 1996. Earlier, the 1977 post-Emergency government of Morarji 2004:16-19]. As Vajpayee drew heart from the results, the Congress Desai was in form an alliance government with the Shiromani revised its strategy, in the light of the Shimla resolution of July Akali Dal and Congress for Democracy sharing power with the 2003 that allowed for sharing power. Janata Party. But the Janata Party had a majority of its own. In

Economic and Political Weekly August 6, 2005 3599 1989, V P Singh’s government pioneered a new Firstly, for the Congress such an engagement is not new. The concept of forming a minority government with external support ability to engage with new ideas and make space for those with from parties with diametrically opposite ideological inclinations, a capacity to aspire has been a key factor in its longevity as a the BJP and the Left bloc. Needless to add, neither experiment political formation. In fact, previous Congress leaders undertook lasted long. Vajpayee was more successful once his party worked such moves at a provincial and a national level in the past. But out a common minimal programme. In 1998, his alliance had these were easy to overlook as they took place within the frame- 253 seats but worked out a formula for external support from work of one party. This emerged clearly in the early 1930s, when the of Andhra Pradesh. Though voted out Mahatma Gandhi negotiated with the dalit leader B R Ambedkar of office in the Lok Sabha in 1999, Vajpayee returned with a to create the system of joint electorates where only members of clear majority and completed a full term. Much of what Congress the ‘depressed classes’ (as they were then known) could stand will now attempt will have to be based on learning and unlearning for election. In a similar vein, despite his own inclinations against elements of his experience in coalition building. The continuities linguistic units, Nehru eventually acquiesced in the creation of have been a point of emphasis for some analysts. The older linguistic states in much of peninsular and western India. Most Congress-dominated polity that had taken shape from the first famously, Indira Gandhi adopted parts of the Communist Party general elections of 1952 onwards came to an end in 1989.4 Since of India’s economic programme but also inducted key members then, no party has obtained a bare majority or become the fulcrum of the religious minorities and lower castes into powerful po- of the political system. But from around 1999, a bi-nodal mode sitions. It is easy to dismiss such moves as tokenism [Malhotra of power began to take shape with the BJP and the Congress 1989]. Though these moves stopped short of an overhaul of the heading rival fronts [Wallace and Roy 2003]. One of four voters power structure, their precedents are not without significance. is still outside the fold of both alliances; many parties shift For a long period from around the 1920s when it was reshaped allegiance between one poll and another. But the two broad fronts by Mahatma Gandhi till the end of the Indira-Rajiv period in are established entities. 1989, Congress was able to evolve with the times. It was first It has also been asserted that the elections of 2004 mark a a pressure group, the spearhead of a mass movement, then a party ‘moment of closure’5 for the widening of democratic opportu- in office in seven provinces of British India for a couple of years nities that had become apparent at the base of the polity in the (1937-39), it was at the head of an uneasy compromise interim previous decade and a half. Greater electoral participation by government (1946-47), and eventually became the party that led marginal sections such as dalits and adivasis, a higher turn-out the first government of a free India. Its attitudes towards popular in north India, tactical voting by religious minorities, a larger upsurges were simultaneously those of containment and that of presence of women in politics, the assertion of regional and sub- assertion of its leadership role. This was as true of struggles regional groups, all of these were markers of change [Yadav against social exclusion by ‘untouchables’ in north India as of 2000]. No new trend actually dates to 1989 but there is little the tribal irruptions in central India [Rawat 2004, Baker 1984]. doubt that the V P Singh period 1989-90 also marked a watershed. Ravinder Kumar often remarked on how the party that had fared This was especially so in north India. Society was polarised if so poorly in the Muslim reserved seats in 1946 based on a limited only for a time either for or against Hindutva or Hinduness as franchise gained the support of the religious minorities once a mark of national identity and equally so either against or for voting rights were extended to all. By 1952 when the first general positive discrimination. The politics of polarities had obvious elections were held, the Congress staged a recovery in areas where limits given the regional and social heterogeneity of the country. dalit assertiveness had been prominent, including in western and The movements ran into limits though not without leaving deep north India.6 This ability to engage with aspirations from below marks on the body politic. No subsequent regime has been able is not entirely a feature of the past. The flexibility that is inherent to discard V P Singh’s implementation of the Mandal Commission, in a consensus-based party has enabled Congress to survive and which reserved 27 per cent of the jobs in the union government adapt giving it a diametrically different complexion in various for the other backward classes. Again, despite counter-mobilisation regions at different times. Each episode of engagement has had that set clear limits to the Hindutva agenda, there are signs of its finite limits. But it is important still to acknowledge and ask a permanent consolidation of a Hindu vote bank as a significant what spaces exist. if secondary force in politics [Palshikar 2004]. Secondly, in contrast to the past, the party’s own capacity to absorb or assimilate smaller political entities is limited. Far from Changing Orientation having been contained, tamed or domesticated, smaller entities display a dynamic that defied easy co-optation. Congress ab- As with the radical upheavals of the 1960s, it has been argued sorbed anti-caste rebels in Maharashtra in the early 20th century, that the opportunities for empowerment that opened up in the divesting them of the radical notions of a rebellion against the Indian political system in the late 1980s have now been fore- ‘shetji’ and ‘bhatji’, (creditor and priest, respectively). Similarly, closed. A process of domestication and containment has set the activists and leaders of the Triveni Sangh in Bihar who in. There is a sense of closure in de-linking of caste and region mobilised the managers of cultivation against rent receivers based mobilisation from the wider politics of economic and were also taken aboard in the 1930s. Most well known of all social justice. It is, however, possible to make a very different has been Congress’ absorption of successive generations of tribal kind of case for future directions of the polity. What 2004 leaders who articulated the demand for a separate state in the marks is less ‘a moment of closure’ than a revival of a closer region known as Jharkhand: Jaipal Singh then and Sibhu Soren engagement with marginal social groups. In order to now. Yet, such a process has its limits, not the least of all because grasp the possibility of the process as opposed to ‘closure’, it Congress has ceased to be the kind of catch-all umbrella for- is necessary to step back and look at the nature of Congress’ mation it once was. In fact, even in the past, careful studies of own history. its pre-1947 mobilisation has shown that it did have a tenuous

3600 Economic and Political Weekly August 6, 2005 social base among the underprivileged but titled towards prop- forces. In her first campaign speech in 1999 as Congress presi- ertied groups.7 What has changed and decisively so in the last dent and lead campaigner for her party, Sonia Gandhi, echoed 15 years is the working of the dynamics of democracy. There the old charge that the Sangh was the ideological inspiration is no question of the Congress absorbing the regional lower behind Mahatma Gandhi’ s assassination. It is notable that when caste led outfits with which it has forged electoral alliances at the results were trickling in, the general secretary of the different junctures in UP or Bihar. In Jharkhand, the local party CPI(M), Harkishen Singh Surjeet spelt out the possibility of was actually ceded a larger share of seats for the first time in a external, issue based support for a Congress-led government. pre-poll pact in January 2005. Engagement by an umbrella like Laloo Prasad Yadav, perhaps the single biggest political formation with smaller entities is now on a more equal basis than beneficiary of Mandal-based mobilisation also lined up with in the past. The latter have more leeway. Whether they utilise the Congress. These were indications of a shift in strategy with this to push for any systemic changes is now worth watching. the party taking on Hindutva. To be sure, such a confrontationist Third, the party has had to break with its long record of destabilising attitude has not been carried out down the line. In the state state governments. This dates back to the dismissal of the first assembly elections of Gujarat in 2002, held in the wake of the elected Communist government of E M S Namboodripad in some of the worst sectarian massacres in independent India, the 1959, after which Congress forged an alliance with the sectarian Congress went out of its way to downplay issues that affected Muslim League. Indira Gandhi and later Rajiv Gandhi dismissed Muslims. As a leading union minister recently admitted with rare several state governments on the ground that the general elections candour, this strategy was as unprincipled and unsuccessful.10 had deprived them of their mandate. Given the inability of either of the major national parties to aspire to power in several key Soft Saffron vs Caste Assertion states, it is also difficult for them now to dislodge popularly elected governments on grounds of a constitutional breakdown The two issues of lower caste or adivasi assertion and the turn or emergency.8 The Vajpayee government repeatedly tried and from soft saffron are closely linked. In the 1950s, for instance, failed to dismiss the Bihar state government. Indira Gandhi had when the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the predecessor of today’s BJP, made maximum use of such provisions like Article 356 of the was a marginal force even in state politics, some of its pet themes Constitution, but now this seems a dim memory. It is not only found advocacy within the Congress. In central India, chief the Congress but also that the times have changed. States possess minister Ravi Shankar Shukla took action against missionaries more elbow room in a constitutional order that is becoming in the adivasi belt. C B Gupta in Uttar Pradesh marginalised Urdu, federal not only in letter but even in spirit. a step that was welcomed by those who saw India as intrinsically Further, the Congress’ more critical attitude to Hindutva will Hindi and Hindu [Rai 2000]. Such policies were given fresh run also create spaces for new kinds of engagement across the in the 1980s at a pan-Indian level by the Congress without electoral communal divide. Sonia Gandhi’s stewardship has also seen the dividends. The space of a conservative cultural movement has party return to some kind of hardline stance against sectarian been taken over by the . Conversely, the mobilisation that it adopted in the early post- independence years. only option for the Congress has been tactical or informal arrange- The opportunity to cooperate also springs from the extent to ments with the lower caste rebels against the old order. These which public opinion was polarised in the Vajpayee period. The have included at various times, peasant as well as dalit and tribal- Sonia Gandi period since 1998 has seen a shift in the Congress’ based partiers. Moving beyond narrow electoral issues, socio- relations with what may be termed as ‘soft’ Hindutva. Given that cultural changes in north and western India have made it difficult Congress has historically been a loosely defined middle-of-the- for the Congress to ignore newly assertive groups. At the same road formation, rather than an ideologically coherent, cadre- time, the Hindutva groups too have actively pursued programmes based organisation, it could not have been unaffected by the aimed at winning over adherents to their world view among cultural redefinition of what being a ‘Hindu’ signified. At no adivasis, dalits and peasant castes. These have met with varying time in the history of post-independent India, did the dalliance degrees of success. But their presence makes it essential for any of Congress with the agenda and platform of Hinduness become centrist formation to either challenge them or give way. as sharply evident as in the late Indira period. This phase began Fifthly, and finally even as caste-based mobilisation has run with the victory of the party in Delhi’s local election. There was its course through the 1990s, it has opened up new spaces for an undertone of anti-minority sentiment in Indira debate on core economic and social issues that had earlier been Gandhi’s handling of the politics of two border provinces, Punjab marginal. These may not always have been reflected in the formal and Jammu and Kashmir. The erosion of secularism as a norm political process but the energy of civil society groups which was not new but was without precedent in its scale [Jaffrelot encompass a whole range of initiatives have had some, if not 1996:330-31]. This appeasement of Hindutva continued till well always, salutary impact on decision-makers. This makes it more into the 1990s albeit with twists including the enactment of a rather than less likely that the wider issue of justice will indeed highly gender biased legislation aimed at co-opting their Muslim figure more prominently in political debate in the coming period. counterparts in 1986. There is little doubt such a policy did not Such an engagement is of course not new but there are distinct meet with approval from all sections of Congress. It went along reasons why these did not result in the kind of positive outcome with the soft-pedalling of the Mandal Commission Report, that some had seen possible in the late 1980s and 1990s. One submitted in 1980. It suited Congress to play on fears of minority- was the relative fuzziness of many newly empowered groups and based terrorism rather than to politicise caste cleavages among the parties that led them to issues beyond specific symbolic ones. Hindus.9 This phase only ended in the late 1990s. The consoli- Most backward class based parties in north India and their dation of the BJP as nucleus of a ruling coalition forced Congress scheduled caste counterparts united in the demand for expanded to alter its tactics and then its strategy. Congress’ support to the reservations in the government sector. Now that this has been in 1996-98 was the prelude to a realignment of accomplished and private sector reservation is not making much

Economic and Political Weekly August 6, 2005 3601 headway, they will be faced with more clamour for jobs. The girl children and for groups earlier beyond the pale of caste beneficiaries of positive discrimination, whether OBCs, dalits society. or adivasis are unified in opposing another kind of affirmative It is easy to exaggerate the impact of such positive develop- action, for women qua women. Setting aside one in three seats ments. The larger picture can at times be far from inspiring. Yet, in the legislatures is a point on which all Indian parties agree. it is important to emphasise that far from the centrist party taming But the groups who have gained from reservation in legislature the newly assertive groups, the reverse process may well be under (the SCs and STs) and those whose clout has increased way. The more radical elements in the maximum programme with enfranchisement (the OBCs) are against general reservation framed by the votaries of what has been called India’s “silent of seats for women. The SC and adivasi leaders point to differential revolution” are far from fruition. Reservation has often given rates of literacy and empowerment compared with the upper more jobs but it has not seen huge spurt in educational oppor- castes. Assertion by those who are deprived can also set them tunity, as was the case when similar movements came to centre against each other. The demise of the older social order is not stage in parts of southern and western India earlier in the 20th a neat but a messy and immensely complicated affair. Pratap century. A similar case is often made by left-wing critics of the Bhanu Mehta has recently seen lower caste uprisings not as anti- agrarian programmes of even leftwing elected governments: that caste but simply anti-upper caste. But it is easy to miss the larger they fell short of what they had intended. Such criticisms may dynamic of such movements even when they fall short of be on target and yet miss the point. Democracies are not tailor- their millenarian promise. After all, changes in consciousness made for such radical shifts of power. The Indian case has often and in the composition of ruling groups are a very major land- been one of ceding key issues of a minimal programme but this mark.11 Similarly, the creation of two new states of Jharkhand and does arise in part due to the multiple faultlines that mark societies Chhattisgarh did satisfy adivasi demands for new entities in across the vast country. which their cultures and interests would figure more promi- nently. But many of the critiques of the developmental models Legacies and Challenges that hindered all round growth have gained even more in validity given the lacklustre performance of the new state administrations In a sense, there is both justice and irony in the nature of the since they were created four years ago. Similarly, much of the regime in power in New Delhi. The logic of forming the UPA green revolution belt and many canal-irrigated tracts of Andhra was to lock the BJP out of power. There is also deep symbolic Pradesh, Punjab, Maharashtra and Punjab, all among the justice in India having its first Sikh prime minister and first chair flagbearers of agrarian progress since the 1960s have of a ruling alliance who is a Roman Catholic. Incidentally, the seen widespread distress even among the rich peasantry due to new army chief of staff is also a Sikh and the head of state is debt. A new model of rural financing and better safety nets a Muslim. There is little doubt that pluralism in itself is not the for those who rely on the land for a living will have to be sole binding force for the alliance. Its very nomenclature and devised.12 the repeated emphasis on the human dimension of liberalisation Sixth, Congress is better placed to engage with many of the indicates it will try reach out to the sections who have not gained development-related issues than its national counterpart, the BJP. from the benefits of reforms unleashed by Manmohan Singh Its potential is clear but its dilemmas are deeper. The rift on how as finance minister from 1991 to 1996. Even as Congress and a state must act is reflected very starkly within the support base its allies lay claim to the legacy of economic reform tracing its of Congress itself. There is indeed often a mismatch between lineage to the half-measures under Rajiv Gandhi and the even what articulate interest groups want from the state and what the more limited changes under Indira Gandhi, there is a slew of state can actually deliver on the ground. Often, what it delivers promises that are hard to make but difficult to fulfil. History is turns out to be a problem in itself though for an entirely different not much of a guide: in 1971, Indira Gandhi came to power set of people. There is to put it simply no previous experience on similar hopes of the dispossessed. But the Bangladesh War of industrialising and modernising society on such a large scale transformed this desire for economic change into a patriotism in a democratic manner. The ‘idea of India’ is easy to celebrate wrapped in the Congress tricolour. This was followed by but harder to feel enthused about when actually confronted with economic crisis and political breakdown that predated the two or more difficult choices. Yet the wider process has been declaration of emergency in June 1975. There is little likelihood in the right direction, towards more and not less contestation. of such a crisis again, partly because of the checks that have Many of the serious achievements due to the newly assertive evolved under coalition government. But there will be chal- movements tend to be under reported. For instance, the brief lenges in a different sense. The promise of a common rule of periods of rule by the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh have law was clearly vitiated in incidents like those in Delhi in 1984 seen widening of land reform initiatives and also of sanitation and Gujarat in 2002. Acknowledgement by the prime minister for some of the most deprived sections. It has also seen a dalit- is one thing; the delivery of justice to the victims will be quite led party emerge as a significant force incorporating other sec- another issue. Much will rest not only on the government’s ability tions of religious minorities and caste Hindus [Sudha Pai 2002]. to prevent any such atrocities in the future but also to ensure Some of the most successful work on benefit sharing of forest exemplary punishment to those who openly defied the law in products has taken place in West Bengal and has created new the past. The parallel between what are called communal riots local institutions for the governance of forest resources in India and caste massacres is rarely made though there is more [Sivaramakrishnan 1998]. All initiatives have not come from the in common given the propensity of the police to side with landed executive. The Supreme Court’s intervention is now forcing groups and those on the higher end of the social scale. many states to adopt the Tamil Nadu model of midday One major change since the days of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi meal schemes in schools, a step which over the last quarter is the rise of a large anti-Congress formation that has a substantial century has increased manifold the access of education for base in at least half of the states. In the case of both Rajiv Gandhi

3602 Economic and Political Weekly August 6, 2005 and Rao, a five-year spell in office was followed by the erosion existing states has been the usual mode of redress of grievances. of the Congress’ own mass base. In both cases, it was the BJP What is crucial in the north-east and north-west is not the end that was direct beneficiary, initially as a result of anti-Congress of violence either by the state or non-state actors but the decline alliances and later from around 1990, with its ability to redefine of the fever-pitch mood of previous decades. The UPA has a the parameters of politics. There were indeed limits to its appeal window of opportunity. It may be difficult to find lasting solutions but it is important to note that in three successive elections, it where external factors also impinge on the issue but the mood had the largest number of MPs in the Lok Sabha. The BJP still of conciliation within can have positive repercussions in the wider controls at the time of writing as many as five state governments. south Asian region as well. It may not be as easy in the past The success of the party arose from two contradictory impulses for the BJP now to oppose political dialogue given its own role and initiatives. First, it was able to expand its core vote to one not only in talks with the Naga groups but even on occasion with in five voters. Second, from the mid-1990s it toned down the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen in the valley of Kashmir. its ideological appeal for a minimal programme to rally anti- But this will not make things easier in economic terms. Congress Congress parties. Yet, it never disclaimed its own core project already has not one but two difficult tasks. It has to respond to of recasting India’s identity in terms of cultural nationalism. popular aspirations and rebuild its own support base. The former This became evident in the Gujarat election campaign of 2002 is problematic for a very critical reason. Since 1989, governments and also in a host of measures in the fields of education, culture have run the risk of serving for only one five-year term and then and communication. This defines a central feature of the party, being voted out of office. Since Jawaharlal Nehru’s time, only its ideological coherence, but it also sets out one core agenda one prime minister (Indira Gandhi in 1971) has led a party to of the new government, namely, the reassertion of a plural a second full term in office, and she did it by polarising the identity in institutional terms. Whatever be the divisions among electorate with the promise of economic justice. In the post-1991 the many constituents of the UPA, be they from the Congress, economic climate such steps as Indira Gandhi then took are the regional or populist parties or the left, they are broadly difficult for any government to even contemplate. The internal unified in their rejection of the core ideological orientation of rifts within the new ruling coalition are evident in the debates the BJP and its affiliates. The Hindutva party has gone through over the Employment Guarantee Act. Neo-monetarists point to different phases. From 1980-86, it sought the middle ground the possible outlay of over 3,00,000 million rupees a year while of politics and then for a decade it tried to polarise the polity. left wing populists look to its benefits for the poor. The expansion Since May 2004, with loss of power, the BJP has been caught of rural credit wins plaudits from those with a base among the up in a dilemma. Failure has bred division and indecision reigns cultivating classes but is fiercely seen as a populist sop by those supreme. committed to fiscal reform. Clearly, a society, which is still It is also not easy given the change in the relations between predominantly rural and agrarian, with two-thirds of the labour what can loosely be termed the centre and periphery. From the force still reliant on agriculture cannot ignore agriculture. The 1980s onwards, insurgency and separatist movements were a 1990s saw greater disparity between town and country and a slow major challenge in Punjab and then in Jammu and Kashmir. Many down in job creation both in farm and factory. There has been complex factors lay behind the unrest but the idea of a Hindu a huge expansion of services, which now account for over half ‘core’ besieged by insurgent separatisms backed and funded by the gross domestic product. Reform in itself needs to be broad Pakistan meshed well with a mood of sectarian assertion. Much based after a decade of the 1990s that saw the explosive growth of that mood has abated. The early 1990s saw the gradual if halting of the middle class, now thought to number 240 million. This restoration of democracy in Punjab. The Vajpayee regime and is less than one in four Indians but is still comparable to many the Lyngdoh-led CEC held fair elections in Jammu and Kashmir nation states in size [Ranade 2005]. But this may mean little to in 2002. There is a larger part of the picture of the periphery, those who are unable to complete school, or to farmers facing which often gets ignored in pan-Indian accounts: the north-east. economic ruin due to a shift in commodity prices or a shortfall In many though not all of the seven states of the region, there of rain. Recent successes in software, significant as they are in has been a situation of ‘durable disorder’ with ad hoc concessions improving terms of trade, should not detract from the fact that to rebel groups alternating with attempts to resolve issues of even at the end of the present decade, the bulk of the 670 million identity and representation via military means. The Congress strong workforce is in the farm sector. Nor can an upswing in can look back with some justifiable pride to the accord with the activity on the part of left wing extremist groups that afflicts Mizo leadership in 1987, an exceptional case of a peace deal to some degree 155 out of 600 odd districts be delinked from that worked. Yet, since 1997 successive union governments have the phenomenon of rural underemployment and unemployment. engaged in direct talks with an equally determined insurgent As Bill Clinton told Vajpayee in 2000, India may account for group whose roots go even further back in time: the a fourth of the world’s software engineers but it also has one National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN). The of three desperately poor people in the world. The UPA govern- premier groups have been in talks, which are deadlocked on ment has to deliver on its promise: a tall order, and one made the issue of redrawing state boundaries to include Naga all the more difficult by the mood of fiscal rectitude which is inhabited territories in other states [Mishra 2000]. In Assam, the shared by many key economic decision-makers in its most populous of the states of the region, the issue of who is ranks. Conversely, there is substantial pressure not only from the or is not Assamese is intertwined with the long-term movement Left but also from key regional parties and players to increase of Bangla speakers from neighbouring Bangladesh [Baruah 1999, outlays for welfare. The key will lie in balancing these while 2004]. Here again, there are indications of dialogue with the providing more stimuli for growth in agriculture and ensuring major insurgent group, ULFA, which believes in a slogan of expansion of the job base. an independent or ‘Swadhin Asom’. The creation of new states The need for balance has become more pronounced in the post- within the union, or the cession of power to local councils within reform era when the level of disparity in a society already typified

Economic and Political Weekly August 6, 2005 3603 by hierarchy and privilege has to all evidence, increased very furthering its integration with the global economy. Despite the markedly. This is clear in regional terms, with the south and the positive changes in sectors of manufacturing and more so in west making the most significant gains in investment and much services, much of India has not gained in terms of livelihood of north India lagging far behind. This is even sharper in terms security and entitlement. A key lynchpin of the previous regime, of social indicators. Much of the peninsula and the coast has the vast river interlinking project, is being subjected to more already attained or is set to attain – by 2020 – a zero population critical scrutiny. At another level, the reinvigoration of key growth rate. In large parts of north India, this will not happen pubic sector units as in petrochemical and telecom now aims for another fifty years or more if present trends do not change. to create state-run public sector firms with leeway both in India In fact, even as reform largely focuses on trimming government and possibly on the world stage. But the larger issue of how to spending and presence, the fact is that in much of north and central expand livelihood security and expansion of the job base hinges and parts of eastern India, the government hardly reaches a on the outcome of many great contests. The contradictions are fraction of the people with services which would be considered implicit in the very nature of the ruling alliance: much will hinge the norm in any civilised society. These include access to safe on how they unfold. A general election may not be a major event drinking water and sanitation, primary health services and in the larger scheme of things but to paraphrase Nehru’s words, schools.13 The cross regional disparities have not always been the search for justice through just means has been renewed afresh seen for what they are: the emergence of very different socio- in the world’s largest democracy. EPW political and economic patterns in different regions of the coun- try. Broadly speaking, the east with its old economy focus on Email: [email protected] coal, steel and jute lost out in the initial years of reform to the west, which had closer ties with the petrochemical industry. The Notes south, with higher rates of literacy and urbanisation, higher levels of human skills and endowment as a result of decades of social [This is a revised version of the A L Basham Memorial Lecture for 2005. reform and public action forged ahead of the north. The internal I am grateful to Raghbendra Jha and to the Australian National University, social divisions of the north, especially in the Hindi belt which Canberra for their invitation and hospitality. I owe a deep intellectual debt to the following: Harish Damodaran, Pralay Kanungo, Jai Mrug, Sumit Sarkar is home to over four in ten Indians, have prevented a sharp focus and Tanika Sarkar. A special word of appreciation for Pratap Bhanu Mehta either on attracting investment or in investing heavily in social and Yogendra Yadav. The usual disclaimers apply.] welfare. Reform and engagement with the wider world thus means very different things to different people. It hinges not only 1 Rasheed Kidwai, Sonia, A Biography, Delhi: Viking Penguin, 2003, p 169; On women voters, see Yogendra Yadav, ‘The New Congress on who you are and what your level of endowment is, it also Voter’, Seminar, 2003, No 526, pp 64-70. rests on which part of the country you are located in and the 2 Yogendra Yadav, ‘The Elusive mandate of 2004’, Economic and Political pace and kind of change in that particular region. The bridging Weekly, December 18, 2004, pp 5383-98. 54 of 145 seats may be credited of these disparate elements is no less than Herculean task, one to its regionally dominant allies. that will require closer coordination of the union and the states 3 Kancha Illaiah, Buffalo Nationalism, 2002. On women, see Yogendra Yadav, ‘The New Congress Voter’, Seminar, No 526, than one has seen in the past. 2004, pp 64-70. 4 Yogendra Yadav, ‘Electoral Politics in the Time of Change, India’s Conclusion Third Electoral System, 1989-99’, Economic and Political Weekly, August 21, 1999, pp 2393-99. Yadav argues the new system crystallised This brief survey of the process by which the present govern- only in 1991. He is right, as there was a vestige of an anti-Congress front that displaced Rajiv’s party from power in 1989. Yet, the same ment secured its mandate draws attention to the fractured and election (1989) also marked a new low for the country’s oldest party splintered nature of the electorate. But it is also a testimonial from which it has never recovered even as it opened the door to to the maturity and sense of discretion of the Indian voter, who alternate ideological platforms to an extent that was not conceivable opted for change but whose choice also prevents the accretion earlier. of power in a single party or person as was the case in the not- 5 The phrase is Yogendra Yadav’s. See his paper, ‘The Elusive Mandate of 2004’, Economic and Political Weekly, December 18, 2004, too-distant past. The electoral outcome was partially a revolt pp 5383-98. from below: among the underclasses, the minorities and the 6 Ravinder Kumar, Personal Communication, 1999. inhabitants of the country more than the city. But the test still 7 Studies of this are legion, but see Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885- lies ahead. 1947, Orient Longman, Delhi, 1982 and Revised Edition, 1999. From 1989, India has indeed witnessed the emergence of a 8 Paul Brass, The since independence, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990; is centrally concerned with the dynamic of a new electoral system. It took another decade for a bi-nodal system Congress-ruled Union and opposition-ruled states. of power sharing in two rival alliances to take shape. The NDA 9 Christophe Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution, The Rise of the gave India one kind of governance, oriented towards Great Lower Castes in North Indian Politics, Permanent Black, Delhi, Power aspirations, and after September 11, 2001, closer coor- 2003, pp 214-53 for the long-term factors underlying the contrast dination with the US. The Congress-led alliance with Left sup- between the Congress in north and south India on the issue of reservations. 10 Mani Shankar Aiyar, Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist, Penguin, port promised to march to a different drum. Two major faultlines Delhi, 2004, p 15. lie within the new ruling coalition. One is simply political: the 11 Pratap Bhanu Mehta, The Burden of Democracy, Penguin, Delhi, 2003, revival of Congress will only be possible at the cost of the forces pp 75-67. To be fair he also argues that recent events show a triumph that have supplanted it often among marginalised groups and of caste politics over caste per se. regional parties. This is a relationship laced with hope but fraught 12 See the extensive accounts in The Hindu by the award-wining journalist, 14 P Sainath. with tension. 13 UNDP, ‘UN Human Development Report, 2003’, Geneva, 2003 for an The second is a more critical issue, as it concerns the ability overview and Jean Dreze and Amartya Kumar Sen, Economic of the polity to meet concerns about justice and equity while Development and Social Opportunity, OUP, Delhi, 2000.

3604 Economic and Political Weekly August 6, 2005 14 See Kanchan Chopra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed, Patronage and Ethnic Mehta, Pratap Bhanu (2003): The Burden of Democracy, Penguin, Delhi, Head Counts in India, Cambridge University Press, Delhi, 2004. For pp 75-67. a moving account of the struggle for dignity of a member of the former Mishra, Udayon (2000): The Periphery Strikes Back, Challenges to the sweeper caste, see Om Parakash Valmiki, Joothan, A Dalits’s Nation State in Assam and Nagaland, Indian Institute of Advanced Life, Translated by Arun Prabha Mukherjee, Popular Prakshan, Studies, Shimla. Mumbai, 2003. Pai, Sudha (2002): Dalits and the Unfinished Democratic Revolution, Sage, Delhi. Palshikar, Suhas (2004): ‘Majoritarian Middle Ground’, Economic and References Political Weekly, December 18, pp 5426-30. Ranade, Sudanshu (2005): ‘The Great Indian Middle Class and Its Consumption Aiyar, Mani Shankar (2000): Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist, Levels’, The Hindu Business Line, Delhi, January 21. Penguin, Delhi, p 15. Rawat, Ram Narain (2004): ‘A Social History of ‘Chamars’ in Uttar Pradesh, Baker, DEU (1984): ‘A Serious Time’: Forest Satyagraha in the 1881-1956’, Unpublished PhD, Dissertation, Department of History, Central Provinces, 1929-30’, Indian Economic and Social History Delhi University, Delhi. Review. Rai, Alok (2000): Hindi Nationalism, Orient Longman, Delhi. Baruah, Sanjib (1999): India against Itself, Assam and the Politics of Sarkar, Sumit (1982): Modern India, 1885-1947, Orient Longman, Delhi, Nationality, OUP, Delhi. revised edition, 1999. – (2004): Durable Disorder, OUP, Delhi. Sivaramakrishnan, Kalyanakrishnan (1999): ‘Co-managed Forests in Brass, Paul (1990): The Politics of India since Independence, Cambridge West Bengal, Historical Perspectives on Community and Control’, Journal University Press, Cambridge. of Sustainable Forestry, 7 (1998), pp 23-51. Jaffrelot, Christophe (1993): The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Wallace, Paul and Ramashroy Roy (eds) (2003): India’s 1999 Elections and Politics, 1925 to the 1990s, Penguin, Delhi, Revised 2nd edition, 1996, 20th Century Politics, Sage, Delhi. pp 330-37. Yadav, Yogendra ( 1999): ‘Electoral Politics in the Time of Change, India’s – (2003): India’s Silent Revolution, The Rise of the Lower Castes in North Third Electoral System, 1989-99’, Economic and Political Weekly, Indian Politics, Permanent Black, Delhi. August 21, pp 2393-99. Kidwai, Rasheed (2003): Sonia, A Biography, Viking Penguin, Delhi, – (2003): ‘The New Congress Voter’, Seminar, No 526, pp 64-70. p 169. – (2004): ‘The Elusive Mandate of 2004’, Economic and Political Weekly, Malhotra, Inder (1991): Indira Gandhi, A Personal and Political Biography, December 18, 2004, pp 5383-98. Hodder and Stoughton, London, first edition, 1989, pp 123-29. – (2000): ‘Understanding the Second Democratic Upsurge: Trends of Bahujan – (2002): Dynasties, Harper Collins, Delhi. Participation in Electoral Politics since the 1990s’ in Zoya Hasan et al, Mrug, Jai ( 2004): ‘Changing Patterns of Support’, Economic and Political (ed), Transforming India, Social and Political Dynamics of Democracy, Weekly, January 3, pp 16-19. OUP, Delhi, pp 120-45.

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