by Badri Raina
first published May 22, 2007
India’s ruling think gurus are forever on the lookout for a smart panacea for what they perceive the country’s ills. In arguing for a two-party political system, the idea seems to be to subdue the proliferation of organic discontent among the lower orders of the polity by imposing a mechanical structural arrangement from the top.
by Badri Raina
first published May 22, 2007
India’s ruling think gurus are forever on the lookout for a smart panacea for what they perceive the country’s ills. In arguing for a two-party political system, the idea seems to be to subdue the proliferation of organic discontent among the lower orders of the polity by imposing a mechanical structural arrangement from the top.
The line that is sought to be pushed here is that the multiplicity of political formations in India bears no significant relation to felt grievances on the ground, or to any respectable ideological persuasions that diverge from the “mainlines” of India’s party-political apparatus as reflected in the careers of the two “national” parties.
Since such multiplicity is viewed as merely a capricious nuisance issuing from the limited purposes of individual sartraps in the “peripheries,” a managerial answer is sought to be floated to bind these caprices into two oceanic organizations into which all the haywire streams can be assimilated. The problem of political waste, as it were, can then be resolved.
Charmingly simple as the two-party formulation seems, the informing impetus behind the offer is far either from innocent or benign. Indeed, it is something of a disappointment that as astute a student of the issue as Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (author of A Time of Coalitions), and one who is usually alertly critical of most right-wing emphases in India’s political life, should have missed the calling to underline forthrightly the class-based design from which the two-party formulation, recommended most recently by the President of India himself, issues.
In a recent lead article in the Hindustan Times (may 18) he expends most of his text on indicating the unlikelihood of a two-party system consolidating any time soon in India rather than on critiquing the ideological source of the poser. Indeed, while stressing that something may be said “in favour of many parties and coalitions co-existing in a heterogeneous, plural, deeply divided and highly hierarchical society such as ours,” he is willing to concede “that a bipolar polity is better than a fragmented multi-party political system.” It is ofcourse possible that writing for the HT such a critique may have been inadmissible.
II
To put the matter baldly, the proponents of the two-party thesis do not have in mind formations that are ideological polarities. As in all other matters (militarism, technological ascendance, great consumerist prowess, centralized mega-markets—all that with a dash of “values”), the idea is to emulate the political superstructure of the American system wherein the two parties are infact one and the same—a tweedledom and a tweedledee that agree permanently on the nature and components of the base that is to be protected and furthered at all costs.
The substance of that base may be encapsulated briefly in the following unstated stipulations:
that Capitalism is provenly the only (and eternally) valid system of
economic organization;
that private ownership of the means of production and consequent
expropriation by the owning class benefit all citizens;
that all varieties of the socialist experiment must be understood to have “failed” once and for all;
that the ills that often accompany Capitalist democracy (poverty,
unemployment, malnutrition, waste, dearth of equitous health care,
gender discrimination, racism, bigotry, insensate corruption and crime,
and war, to name just a few) do not constitute “failure”;
that these consequences do not flow from the Capitalist system but, as Malthus, Darwin and others have so astutely pointed out, from “nature”;
that the free-market is not the expression of man-made preference but reflects the principle of liberty that is autonomous, ordained, and thus above and beyond “ideology”;
that the state must never interfere in the operations of the free market, but must at all times retain sufficient coercive apparatus to intervene whenever disgruntled sections of the polity seek to thwart those operations;
that the state, however secular, must retain a regard for “values” since, apart from their intrinsic worth, these come in handy as the cultural arm of control, discipline, and social punishment;
and that all challenges to the authority of the state thus constituted must be unequivocally dubbed at the least, malafide, and, at their worst, “terroristic”, deserving of the severest reprisal, even if for the time being the requirement of reprisal involves the Capitalist democratic state in contravening the noble principles of liberty from which it derives its legitimacy;
that the informing principles of equality and fraternity must not be
construed to mean that equality and fraternity can either be obtained or are even desirable of attainment.
Going down that table of substance, it should be obvious that the two major, “national” parties in the Indian political system share most of its meat. It may be argued that the one area in which the Congress party has consistently made protestations of divergence from the BJP is the one that concerns allegiance to secularism. Yet, it is curious that not once in the sixty years of India’s existence as an independent republic, especially during the dark moments of intense right-wing Hindu resurgence, has the Congress given a general call to the people to fill the streets in defence of secularism—a lack that is starkly underscored, for example, by recent events in Turkey (commonly perceived as an “Islamic” nation). Not a day passes when hundreds of thousands of Turkish citizens do not materialize from all corners to make explicit their preference for separation of state and religion. Despite every vicissitude, the Congress remains wedded to a notion of secularism that, rather than disregarding religion in the operations of the state (not to speak of coming down with any heavy hand on its nefarious attempts to usurp the state), looks upon all religions with a benign and equitous concern—a stance that repeatedly leads to a policy of catering. It is hardly a secret that many distinguished Cabinet ministers reserve a corner, not just at home (which would be fine) but in their offices for a holy idol or two.
III
It is understandable, therefore, why the two-party slogan should receive instant favour from India’s upwardly-mobile elites. Everyday contemptuous of politicians, their strongest desire is to evacuate Indian democracy of “politics” in toto. An ideal democracy is visualized as one wherein managers and technocrats take over the state, wherein “knowledge commissions” distribute enlightened and efficient governance to the hinterland, and wherein people at large are taught to keep their place and peace, if not through persuasion, then by the might of the regimented state.
Alas, sixty years of democratic practice, however guided, has brought home to the people of India the realization that the interests and predilections of the major parties do not necessarily reflect their felt needs and urges. Be it the issue of democratic rights and concrete equality in law, be it the matter of justice in relation to talent and opportunity, or of livelihood and stake in the environments which they traditionally populate, be it the matter of full and free cultural and political expression, or be it the question whether “we the people” truly possess the Constitution that operates in their name—Capitalist democracy, unbeknown to itself, teaches them that other and better things are desirable and possible.
And the agendas of those aspirations may not, as they patently do not, bear convergence with the hegemonic designs that inform the two-party slogan. Often they see in the major national parties a relay team that but carries further forward the same baton. And writ over that baton is often one and the same message as well.
It is just as well, then, to acknowledge (sooner the better) that India’s democratic career and agenda has not arrived at the finishing line. By no stretch of the imagination has history ended. And also to acknowledge, crucially, that the plethora of political expressions that obtain are not simply the evidence of some naughty, pointless mischief, directed crudely at the best interests of the state, but projections of dissent and divergence that issue from concrete historical need.
In the years to come, it would be worthwhile to explore the possibility of gathering the chief contending features of that divergence into a broad coalition of right-wing, centrist, and left-wing forces. Perhaps such a process is already underway. But to hope or propagate that two parties, clones at best, may be trusted to answer the call of India’s incomparably diverse and complex polity is to live in a cloistered complacence of potentially dangerous consequence.
Let it be understood that consensus about the political superstructure can happen only when a consensus exists in regard to the base. In a situation where some seventy percent of the population remain unfulfilled by the character of the base, it is folly to wish that what “knowledge commissions” at the top believe to be knowledge is truly so.
Managers and technocrats but run the given; politics seeks to make the new. And in India there is a lot of making waiting to be done that would seem to lie beyond the will or ideological preference of the two major parties