By M H Ahssan
The year ahead promises to be an eventful one, no less so due to the criss-crossing of different cross currents in public life. How the issue is defined at the level of the meta polity will have much to do with the eventual outcome.
It is tempting, all too tempting in an age of regionalised political trends and forces, to dismiss the very idea that there is anything like a nationwide issue. It is all too natural that there are plural patterns in a continental style polity like India’s.
This is no new pattern at work. The south stood by Indira Gandhi in 1977 even as her party was wiped out in the north. In 1984, Rajiv did not dent Andhra Pradesh even as he took most of the rest of India. In successive polls, West Bengal has stood by its ruling Left Front even as one regional party or the other has taken the lead in Tamil Nadu.
Even more recently, whole regions and states have diverged and widely so. Karnataka voted overwhelmingly for the BJP in the last general elections while neighbouring Kerala went with the Left. Yet, there are larger patterns in the trend. In 2004, the vote was for change. It was for a change of regime in New Delhi just as clearly as the previous verdict was one for Vajpayee having a full term at the top.
Over the last decade, the two largest parties have learnt the hard way that they have to tie together a host of smaller forces into alliances. In return for a lion’s share of seats in a state, the latter accede to share power at the Centre but without bidding for the top jobs.
But to hold these together requires a bigger idea, a vision statement. This gives an alliance a sense of purpose, a feeling that it is marching to the beat of the same drum. Like armies massing for battle, parties group together in battle array to reach out to the voters’ minds.
Nothing moves them like a unity of purpose for power. But they do need something more than that to justify why they are out there in the field. This is why what issue comes to the fore matters. At the time of writing, it is difficult to see a slogan or a catch phrase that can capture the popular mood. In 1980, it was simply ‘a government that works’. In 1971 it was the all time hit, ‘Garibi Hatao’ or ‘Banish Poverty’.
But these were cases where one party reaped the gains of a rich electoral harvest. What when there is no one clear challenger or winner? This was very much the scene in 1996 when Narasimha Rao’s Congress lost but there was no clear winner. The BJP was the single-largest force but with too few friends. No Third Force existed before the verdict, but one rapidly assumed shape after the results. It held together into the next elections and fell only due to Congress withdrawing support.
Security
Security will remain an abiding concern as the Guwahati bomb blasts, the tenth in less than a year in Assam alone, showed, and on this count, foreign and domestic politics are closely intertwined. Politics will continue to revolve around the fortunes of parties in the elections, and with the next general elections a few weeks away, the pace will soon quicken.
Whether terror will be the end-all issue is doubtful. It has indeed been the central concern as in 1984 at the national level and in key state polls. It carried J. Jayalalithaa to power in Chennai in 1991 after Rajiv’s shocking assassination. But these killings of stalwart national leaders were exceptional.
Terrorist attacks have been so commonplace in the last few years that the issue is one of widespread concern, not just in Mumbai but in a host of urban centres from Guwahati to Delhi, Jaipur to Bengaluru. But who is to define the issue in such a way that one party seems to stand apart from all the others? The years in power weigh heavy on the Bharatiya Janata Party. Having negotiated with the Hizb- ul- Mujahideen in Srinagar and traded prisoners for hostages in Kandahar, it is not so easy to accuse others of being soft. And now that a tough anti- terror law has been put on the statute book, it will be difficult to campaign for such a law.
Jobs
The Congress’s ability to portray itself as tough as door nails is never to be ruled out. Many tend to forget that a Preventive Detention Act was first enacted under Jawaharlal Nehru after a nascent India fought off rebellion by Communist guerrillas in Telengana as well as strident attack for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
But short of a major breakthrough via diplomacy on the Pakistan front or a fever pitch of war on election eve, it is not likely this card will work wonders for the Congress. Nor can the party given its present course easily play on polarisation the way it did with such deadly effect in the Eighties.
There is another more prosaic cause why terror may not be the number one issue. It is the economy that will take pride of place, rousing anxieties and raising fears to a new level.
Today, more than even 2004, India’s economy is tied to that of the wider world. With 24 per cent of the gross domestic product accounted for by exports, the slowdown will have longrange consequences, especially in towns whose economies are attuned to the global market.
Workers who have lost their jobs are headed home from Surat to Saurashtra or from Tiruppur into rural Tamil Nadu. Textiles are in trouble as are automobiles and, more seriously, heavy and light commercial vehicles.
Once before when the economy contracted by 5 per cent in 1979- 80, voters punished the Janata Party and Congress stayed impregnable for a decade.
There is no such contraction now, only a slackening of the pace. But these figures mean little to those who have lost out. Beyond those directly tied to exports, there are those whose jobs or production processes depend indirectly on them.
Verdict
India will still be less adversely hit than China but in a multi- party polity there are more avenues for ventilation of grievances. None is as potent as the ballot box.
Here, the turbulence comes to the surface, making each head uneasy that wears the crown. In a democracy there is no royal coronet, only a crown of thorns.
It is therefore more and not less likely that 2009 will see a vote for change. Can a ruling party capture and express this yearning for change.
It can but only if it offers hopes of a shift to a better, more secure future.
But it is that much more difficult when the audience is anxiety- ridden about its own livelihood.
This will explain why the Centre is moving so fast on one stimulus package after the other. These may be intended to give the economy fresh wind but they are as much to breathe life into the frame of the ruling coalition.
Nothing less than its fate is at stake.
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