Opinion: THE ABC OF INDIAN POLITICS

By M H Ahssan

I don’t understand the ABC of Indian politics. Or for that matter the AGP, or RJD, or NCP, or PKP, or JD(S). Scientists say life arose on earth from a primordial soup. Political life in India seems to have arisen from an alphabet soup. What am i — or you, or even the CEC, come to that — to make of a statement like: ‘Apart from JD(S), Third Front consists of CPM, CPI, RSP, FB, TDP, AIADMK, TRS, BSP, HJC, and BJD’? Or ‘An alliance finally made headway on Sunday when PMK president met AIADMK boss’? Or ‘Four Left parties and TDP, TRS, AIADMK, JD(S) and BJD decided to come up with a vision document’?

Well, bully for them. And i wish they’d share their vision — all properly documented, and giftwrapped, thank you — with me. Because what with all these abbreviations — UPA, NDA, BJP, CPI(ML), DMK, MDMK, JMM, and what have U — i can’t see the trees for the wood, or the parties for the alphabet.

So far as i can make out — which admittedly, isn’t very far, or IVF, to keep in the alphabetic abbreviation mode of things — the only Indian political party which hasn’t been reduced to initials-only size is the Congress. And even this isn’t entirely true, because quite often the Congress is referred to as the INC (Indian National Congress), as distinct from the NCP (which stands for Nationalist Congress Party, or Nationalist Congress Pawar, take your pick). The Congress is also often called the GOP (which stands for Grand Old Party, or Gandhis’ Own Party, you get to take your pick again, you lucky thing).

All this abbreviated alphabetisation of politics is of course environmentally very sound. If, for example, instead of CPI(ML) you had to go the full monty as it were as in Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, or instead of AIADMK you had to write All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, or instead of JSS you had to — tongue sticking out of the corner of your mouth in concentration — put down Janathipathiya Samrakshana Samithy, and watch how you spell Samrakswhosis, you’d have finished up all the space in this column just naming the parties involved, and in order to find out what they did to each, or with each other, readers would have to turn to the Classified Ads Section on Page 23 where further details might be found tucked away between solicitations like: ‘Russian Escort Hi-Profile Decent Educated Indian, Turkey, Punjabi Model Masseurs. M/F 24 Hrs. H/H Serv. All C.C. Accepted’.

Can you imagine how many Scandinavian pine forests would have to be mowed down to provide the extra newsprint for political reportage if our parties hadn’t done the decent thing and alphabetically abbreviated themselves? Our eco-warriors would have thrown a fit. Not to mention our Decent Educated M/F Masseurs, All C.C. Accepted.

No, political abbreviation is decidedly a good thing. The only problem is that it makes it a bit difficult for non-bearded, noncelebrity, non-televised, non-psephologists like me to figure out exactly who’s doing what to whom, and how: Will JKNPP split the PDP vote to JKNC’s advantage?

Somewhere between all those Ps, and Js, and Ks, and Ns, i’ve lost it. Never mind what it does or doesn’t do to the PDP vote. Somewhere along the line, the JCPKN (or is it the NKJPD?) has split whatever little political understanding i possess. I’d try colour-coding all those MZPCs, and RLDs, and KEC(M)s, and SAD(M)s, and UKKDs, and UGDPs. But there are some 730 registered parties, all alpht abrtd (alphabetically abbreviated) as of the CEC’s last count in 2005. And the last time i looked there weren’t 730 different, and distinct and distinguishing shades of colour in vibgyor (violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red: this alpht abrtn is catching).

So i’m resigned to not understanding the ABC of politics. Which is fine because politics probably doesn’t want to understand me either. Alpht abrtd as i am in the north Indian political lexicon as a right ignorant BCMC. Whatever that stands for.