The moth-eaten shibboleth of secularism as the cornerstone of the crumbling Nehruvian paradigm has been pulled out of the cellar by aging stalwarts, ideologues, and regional satraps anxious to retain a modicum of relevance in the fast-changing template of Indian politics. Secularism, it needs hardly be stated, is the over-used panacea for communalism, a term the first Prime Minister used to denigrate the Hindu community and inhibit it from asserting itself in a manner that would put the Congress party (and him) out of power.
It was a highly successful strategy, and from the first rout of the Congress in northern India in 1967, we may say that fashioning a non-Congress polity has been the agenda of the Indian people. On the face of it, therefore, it seems surprising that leaders and parties traditionally associated with the quest for a non-Congress Government at the Centre should actively avoid the emerging dominant nucleus of such a regime (read Bharatiya Janata Party), and scramble instead for a nebulous formation called the Third Front. But this is easily explained.
The Left parties which have taken the initiative to facilitate the Third Front have always been an extension of Jawaharlal Nehru’s politics. Recall that even before independence, the Congress under Nehru took the political centre stage and left the ‘Congress Socialist Party’ intact to grab opposition space.
All communist and socialist parties of varying hues have had a tacit understanding with the Congress since then (dismissal of EMS Namboodiripad’s government notwithstanding). All elite, intellectual, cultural, populist space in the nation was deliberately ceded to this secular, virulently non-Hindu and even anti-Hindu, class. Their pickings improved dramatically under Indira Gandhi who created a plethora of institutions to batten them financially.
The regional parties that emerged due to Congress neglect of their respective States catered to the regional sentiment but followed the Congress blueprint in crucial respects, such as crafting a winning electoral arithmetic with the minority votebank. That is why the non-Congress parties tended to come to power only when popular disappointment with Congress peaked for whatever reason; they had little relevance and standing when Congress bounced back to power.
In a nutshell, the political parties that participated in the non-Congress efforts never tried to fashion an alternative template. Only the Jana Sangh, and later the Bharatiya Janata Party, sought to create an alternative paradigm giving due weightage to the Hindu majority without prejudicing the rights of minorities. The skilful demonisation of this endeavour by Nehru and his political heirs thwarted its progress, and made the BJP itself falter and lose its way. That is until Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi began to demonstrate – and then to articulate – a new economics that shunned patronage and enveloped all people and regions in his State in a single model of growth. It was only a matter of time before the rest of India was enticed by this new archetype, a sentiment Modi reciprocated by inviting the people to share in his vision.
When the Congress-dominated UPA began to reel under a succession of corruption scandals and steeply plunging economic growth, the party’s mini-clones were faced with the choice of either facilitating the rise of Narendra Modi and his inclusive politics, or vilifying him and attempting to forge a Third Front to mop up the traditional votebank of the Congress. That its core component – the Muslim votebank – is wavering between a desire to go along with Narendra Modi or playing safe by voting non-Congress – explains the rage of some of the Third Front proponents against the BJP stalwart. Without assured Muslim support, neither secularism nor communalism has any meaning. It is a comical conundrum.
More than Narendra Modi, it is the fear of a new Indian polity rising of its own volition that can be said to be the inspiration behind the Third Front at this juncture, when the Left parties are in disarray in their critical bastions of West Bengal and Kerala, and regional leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Nitish Kumar are themselves floundering. The move will have little traction among the people at large because the Gujarat strongman is not so much the leader of the new aspirational India as he is the man it has selected to lead them.
This may not seem like a big difference. But it is precisely because aspirational India has chosen Modi that he is able to overcome mistakes (like toilets before temples) without breaking his stride. Were people following his tune, a serious faux pas could confuse and scatter them. Of course, this does not mean that he does not have to be careful. This brings us to the Third Front, a tired gathering of 17 parties including the Left, Janata Dal (United), Samajwadi Party, AIADMK, Biju Janata Dal, Nationalist Congress Party, Deve Gowda, Manpreet Badal, Prakash Ambedkar, Babulal Marandi and others. Its most vocal proponent, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, will doubtless grab the sound waves with his anti-Narendra Modi barbs in the run up to the elections. But as they lack a coherent ideology or electoral strategy different from Congress, it is unclear what they actually have to offer to the public.
Strong regional formations like the Biju Janata Dal and the AIADMK will successfully defend their local turfs. But Nitish Kumar and Mulayam Singh Yadav seem unsure about facing the challenge from the BJP. The NCP’s Praful Patel was candid that the party was keeping its options open in the “era of coalition politics”. This means that at least some of those who attended came only to sniff the atmospherics. And perhaps to indicate to another audience elsewhere that they were “available”.
The fact of the matter is that Indian politics is not large enough to yield a non-Congress and non-BJP alternative. The Congress or the BJP has to be the core around which Government, or Opposition, formation takes place. It is interesting that the Trinamool Congress, the DMK, Telugu Desam Party, and YSR Congress did not attend the convention (or were not invited), for various reasons. Even more interesting is the likelihood that the 2014 general election may serve as the funeral pyre of the discredited mantras of secularism and communalism.
Niticentral.com, 31 October 2013
http://www.niticentral.com/2013/10/31/third-front-is-a-failed-project-153071.html