Politics of paternalism is dead
By Amulya Ganguli
The election results have shown that the old style of politics of arrogant, patronizing parties and mai-baap sarkars is dead. It is governance which now matters in the post-1991 era of economic reforms, when the voters are no longer satisfied with appeals to their asmita or pride or the handouts of benefits through quotas.
In view of the unleashing of the people’s entrepreneurial skills, which enable them to transcend their caste or communal restrictions by the dint of their own merit, and at a time when an open economy allows the flourishing of trade and industry, all that the voters want is for the governments to concentrate on roads, electricity and education so that full advantage can be taken of the new opportunities.
The time when Lalu Prasad Yadav could rule for a decade and a half by promising self-respect to the OBCs and security to the Muslims has ended. As a result, Mayawati could rule for only five years since her assurances of self-respect for Dalits, which also gave them the pride of place over Brahmins in her rainbow coalition, were not enough even for large sections of her core group of supporters in the absence of development.
It was probably Nitish Kumar’s triumph in 2010 which told Mayawati that cycles for school girls paid greater political dividends than statues of herself and other Dalit icons. But, by then, it was too late to make up for her wasted years. What was more, the allegations of corruption eroded her popularity as she became known as daulat ki beti instead of Dalit ki beti.
As a result, the belated dismissal of 22 ministers was of little help since it merely confirmed how wide was the extent of the prevailing corruption. The assassination of six people, including two chief medical officers, in connection with the rural health mission scam showed how closely linked murder was with malfeasance.
If Mayawati belonged to an earlier era of paternalism, the Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav had evidently learnt that neither muscle power to cow down voters nor the evocation of the colonial era, Angrezi hatao, prejudices was of any help at a time when, as a recent report showed, there has been a phenomenal increase in the percentage of students enrolling in English-medium schools.
He quickly distanced himself, therefore, both from his father, Mulayam Singh’s aversion to English and computers and promised to erase his party’s image of being in cahoots with anti-social elements. He may or may not be able to keep his word, but the disenchantment with Mayawati has evidently been so high that the electorate decided to take his pledge at face value.
The challenge for the Samajwadi Party, therefore, is to emerge from its rough-and-ready and unsophisticated mofussil past into the new, evolving milieu where the emphasis is increasingly on law and order and the availability of the basic requirements of life.
It is worth noting in this context that the chief ministers who have been able to beat the anti-incumbency factor include Nitish Kumar, Narendra Modi, Shiela Dikshit and Naveen Patnaik with their focus on development. Prakash Singh Badal has now joined this list. Whether Mulayam Singh does so will depend on whether he implements his son’s promises.
If the Samajwadi Party can be said to have become more progressive, it is the opposite in the case of the Congress. Instead of adhering to its traditional non-sectarian line, it tried to play both the caste and communal cards, with disastrous results. It first sought to woo the Most Backward Castes (MBCs) from the OBC-dominated Samajwadi Party and the non-Jatav ati-Dalits from the BSP.
Then, it played its familiar minority-appeasing role by promising a 4.5 per cent quota to the backward castes among Muslims from within the overall 27 per cent OBC quota. Not satisfied with this display of divisive politics, two senior Congress ministers defied the Election Commission when it shot down its suggestion of the 4.5 quota as a violation of the model code of conduct. There was even a veiled threat of divesting the commission of its power to enforce the model code just as there was a veiled threat of imposing President’s role if there was a hung assembly.
Evidently, the voters were not amused by these disgraceful antics of the Grand Old Party, which isn’t so any longer. Neither the MBCs, nor the ati-Dalits, nor the Muslims cared what the Congress promised. But, more than the Congress, it is Rahul Gandhi who has suffered the most from the setback. Not only has the party’s hope of projecting him as its prime ministerial candidate in 2014 been shattered, it is becoming increasingly clear that the dynasty’s fabled charisma is fading.
This failure has been highlighted by the fact that virtually the entire first family of the Congress – mother, son, daughter and son-in-law – campaigned in U.P. Now, the family can no longer bail the party out of trouble. (IPA Service)