By Indranil Banerjea
Rahul Gandhi had already left the United States with a graduate degree from Florida’s Rollins College (no, not Harvard) when David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University came up with a curious finding in 1999. Their paper, Unskilled and Unaware of It, explored how “people tend to hold overly optimistic and mis-calibrated views about themselves”.
Such overestimation — known since as the Dunning-Kruger effect — occurs because, “Those with limited knowledge in a domain suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach mistaken conclusions and make regrettable errors, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realise it”. Indeed, more than a century before this paper was published, Charles Darwin identified the phenomenon: “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”
It may not be surprising that Rahul Gandhi, still politically young and a novice on many a count, overestimated his electoral appeal. However, when a century-old party, and many of its veteran leaders, vociferously second that judgement, it cannot be blamed on ignorance but a delusion. A Gandhi is always the party’s best face at the hustings — the Congress has turned this tradition into an occult faith-even if that Gandhi is called Rahul and had come a cropper in Bihar in 2010.
If it is any comfort to the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears equally wishful about its electoral prospects. Barring Goa, where the party was handed a lollipop by the Congress, all other states have underlined how the BJP’s expectations were out of sync with its performance. Before the party can think of occupying the political space ceded by the Congress, it needs to work on a bulwark to arrest its own slide. Yet, the BJP’s national leaders, as if to vindicate the Cornell duo, are basking in the glory of their ally and the prospect of a walkover at the Centre.
This has encouraged many to bet wishfully on a new “third front”, a rainbow alliance of state chieftains. Anyone who remembers the marathon negotiations among Deve Gowda, Lalu Yadav, Chandrababu Naidu, G. K. Moopanar and S.R. Bommai at the Tamil Nadu Bhawan, Sharad Yadav’s 9- Akbar Road residence and Karnataka Bhawan on 31 May 1996, to put together a 13-party cabinet, will agree that regional ambitions and equations do not necessarily factor in national interests.
Denied a cabinet berth, N.D. Tiwari and his Indira Congress refused to support the Gowda government. Srikant Jena had to be left out to appease Biju Patnaik. Lalu extracted so many ministerial berths for Bihar that Virendra Kumar, chief of Janata Dal’s Kerala unit, could not be accommodated despite the Left Front and VP Singh himself rooting for him. The list of intrigues ran too long.
The first third front experiment did not succeed, partly due to its dependence on the Congress for survival. The inexperience of the ministers, few of whom had ever held any public office of consequence, also compromised the government’s efficiency.
One-and-a-half decades on, the politics has changed. Janata Dal has splintered with factions like Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) reduced to insignificance in Parliament. Tamil Maanila Congress has ceased to be. The Left have lost their strongholds.
To add up the numbers, a new third front will require Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mamata Bannerjee, Naveen Patnaik, N. Chandrababu Naidu, and J. Jayalalithaa (perhaps even Nitish Kumar and Sharad Pawar) to join hands. On a range of key issues — from women’s reservation to agriculture and industrialisation — these leaders stand on the opposite ends of the policy spectrum. More significantly, most of these leaders head what were originally splinter outfits that have not raised or nurtured too many political talents since.
Even the ragtag cabinet of 1996 flaunted a bunch of big names in the high-profile ministries — Indrajit Gupta (Home), P. Chidambaram (Finance), Mulayam Singh Yadav (Defence), I.K. Gujral (External Affairs), Chaturanan Mishra (Agriculture), Murasoli Maran (Industry), M. Arunachalam (Labour), Ram Vilas Paswan (Railways) or even C. M. Ibrahim (Aviation). Some of these leaders are dead, others not in a position to be part of a second Third Front (except Mulayam Singh Yadav, though he may not leave Lucknow for Delhi). The big mentors of the first Third Front, V.P. Singh, H.K.S. Surjeet and G.K. Moopanar, are no more.
Who are the substitutes? Regional satraps who are such control freaks and untrusting of their own loyalists that they run virtual autocracies in their states. Such a political culture does not allow a strong second rung leadership. So Mamata, Patnaik, Jayalalithaa, even Naidu, pretty much run their solo shows. Tomorrow, even if they master unexpected flexibility to put together a coalition at the Centre, what common policies and agenda will they peddle? More importantly, where will they find minister material overnight?
Yes, the Samajwadi Party can send one of the Yadavs to the Centre. Nitish may oblige Sharad Yadav who was left out in 1996 due to his hawala stain. Pawar may feel tempted to finally fulfill his prime ministerial ambition and carry Praful Patel along. But it takes more than a couple of Yadavs, a Pawar and a Patel to run the country.
Therefore, if the state chieftains do not suddenly show the Dunning-Kruger effect, the next Lok Sabha polls are likely to be a race of kingmakers. Both the Congress and the BJP should dread a situation when they will be tempted, rather obliged, to carry ever more powerful allies on their back who will call the shots. Only, there may be just enough time for the two national parties to get real and put up a fight. INAV