By Anirudh Prakash
After the dramatic 6th March 2012 five-state poll verdict, the focus of the country’s probing political eyes has shifted to the year 2014 when the fate of the scam-ridden Congress-led UPA government at the Centre will be decided in the people’s court. Mid-term poll will, of course, be a different ball-game. The moot point is: will the 2014 national mandate upset the existing balance of coalition power sharing? A lot will depend on how the two major national parties — Congress and BJP — correct their policies and postures keeping in view the rise of regional parties.
Dr. B. R.Ambedkar, the father of the Indian Constitution had his own foresight and the way of looking at futuristic politics, particularly at its undesirable tendencies. He told the Constituent Assembly: “In India, bhakti, or what might be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to the eventual dictatorship.”
In today’s political idiom of dynasty rule, this hero worship may take the form of crude sycophancy by a select group of self-seekers and hangers-on cut off from the ground realities around. Most of the ills within the Congress emanate from its sycophancy culture among “loyal” party men hovering around Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. This was very much visible in loose talks recently indulged in by some of the Central Congress ministers involved in the thick of UP politics. Interestingly, the setback caused to Mayawati was mainly due to her arrogant style of functioning that she adopted probably following the model of the Congress leadership at the Centre.
Humility, and not arrogance, pays in public life. In UP, the contrast was visible between the two Yuvrajs during the election campaign, Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi. The youthful SP leader was well focused, articulate and positive. Some of his thoughts might have been one-sided especially on the Muslim quota, but all the same he gave the impression of thinking and moving on modern lines.
The Congress Yuvraj, on the other hand, conducted himself as an angry young man, who seemed to be in a hurry to grab power. Central minister of state for home affairs Jaiswal strengthened this impression by his loose remark that Rahul could become prime minister overnight. This was Jaiswal’s crude sycophancy. Then, the heir apparent tearing off of the SP election manifesto was not in good taste. This Amitabh Bachchan-like profile looks good on the screen but not in public life that demands a degree of sobriety, seriousness and proper understanding of the ground reality.
Today’s vibrant Indian democracy cannot be run as someone’s fiefdom. As it is, the Congress is no longer a grassroots party. Its top leaders are cut off from the ground realities. The interaction between national and state units has shrunk. Short term gains dominate the thinking and action of Central leaders. Since personal loyalty and sycophancy are the guiding philosophy, we see the ascendancy of second-rate leaders. The faceless high command has thus increasingly tampered with the due process of selection of leaders at the state levels, basing its judgment on imaginary calculations fed by favourite vested interests.
In a sense, the rise of regionalism has been an offshoot of wrong policies and postures pursued by Congress leaders in the states. They have shown lack of appreciation and understanding of the regional feelings and sensitivities.
The shabby treatment meted out to the late T. Anjiah, and then CM of Andhra Pradesh, by Rajiv Gandhi during his Hyderabad visit eventually helped N. T. Rama Rao and his Telugu Desam party to exploit the deeply hurt Andhra pride in his favour. It is sad but true that Central leaders have exhibited both arrogance and ignorance in dealing with state leaders. This has led to the rise of local and regional leaders who whip up anti-Centre feelings whenever it is politically convenient to them. This human factor is most neglected in the working of our federal system. Any number of recent examples can be cited in this regard.
It is wrong to dismiss state leaders as parochial or lacking in national perspective. It needs to be appreciated that the arrogance of power on the part of Central leaders is not the best guarantee against fissiparous tendency in the country. Excessive centralization of political authority in a highly plural society may even weaken the unity of the country by destroying the participatory nature of the democratic polity. This tendency breeds inefficiency which, in turn, will set the minds of the people of a state against the Central authority.
In a way, Indian federalism today is passing through a grave crisis, political and structural. Politically, everything is on the boil. There are numerous areas of conflicts, some grave. The dimension of the decay is actually a pointer to the crisis of leadership as well as of the system. The Congress party no longer enjoys the standing of a dynamic centrist party, capable of evolving a policy of steady, economic and social growth. The party lacks a vision. So does its ability to see things in a wider perspective.
The right message in this context has come from Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. He says that “national parties can succeed only if they forge viable coalitions. And these coalitions will have to respect regional aspirations and demands of state governments”.
The Bihar chief minister has reasons to be sore the way the Central administration functions. He states that “the Centre has consistently been rejecting every rightful demand of state governments. It has no respect for federal structure. Its leaders have been treating Central funds as part of personal coffer…..The Centre has given decision-making a partisan turn. There has been no discussion with the states on fiscal policy that affects the states on allocation of finite natural resources”.
The message is clear to the Congress and its UPA outfit as well as to the BJP. If the saffron party wishes to get back its NDA clout amidst visible and invisible moves for the formation of a third front, it has to mend its ways and radically reform its policies, postures and responses. INAV