STOCK-TAKING 2015 FOR A NEW START
By B.K. Chum
Dawn of New Year is the time to draw balance sheet of the outgoing year’s happenings. But, more importantly, it provides an opportunity to perceive what the New Year holds for the future. To begin with the hazardous task of predicting the likely course that political events may take in 2016, when five state assemblies are to go to the polls.
History, it is said, teaches lesson. The non-BJP parties seem to have learnt it from the Mahagathbandhan’s dramatic victory in the Bihar assembly elections inflicting a stunning blow to the BJP. The Bihar verdict is bound to trigger political realignments at national level. Already, there are indications that the “secular and democratic parties” may join hands to contest the 2016 assembly polls in West Bengal. The other states where assembly elections will be held in 2016 and 2017 are Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry.
The Bihar experience carries a lesson for the non-BJP mainstream national parties, particularly the Congress and the Left, both of which had suffered a severe blow in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls with their respective tallies touching the lowest ever in their electoral history. Their political compulsions may force them to have an understanding for contesting the 2016 assembly elections. An indication about their following such a course has been provided by the CPM’s five-day organizational Plenum which concluded its five-day meeting in Kolkata on December 31.
While deciding to adopt “flexibility tactics to deal with emerging political situations”, the party has hinted the possibility of having an alliance with the Congress, which was a part of the Bihar Mahagathbandhan, for fighting the West Bengal Assembly elections. Party’s general secretary Sitaram Yechury said “the decision on the issue (for an alliance with the Congress) was left to the party’s state committee, followed by the central committee”.
Electoral compulsions of the two mainstream national parties may also prompt them to join hands with the “like-minded regional parties” to defeat the BJP and other “communal and divisive forces”, in the 2016 and 2017 Assembly elections.
The past experience of the Left and the Congress often reaching, sometime clandestine, understanding for contesting Punjab Assembly polls which had yielded them electoral dividends may prompt them to repeat Punjab in the states due for polls this year.
It is in the backdrop of the above narrative that drawing a balance sheet of the 2015 events acquires relevance.
2014 was the year of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Under his stewardship, the BJP won its historic absolute majority in the Lok Sabha elections. But 2015 saw the beginning of the slide of both Modi and his party. Within seven months, the BJP had its worst defeat in the country’s poll history when it was virtually wiped out getting only three of the Delhi assembly’s 70 seats with the Arvind Kejrival-led Aam Aadmi Party bagging 67.
After a few months, the ruling party suffered its politically most devastating setback when it lost Bihar Assembly polls. Prime Minister Modi had even compromised the high stature of his office by undertaking a virtually non-stop poll campaign in a state assembly poll. The Bihar polls showed that Modi had started losing his sheen. The growing anti-incumbency sentiment is not only reflected in the severe electoral jolt the saffron party received in Bihar but seems to be gaining momentum. The party has lost most of the by-elections and rural and urban local bodies elections held even in some of the BJP-ruled states. The latest serious setback the party has received is in Chhattisgarh where the Congress emerged victorious in eight out of 11 urban bodies.
Not only its electoral defeats in the elections in the two state assembly and in a number of urban and rural local bodies even in the BJP-ruled states, there have been other factors which have also contributed to the ruling party’s slide.
The biggest factor was the communal polarization of the pluralist nation. One of the latest incidents which exemplified the horrific development was the lynching of a Muslim and mercilessly beating his son in Dadri on rumours that they have kept beef in their refrigerator. The official testing agency later found it to be mutton and not beef. It was a group of persons including a BJP leader’s son who committed the gruesome lynching after the announcement from the local temple, reportedly forced by the group, that the victim had stored beef in his refrigerator.
Another important factor which created polarization was the provocative and inflammatory communal utterances by some BJP leaders including some of its MPs and sadhus and sadhvis calling upon those who would not support or vote for Modi to go to Pakistan. Implementation of the RSS’s Hindutva agenda was also started by saffronisation of education and institutions of excellence. Undeserving RSS pracharaks were appointed as chiefs of some of these institutions evoking strong reactions from the people. The prime minister did not take any action against the culprits indulging in such actions.
Modi also did not heed the warning the US President Barack Obama (whom Modi repeatedly addressed as his friend “Barack”) gave during his visit to India in January 2015.
Addressing a Delhi meeting, Obama had warned “Far too often, violence is propagated by those using religion to tap into dark impulses. Freedom of religion is intrinsic to both our (US and Indian) cultures. Everyone has right to practice their faith without fear of persecution, discrimination. India will succeed so long it is not splintered on religious lines. We have to guard against any efforts to divide us on sectarian lines or any other thing.”
Besides the BJP, some of its allies, particularly the Akali Dal, also used religion for their political objectives, especially to contain the sharply rising anti-incumbency sentiment. The Badals action in politically managing pardon from Akali Takht for Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh for wearing the attire similar to the one worn by Guru Gobind Singh created the worst a crisis in the Akali-BJP’s nine year rule. The Akali Dal may not easily recover from the religio-political crisis. The Dera chief enjoys a large following in Akali Dal’s bastion Malwa region.
Not to speak of fulfilling his promise of achche din, the foregoing developments pose a serious challenge to the country’s ruling bosses. Will Modi be able to win what Mao Zedong had said “Politics is war without bloodshed”? (IPA Service)