By Srinivasan K. Rangachary
Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s recent statement advocating a new anti-Congress and anti-BJP third front at the Centre has already triggered a debate in the country. While the Congress and the BJP, Patnaik’s two principal rivals in his home state, have described his remarks as a “day dream” the leaders of the chief minister’s ruling regional outfit, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) have welcomed his statement.
They, in fact, have already started projecting him as the leader of the new third front, if and when it takes shape, possibly after the declaration of the results of crucial Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. Patnaik’s advocacy for a third front in New Delhi was nothing but yet another attempt on his part to make himself and his party a major player in the national politics. After breaking his more than a decade long association with the BJP on the eve of 2009 Lok Sabha and assembly elections, Patnaik had joined hands with the Left parties in the hope that after the elections a third front would be formed at the Centre in which he would play a key role with the backing of his Left associates.
But the Congress’ unexpected victory in the polls and the Left’s downfall in its stronghold of West Bengal poured cold water on his third front dreams. Despite its repeated successes in different elections in Odisha, the BJD has remained an almost isolated force at the Centre since its break up with the BJP.
Patnaik realises that it is necessary for a regional party to remain part a group or a front at the national level for his own as well as state’s benefit. Therefore, the fresh advocacy for a new third front. The central leadership of the BJP a few months back had given enough hints of a reunion with its old Odisha ally and the hints were reciprocated positively by the BJD. However, the state BJP leaders’ vehement opposition to any kind of a fresh tie up with the BJD saw the re-union efforts falling flat.
Now the question is whether it would be possible for regional leaders of other states to come forward to float a new third front at the Centre as proposed by Patnaik. But it may not be that easy because of political compulsions in their own states. Take for instance the newly elected West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the Left parties. Because of their intense rivalry in Bengal, both cannot be part of the same front. And it will be difficult to create a new anti-Congress and anti-BJP third front without the backing of either Mamata or the Left parties. The same holds good with the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
Many BJD leaders are of the view that Patnaik would be able to rope in the Maharashtra strongman into the new third front because of his close association with the Union agriculture minister — the NCP and BJD had an alliance in Odisha during the 2009 assembly elections. However, it will be difficult for Pawar to snap his ties with the Congress because of the ground realities in his home state. Like Mamata Banerjee, Bihar chief minister and JD (U) heavyweight Nitish Kumar is another regional satrap without whom a third front can not be conceivable. But if one would go by recent statements made by some of Kumar’s close associates from Bihar then the JD (U) seems to be not keen to drop the BJP and snap its ties with the NDA.
For all theses factors Naveen Patnaik’s idea of a new anti-Congress and anti-BJP third front may not see the light of the day, at least not in near future. Coming together against the Congress led UPA government at the Centre on issues like the NCTC is one thing and floating a new front is another.
So far as projecting Patnaik as the leader of the new third front is concerned, it may also turn out to be a futile exercise as, in the event of formation of such a front, many leaders much senior and more experienced in politics than him may emerge to lead the front, observers believe.
It is not for the first time there is talk of emergence of the Third Front, the joker in the Indian political pack that has talked itself up as a serious alternative to the two national parties in the 2009 parliamentary elections.
The difference they tout is of being more inclusive, bringing into the public fold social groups neglected or oppressed by the Congress and the BJP.
Whether this claim that some take rather very seriously is sustainable is the moot question. The answer may be no, if the history of this rag-tag group that has emerged with near-decadal precision since 1967 is any guide. The rise of these parties was part of a process of the broadening of Indian democracy, bringing into the public sphere middle and lower castes, religious minorities and tribals in their own right.
But this broadening has not completely gone hand in hand with it a deepening of democracy, empowering these traditionally subordinate groups.
Rather, critics argue it has become the cultural equivalent of the failed trickle-down theory in economics, bringing immediate benefits to the elite amongst them, entrenching some at the cost of others and widening social disparities.
The Congress party, ruling India uninterruptedly for the first three decades of independence, had as its power-base the landed elite, and its relationship with the subordinate groups was that of a patron and a client.
As some of these groups prospered economically from increased agricultural incomes, they began demanding a larger share in the public sphere. These groups were largely of the middle castes — what is today termed Other Backward Classes in official parlance — and comprised petty landowners and peasant proprietors.
Their aspirations were tapped by the various socialist parties which traced their roots to the left leaning factions of the pre-independent Congress, factions that had actively led peasant movements in the 1920s and the 1930s.
It was also this upsurge that led these parties to implement job reservations for the Other Backward Classes — the official parlance for these castes — in the states they ruled, much before 1990 when New Delhi made it a national law.
But where they failed was to build upon this silent revolution to ensure a fundamental change in the role of the state as patron doling out (limited) resources. They did not ensure a process of economic redistribution that would benefit all. Rather, many analysts argue they followed a policy that redirected resources to groups that had reaped the benefits of reservations, and had entrenched themselves as new elite.
Separated thus from the ideological motivations that gave them birth and nurtured them, critics say most of these parties exist solely for the perpetuation of the cult of the leader and their policies are simply to ensure the dominance of groups that back them.
If one adjective had to be used for the motley crew of the Front, it may be “pragmatic.” The argument goes that it makes no difference to any one of them if India became a client state of the United States or of Tanzania or whether monetary policy is biased towards maintaining growth or containing inflation.
Each of them has slept with almost everyone else, supported policies across the spectrum, bonded with reformists, communists, communalists, secularists, pseudo-secularists, appeasers, all the various other terminological curiosities that pepper the Indian political glossary.INAV
