Indian democracy has now been a wondrous phenomenon for sixty-plus years, if you count from the date of the first election in 1952. Indian democracy has a modern pre-history from colonial times, of course. But adult franchise dates from 1952 and that has to be the starting point of any democracy. Let us say that the Nehru phase was childhood and early growth. There was one-party dominance, and Congress mai-baap took care of all.
The crisis came in 1967, when Congress began to lose elections in the states. Indira Gandhi then split Congress and refashioned her side into a family-led party in which all power was concentrated at the top. It was an adolescent, rebellious gesture. Congress hegemony over the sixty six years since Independence has fashioned the national narrative so totally that it seems a sacrilege to question it. Dissident voices, such as that of Jan Sangh/BJP, are viewed with suspicion, if not fear. The ideology of Hindu Rashtra/Hindutva is castigated as alien and anomalous, a strange creature living uncomfortably and subversively within the Congress’ ‘idea of India’.
2014 is the year when the certainties of this hegemonic Congress narrative are about to be challenged. The challenge comes from a particularly extreme specimen of the dreaded (by the partisans of the hegemonic narrative) ideology. Narendra Modi is no ordinary BJP member. He is proud of his RSS background. He is besmirched with the Gujarat riots stories, and is unrepentant of his role at that time. He does not even pay lip service to the hegemonic Congress narrative but, in raising controversy about Sardar Patel, questions its seamless unity.
At first, Congress and its many sympathisers were incredulous that such a person could aspire to lead India. They belittled him as a mere state-level leader. They said he would be divisive and negate the secular nature of Indian polity. They flaunted their own prospective future leader Rahul Gandhi, who was fated to succeed his mother (and his father and his grandmother and his great grand father) as leader of the Congress party, and, ipso facto, of India. There would be no contest.
As we approach the onset of 2014, these certainties have evaporated. Congress seems likely to lose the next General Elections pretty drastically. Estimates of likely number of seats Congress would win in 2014 were around 110-120 even as long as a year ago. There were similar doubts whether BJP could exceed 150-160. With Narendra Modi as a likely leader, we were being told that the BJP would fail to find partners to make up the required majority of 273. Now, it looks like Congress would be lucky to get into triple digit numbers. It lost state elections in Rajasthan and Delhi dramatically during December 2013. Andhra, its strong card, is going through convulsions on the issue of Telangana. Karnataka may revert to BJP once Yeddyurappa has rejoined his old party. Maharashtra may go the way of Rajasthan.
Congress is losing because of the performance of the UPA-2 government, especially the persistence of inflation and the collapse in the growth, with the resulting slowdown in employment creation. It has also found that Rahul Gandhi, far from being charismatic leader and a political organiser of genius, has failed to impress anyone except Congress sycophants. The failure of Rahul Gandhi presents Congress with an existential challenge. Will Congress survive a defeat in 2014?
There also appears to be an end to another cycle of Indian democracy. The Mandal Revolution was born as a result of the slow growth of the Nehruvian Socialist planned economy. Jobs were created for the educated elite but not for the poorer unskilled and semi-skilled manual workers. Deprived economically as well as socially in Hindu social terms, they used their numbers to assert their demands. It was the Ram Manohar Lohia ideology that carried the Mandal revolution through. From 1989 onwards, Congress hegemony passed in electoral terms and coalition governments became the norm. Voting was to be on jati consideration rather than on national issues.
That cycle began to slow down with the new century as government after government felt the sting of anti-incumbency. Smart chief ministers of states learnt the importance of roti-kapda-makaan or bijli-sadak-paani. The fact that Narendra Modi bases his campaign on governance and development, speaks of building toilets, rather than temples, shows that as far as the states are concerned, the Mandal Revolution is over.
The national dimension of this is what has surprised Congress. The secular-communal divide that defined much of electoral politics since Independence has now lost its bite. Muslims remain a socially and economically deprived community after sixty years of rule by Congress or fellow secular parties. They can no longer be frightened into voting against the BJP. They suffer from riots under secular party rule, such as in Muzaffarnagar in 2013 under Samajwadi Party rule, as they may under BJP rule. They have learnt that law and order being a state subject, they need to negotiate their own safety without trusting the slogans of political parties. They, too, want delivery of economic betterment not because they are Muslims and via quotas, but because they are aspirant citizens and want education, good jobs and safe lives.
Thus three cycles are coming to an end at once. The Mandal cycle, the secular-communal divisive politics, and perhaps even the hegemony of Congress and its idea of India. The first, because it has served its purpose of including the OBCs and SC/STs inside democratic politics. The second, because it was never clear that the ideology of secularism delivered the fruits of social peace and economic advance fairly. And Congress hegemony may end because the narrow concentration of power in a family’s hands can only persist if the family continues to produce talented individuals with a vocation for politics. Congress has reached the end of that road with Rahul Gandhi.
India will be a different nation in 2014 and onwards.
(Lord Meghnad Desai is an economist and British Labour politician and a keen observer of Indian politics)
