Editorial

Beating The Election Drum

India is uniquely placed among major republics. It’s a republic without republicans! It’s a democracy without democrats! And the ruling
Congress Party at the centre has virtually legalised a dynastic rule to maintain a relatively stable showcase of parliamentary democracy ‘blessed’ with too many political parties jockeying for power and loot. Over the years they have mustered the art of blending opportunism with survival strategy by way of frequently changing their loyalty to two broad clubs—UPA (United Progressive Alliance) and NDA (National Democratic Alliance) that signifies a bi-polar model of governance as it is in the West and America. Just on the eve of another Republic Day—as an independent nation, India turned 63 on 26 January, 2013—the Congress Party, otherwise a family business of the Nehrus, started its election drum beating through the much hyped 3-day Jaipur conclave that ended on January 20, by officially declaring the successor to the throne. India follows the Westminster model in a true sense, as for all practical purposes this ‘dynastic democracy’ does hardly differ from a democracy with a king or a queen as the head. So Rahul Gandhi is all set to take the baton if the Congress-led UPA succeeds in making it three times in a row. While the Opposition, mainly the saffron variety, criticised Rahul’s elevation to number two position in the party hierarchy as too dynastic, some Gandhi loyalists, however, found it not dynastic enough. Actually the Rahul brigade comprising members from the party’s youth and student fronts, participated in large numbers at the Jaipur session, more precisely brain-storming session (chintan shibir), to make the pre-coronation ceremony a grand success.

Not that the Congress showbiz run by two Gandhis is a new phenomenon. There was a phase in the Congress corridors of power being managed by Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. And the mother son duo—Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi—has been in the news for quite some years for their supreme authority. They lead a party ‘where a thought begins from Sonia Gandhi’s residence and ends at Rahul Gandhi’s lawn’! In a democracy where people have very little consciousness about their democratic and fundamental rights, it is simply irrelevant whether a government functions as a dynastic enterprise or an authoritarian establishment.

Jaipur Declaration, rather an election manifesto of the Congress, suggests among other things that the Gandhi family has ‘‘recommitted’’ itself to the ‘Nehruvian ideals’ of ‘secularism, parliamentary democracy, inclusive and equitable economic growth and social justice’. This equitable economic growth is a new import in Congress culture as they think it will minimise the middle class anger about growing economic inequality and widening gap between the rich and the poor.

The Congress somehow acquired legitimacy and monopoly as the ruling party of India as it fought for the nationalist cause in the yester years and managed to bury contributions made by diverse political and social forces including militant forces (or ‘terrorists’) against the British rule. With the passage of time, however, political dividends brought about by the departure of the Whites, are disappearing. Now the Congress Party has come to recognise the pressing need to seek new sources of legitimacy. So the middle class got prominence in deliberations of most leaders at the Jaipur meet. But this expanding middle class with purchasing power and and extravagant consumption habit is the concern of all parties that buy and sell vote in market. Big business too is concerned about the middle class. They are least interested in ‘below poverty line’ cardholders depending mainly on government doles for sheer survival. With the traditional constituency shrinking for all parties, not excluding left parties, the middle class foots the bill for all and it is now the bone of contention among them. But words cannot satisfy lower middle class people, particularly the urban lot, who are after all most vocal. People tolerated the Congress for so long because they promised a new society where everybody lives a happy life. The party now openly dishonours its old promises of improving the living standards of the marginalised and desperately searching for an escape route in the middle class. Given the Indian context of neo-liberal juggernaut this particular section along with the teeming millions toiling in unorganised and tertiary sectors, is in reality resisting the anti-people onslaught of the Congress government, though not in a united fashion. They are restive but their restlessness remains unaddressed by the traditional left. The real tragedy is that despite spontaneous popular outbursts across the country, there is no truly broad-based mass movement emerging, which has the vision to struggle for making democracy meaningful to the deprived and suppressed.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 30, February 3- 9, 2013

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