Signals From the Ground

The situation, political analysts say, is very confusing. No one knows what is going on, and everything is unstable and corrupt. The BJP and the Congress agree, with their spokespersons and senior leaders pointing fingers at the third front for stirring up the political nest, and creating a situation where the people themselves do not know who or what they are voting for. This is terrible, they all shout, the people would have liked to vote just for the BJP or the Congress and now these chaps and behenji’s are making matters so much more difficult.

They do not know what to make of the regional parties who are all rushing to either join the third front, or move out of existing alliances with the BJP and the Congress. In Tamil Nadu weathercock PMK decided to go along with the AIADMK in the Lok Sabha elections, and walked out leaving the DMK-Congress alliance high and dry. In Orissa, supposedly reliable partner Naveen Patnaik took his Biju Janata Dal out of the alliance with the BJP and the NDA and decided to enter into a seat adjustment with the third front. In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, two bitter rivals who had sworn never to work with each other again, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav joined hands and decided to campaign together with Ram Vilas Paswan in the states. They parted company with the Congress for these elections.

Why? Why is all this happening? It is not because Patnaik has suddenly discovered that the BJP is communal, or Lalu has suddenly realized that the Congress is autocratic in its functioning. It is also not because they have failed to reach an understanding on seat sharing, far from it, because if the winds were blowing the right way these regional leaders would have happily taken and given as many seats as the BJP and Congress required.

It is happening because the regional leaders, with an ear to the ground, know that the people are moving away from the BJP and the Congress and looking for workable alternatives. The Left has been one of those fronts that might not get the vote directly from the villages of India outside the states of its influence, but enables those who ally with it to draw the rural vote looking for honesty, secularism and at least some commitment from the political leaders. The two Yadav chieftains, Patnaik, Ramadoss and all know that the winds are now blowing their way, and the alternative offering itself as the third front is being seen with a certain degree of credibility by the voters. Fortunately, the corporate owned media and the people living in the metros do not determine the final complexion of the Lok Sabha, with the issues of poverty, development, employment, secularism, empowerment still dominating the election field.

The third front, the analysts insist, will be unstable and the government will not last. The mistake being made here, and perhaps deliberately, is to compare the third alternative with the BJP and the Congress. This is an erroneous, if not odious, comparison as the third front, for a correct understanding, be compared to its own previous terms in office. If this yardstick is taken as the parameter for understanding the present situation, much of the confusion will disappear. For instance, whenever the third front option has presented itself to the nation it has formed the government. Otherwise it is not present, not even as a talking point, and as the last two general elections have shown the regional parties then prefer to coalesce around the BJP and the Congress.

Two, the third front is different from the BJP and the Congress as chalk is from cheese. It addresses a constituency and issues that the latter generally ignore, and is more sensitive to caste, community, rural considerations. If it is not, it cannot last as past examples show. And in a plural society like India’s a two party system, as corporate and media honchos advocate, will shackle the poor and the marginalized completely. The policies pursued by the NDA and UPA governments widened the gap between the rich and the poor, and took the latter off from the planning map of India. It is because of the reaction to this callousness and indifference from the ground, that the regional parties are scrambling for new allies other than the BJP and the Congress.

Three, for the first time a core group constituting a third alternative will be contesting the elections. Earlier the regional coalition has come together after the polls, in a rush not conducive to good governance. Stability is a middle class concern. Good governance is what the poor vote for. And good governance for them does not mean appeasing the corporate world, and constructing more shopping malls and hotels, but in improving the rural infrastructure, and providing them with social and economic and political security. This is their main concern, as Security with a capital S is what the masses still do not have.

So the carping is really not understandable. If Mayawati can rule Uttar Pradesh, why cannot she be the Prime Minister of India? If Chandrababu Naidu worked for Andhra Pradesh, why cannot he head the government of India? How is L.K.Advani with his politics of communalism more qualified? How is Rahul Gandhi with his inexperience and complete lack of perspective on vital issues, relying entirely on dynasty for the post, more qualified? Or for that matter Narendra Modi who the honchos are projecting for the top post, quite forgetting the fact that he presided over the murder of hundreds of citizens of India?

Yes, it is true that those come together in a third alternative must formulate a common minimum program and ensure that this is followed to the letter. Unlike the Congress that departed from the CMP and forced the Left to quit, it will be absolutely essential for the regional parties to restrain their own quirks and whims by putting together a CMP and a monitoring committee outside the government for this. This is not to say that the government will last for five years, but to ensure that it delivers for the period it is in power. And that pro-people policies are implemented after a gap of ten long years.

The stakes here will be higher on all counts. One, because the people who have voted them in will have higher expectations. Two, the critics will be predicting the fall of the government from the moment it is formed. And three, the regional players will have to perform well at the center if they want to hold on to and revive in their states. The future of the third front lies not just in their ability to hold together, but in their ability to have learned from past mistakes.