The Inanity of Coalition
By Averthanus L D'Souza
Herald [June 1, 2009]
With the BJP headed for extinction, India needs a countervailing political
power to the Congress, argues Averthanus L D'Souza
As is to be expected after a huge month-long election for a new government
at the Centre, the combatants as well as the media care reveling in the game
of post election analysis of the results. The victors, in this case the
Congress Party, are 'reviewing' their strategy to determine who made the
best contribution to the success of the party and its candidates. The BJP
and the Left Parties, while licking their wounds, are involved in
're-evaluating their strategy to find out where they went wrong and what
they need to do to reverse their political (mis)fortunes.
The so-called Will of the people (or Popular-Will) is always very difficult
to gauge. There are so many issues involved in an election that it is almost
impossible to determine what the people have voted for . In this case
however, one can safely venture to say that the people of India have
indicated that they want a stable government at the Centre - not one
constantly threatened with being toppled by unpredictable allies; a
government with policies which will unify the country - not one government
which divides the people on grounds of religion or caste or language; a
government which will work for the economic betterment of the people - to
remove the chasm between the rich and the poor; and a government which will
ensure steady and meaningful development, especially of the poorest.
Political Stability
Until the 2004 elections, every political party sang the song about
coalition politics. They firmly believed that coalition politics had come to
stay and that government had to be carried out on the basis of an agreed
common minimum programme. Recent experience has shown that such coalition
government was both inappropriate and undesirable. For the larger party to
be so dependent on its coalition partners was too much of a constraint. The
government had to drag its feet on many important issues. On many occasions
it appeared that it was the tail that was wagging the dog.
The 2009 elections, however, has given a clear message that the People of
India reject the idea of coalition government. It may have been necessary
but it was certainly not desirable [ the coalition, I suppose. Not its
rejection] . The people want a government which has a clear and unmistakable
programme; which has definite priorities and which spells out its strategy
to achieve its goals. Put very simply, left, Right, Centre are Left, Right
and Centre and can never be coalesced into one. The attempt to bring these
incompatible ideologies together into one government was doomed from the
beginning by the very nature of the inherent contradictions. Let us hope
that we have rejected coalition politics forever.
The inanity of coalition is clearly evident from the fact that the
constituent political ideologies are themselves ambiguous; for example, we
have a 'Left Front' which is not a Front at all. There are serious
disagreements among the constituents of the Left Front. We have Marxists,
Leninist, Maoists and a mishmash of Marxist-Leninists. Then there are the
Nasalizes, who believe that all power comes from the barrel of the gun -
irrespective of the targets.
Secular Politics
The citizens have unambiguously voted for a secular democratic and
socialistic government. They do not want their government to be determined
by any particular relious culture. While remainign equidistant from any and
all religions, the government should ensure freedom to all religions to
practice, propagate and publicly acknowledge their own sources of belief.
The concept of 'religious minorities' should be abandoned once and for all,
and should be replaced by the concept of religious diversities. India has
traditionally been a haven for people who had fled from religious
persecution - e.g. the Jews, and the Zoroastrians. India has been the
birthplace of many new religions such as jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. In
fact, India has been, for centuries, the epitome of a multi-religious and a
pluricultural society.
The rise of Hindutva, which makes one religion the sole basis of Indian
cultural identity, is a tragic aberration that needs to be buried forever.
The inherent anachorinism of the BJP's ideology was the public appearance of
L K Advani and Narendra Modi wielding swords as weapons ( in the
twenty-first centure). it made them look like funny characters out of some
antiquated comic book. If the BJP is serious about its 're-evaluation', it
should reject Hindutva as a political programme, not only because it is
obsolete, but, more importantly , because it is a movement backward in a
world which is moving forward.
Hindutva is inherently anti-democratic : the two are mutually incompatible.
It is not possible to have a true democracy in a country which is determined
by a particular culture to the exclusion of all other cultures. The National
Socialism (Nazism) of Hitler is a glaring example, if ever one was needed.
Of course it is a well known fact that Nazism is the model on which the BJP
has moulded itself. The twenty-first centure has no need for obscurantist
ideologies such as the RSS is propagating. India will be better off without
such unnecessary ideological baggage.
The pointer to the future
The recently concluded elections cannot be construed either as an
endorsement of the past performance of the government, or as a clear mandate
for the new governmenmt. As in any democracy, we have to discern the brouad
"will of the people", and in future governance we have to constantly check
back with the electorate to determine whether we are fulfilling their
desires. For one thing, widespread corruption, both within the political
establishment as well as within the bureaucracy remains a major issue to be
addressed. The wish of the people on this account may not have been
articulated as forecefully as it could have been, but any discerning analyst
of the political situation will have no doubts that what the people want is
the eliminatino of corruption in the system. Corruption eats into the very
vitals of democratic society. If it is not eliminated, the very future of
democracy is at risk.
The Third Front (and the Fourth)
One of the most notable characteristics of the 2009 elections was the
attempt to forge a third front - an alternative to both the Congress and the
BJP. The movement indicated a protest against corruption in the Congress and
a rejection of 'communal' politics of the BJP. Even though the Third Front
( and the Fourth Front) failed to win the confidence of the people, we
should not overlook the fact that they represented real concerns. The
(unfortunately) lesson from these attempts is that one cannot build up an
alternative merely by being anti-Congress or anti-BJP. Negativism alone does
not constitute a political programme.
The movement floundered on the rocks of political immaturity. This is
evident from the fact that the Third Front was soon joined by teh Fourth
Front. This was indicative of the fact that the protagonists did not have a
"common" understanding of what they wanted - besides, of course, the demise
of both the Congress and the BJP. Also there were too many petty issues
involved to allow the Front to become coherent,
The loss in this election, however, should not mean the abandonment of the
efforts to form an alternative to the Congress. A powerful two-party system
is good for democracy. The BJP is destined for extinction because of its won
inner contradictions and because of its obscurantism. India needs another
countervailing political power to the Congress in order to thrive as a
democracy.
Comments
No sooner did I finish re-reading this article, I telephoned Averthan to
tell him that his thought process has been appreciated tremendously. I also
told him that my high-lighting pen wouldn't stop and as a result, the entire
article (almost) seems to have been highlighted. Averthan was polite and
cordial and thanked me when I told him that I was going to comment on his
write-up, positively.
As far as Goa is concerned , from the day that Goa Su-Raj Party was formed
[ a decade ago] complete with its hand-book called the Road Map detailing
its administrative initiatives and how it looks at good governance in
general, it has always said "when the party comes to power ....', but never
"if the party comes to power....", because we know that the people of Goa
will someday realize that this is the party they would like to bring up so
that they get to see its performance, irrespective of who is in the party.
At Goa Su-Raj we have stuck to the guns that were deployed through the
Constitutional provisions and the detailed Road Map knowing fully well that
it does not serve any purpose to camouflage the intensions and whip up a
fury to come to power, just like the BJP did through its 'rath yatras' and
the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Also, at goasuraj, we have always
looked down upon coalition governments. We have termed such governments as
governments of misfits and self-driven champions whom we call 'Alibabas'.
The basic understanding that we go by is that the political party must be
the driving force behind 'good governance' and not the governments which
are cobbled-up after elections for most other reasons than instituting
balanced and/or a no nonsense administration leading to 'good governance',
governments being the 'tool' in the hands of the political party to achieve
the sought after 'good governance' through administrative excellence. In
other words a party is the 'head', the government being the 'arm'. There
cannot possibly be a decisive movement of the arm if the head was giving
contradicting commands. With more than one party in a coalition government,
the signals given to the arm would be confusing and therefore ineffective.
The recent classic example is Mamata Banerjee, who has been given the
railways Ministry in the Congress lead UPA Government in the 15th Lok Sabha.
The first thing she did was to declare a cheap universal railway pass to the
poor. On what basis did she come to that decision we wonder. Wasn't there
supposed to be a cabinet decision to check out the repercussions of this
move on the exchequer? The second was to discontinue train stopping at a
station in Bihar. She should have known better that Lalu Prasad Yadav was
the railway minister before her and that feelings would be hurt. The result
was the burning of several coaches and the damages to the railway tracks and
station. Populist measures and/or taking 'panga', as one would call it, on
one's detractors when in power is the order of the day, which hopefully Dr.
Manmohan Singh - Sonia Gandhi team will restrict if they know what is good
for the nation. Close to Goa, the reason that Mr. Pai Panandiker has refused
to join the planning commission/board is because his expertise and/or
invaluable inputs would be ineffective with him only drawing his salary and
perks at the cost of Goa's tax-payers. We find this very sensible and
commendable.
People always want to belong to a good political party. Pundit Jawaharlal
Nehru's Indian National Congress was supposed to be a good party with even
Mahatma Gandhi belonging to it. And people believed that this party just
could not do wrong things and that every thing that INC did was the right
thing (such as liberating Goa from the Portuguese). And in time, it dawns on
you that your blind belief was wrong, that the basic trust has been
betrayed. This is bound to happen with INC presently sharing the governments
with other parties where even some semblance of caring that the INC might
have for the people of India would be neutralized (in case severe action is
not taken on the Union Minister from Chennai who has flouted the Supreme
Court order on capitation fees). People have always followed the leader,
never the party. When Indira lead the INC (Indira Congress) her own way,
people went along with her. Then they realized that the 'Emergency' that she
clamped down hard on the nation was something alien to the INC. Today, the
people having been tired of being taken for a ride by packs of wolves, have
chosen to go behind Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi. They too might become
arrogant with total power, begin to think that what they are doing is
certainly good for the people of India without asking the people (in
important matters, of course) whether they want it or not. Therefore,
Averthan is not wrong in saying that there must be another alternative as a
stand-by, should the Congress [Manmohan Singh - Sonia Gandhi] start heading
the Indira Gandhi way, to take the people of India for granted. And we at
goasuraj are more than happy that Averthan has decided that the BJP has been
crippled for life, because, this seems to be true. It was a nightmare,
especially for me, to think that L K Advani, the person I see in my mind's
eye as sweating it out in the darkest cell of the Tihar jail for having
masterminded the demolition of the centuries old monument of India, the
Babri Masjid, would sit on the chair of the Prime Minister of India. That is
why I have boldly said that should this happen, it would be most unfortunate
for this country which is the super-power of the world in the making, that
if there was even just one citizen of India who would publicly not accept
L K Advani as the Prime Minister of his country, it would be me.
Like Averthan says, let people not be guided by the Left, Right and Centre
positions of political parties. These are just gimmicks to drawn large
number of voters, just like flies would be attracted to the smear of honey.
Let there be substance in the Left, Right and Centre, the substance being
the written down provisions and procedures and the strongest of will to
adhere to it, no matter what. The voting nation has become wiser not to take
the million promises at face value in the political fresh air which is now
becoming increasingly polluted and nauseating.
Let every political party have a ROAD MAP to its credit and more importantly
the visible track records of those who profess such Road Maps so that people
can equate such beautiful Road Maps to the originators themselves to see if
there is dissonance. And let the people be free to question such Road Maps,
agree to disagree and finally choose from them the one what will guarantee
them the 'good governance' that they think they deserve. Afterall it is said
that "IF GOD HIMSELF IS WITH YOU, WHO CAN BE AGAINST YOU?
Cheers
floriano
goasuraj
www.goasu-raj.org
9890470896
