Whose Democracy is it Anyways?

When one reads Mr. Jaswant Singh’s recent reflections on the dismal state of Indian democracy, one cannot help but sympathize with the BJP’s now sidelined stalwart. While it is difficult to agree to all of his points of critique, no one will disagree with his larger point of frustration with the acute dysfunction that has lead to policy paralysis.

 Indian democracy for all its fervor has always had seemingly daunting fault lines. Basic of them is the gulf between the population that elects public officials and one that finances the government. Indian elections typically see around 45%-50% voting, but highest participant rates are recorded in rural areas or areas with urban poor. The middle class has remained shockingly uninterested in queuing up to exercise the most treasured of our fundamental rights. A grotesque example of this indifference was provided by the residents of upscaleSouth Mumbai, who recorded a dismal voting percentage of 40% in Lok Sabha elections on 2009, only about a year after the same constituency suffered the horrific terror attacks of 26/11.

 Contrast this by the same populations’ financial muscle and by extension their contribution in financing the government. Out ofIndia’s over 1.2 billion residents, only about 3% pay direct taxes*. And majority of this 3% of tax paying population are middle class or urban rich**, who live in the same urban areas that show low voter turnout during elections.

 This utter disconnect is what causes an implicit tug of war between the mass population, whose priorities lie in welfare schemes and social spending, and not in constitutional reform or market friendly government policies. And the middle class, whose priorities are almost exactly the opposite. Successive governments have tried to juggle these competing priorities with achieving partial success, at best.  And in an environment of having elections almost every year, it is not a surprise that we live in an environment of policy logjam.

 One solution to this is to have effective national referendums. They are used in almost all major democracies as an effective way to take decisions on contentious issues. In theUSthey are used for everything from building a railway line to banning gay marriage. In most European countries they were used before joining the Euro, inBritainit was recently used to decide on important electoral reforms that had divided the coalition government.Australiais planning one to decide on their divisive issues of introduction of a carbon tax.

 So with such a success in other democracies, one still finds reluctance for referendums inIndia. Argument is made that they will be very costly in a country with over a billion people. But while we do have over a billion people, we by no means have a billion voters. We have roughly 500-600 Million voters and usually the turnout is lower in referendums, as not all issues excite people as much as a general election. And with the introduction of UID, we will have the technological foundation to have an efficient and transparent referendum system.

 While it is not a one stop solution to all of our political dysfunction, it will at least provide people a direct avenue to participate in the public policy process. And with any luck, we will be able to decide as a country, on serious issues such as Women’s reservation, Lokpal, Economic Reforms etc. in a more efficient way. Not to mention, that such a direct interaction with votes will promote a sense of ownership of the political process and stem the feeling of eternal disdain of the political class.

 Ultimately, need of the hour is to think outside the box, promote such electoral innovation to arrest the downward spiral of policy logjam that has cast serious clouds over India’s once shiny growth story.

 

* Direct taxes represent roughly 56% of Government of India’s total tax revenue for year 2011-12

** As opposed to rural rich, who in most cases are farmers, hence live a blissfully tax free existence

Once a Yatri Always a Yatri

As Lal Krishna Advani steps down it has been heralded as an “end of an era” and by other stock variety of clichés by the Indian media, it warrants a moment of recognition for the man who was instrumental in forming the only viable alternative political force in the history of independent era.

To come up with any sort of assessment for his impact on Indian politics his political life must be divided into three phases of pre-rathyatra, rathyatra and post-rathyatra. In pre-rathyatra phase, he definitely was a relatively marginal figure of an absolutely marginal political party. Even within the Janata government he was essentially a light weight entrusted with the Information and Broadcasting portfolio.  This low stature would have run unimpeded, if it was not for the gross mismanagement of religious politics by the Congress in the late 80s. The Shahbano case and the revival of the grass roots Ayodhya movement provided a peculiar political opportunity to the BJP, and Advani must be recognized of masterfully seizing it, to ultimately challenge the status quo in the national debate over pseudo-secular politics run amok.  He is the man responsible for creating and nurturing that political space for the BJP as a right of the center anti pseudo-secularism party that attended to the victimized Hindu psyche of post Shahbano India. Combine that with a remarkable set of organizational skills that catapulted the BJP from a northern Baniya party with marginal strength in the Lok Sabha to over 150 seats. 

But the leap from 150-170 to 272 could never have been achieved if it was not for the personal charisma and acceptability of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and the pragmatic strategist in Advani quickly and without any reluctance passed the baton of leadership to the elder statesman.

To many, that was Advani’s finest hour, years following BJP’s ascend to power went largely successful when they managed to introduce bold economic reforms, reinvigorated the relationship with the west and defeated Pakistan in a major military conflict. A huge amount of credit goes to the disciplined power sharing agreement between Vajpayee and Advani. No Indian political outfit has been able to accommodate two leader’s of similar stature with such minimal organizational friction.

However, in the post Vajpayee era, Advani got a rude shock and found the limitations of his own political appeal. On top of that his legacy was irreparably damaged by misplaced political planks such as the belief that the road to acceptability with Indian Muslims passes through Jinnah’s tomb in Karachi.  

Another massive failure was the failure of Team Advani in delivering electoral successes in both 2004 and 2009. But the straw that broke camel’s back and caused Mohan Bhagwat to execute his not so secret coup, was the sheer dysfunction and suicidal factionalism that defined Delhi based Advani gang. Whatever role he might end up with in the future, he will have to live with the charge that he as a general could not command his troops and had to hand over the reins to the party to the RSS bosses as a result.

The end of this chapter in the Advani’s life should not be taken as an end of the road for the politics he helped found. Albeit less than before, the debate of cultural nationalism that he pioneered still rages on in the Indian heartland. The BJP has become an established force that occupies the space of an anchor for all non-Congress political forces. The challenge for the BJP is to control more of that space and expand its base. And in today’s politics that can only be done using stronger state units managed by ambitious leaders. It is that opportunity for Advani to re-accommodate himself within the hearts and minds of average BJP worker. Rather than creating another set of Delhi based leaders, the time is for him to mentor state leaders in states with marginal presence of the BJP such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and the northeastern states. He should get out of his Delhi comfort zone and thrust himself back into a role that develops raw talent into polished political leaders.

The time calls for this yatri not to hang his boots, but to pause and change course that will elevate his legacy as an organization man who helped give birth of a true bipolar polity in independent India. Generations to come will have to be thankful to him willingly or not, for creating a political arena with natural checks and balances.

The Right Way, Choices to transform the Party of Differences to the Party with Difference

Continuing on the theme of  the last post, I shall try to explore the ideological and organization choices that face the BJP today. It will be apparent to the readers that the list below is by no means exhaustive but merely a starting point in a much elaborate maneuvering, that is necessary to pull the party out of its rapid descent to oblivion.

The obvious first choice would be the infamous “do-nothing”strategy. Under this scheme the present organization structure would remain same, Advani, Rajnath, Jaitly, Shushma and Co. would keep their parliamentary posts. It will also mean that if any straight talking party member dared to speak their mind, they would be summarily expelled, and this exercise would continue till the party roster is brought down till the only members left are the Parliamentary Board members  and their dog walkers.

But on a much serious note, this approach would also ensure that the Congress will drive the public agenda and the BJP will forever remain on a reactive mode, unable to capitalize on political opportunities. This path will also fail to create a culture of reasonably open debate, discussion and exchange of ideas, which are some of the most important components of a vibrant political outfit. It will also ensure no corrective measures are taken to create a cohesive alliance management strategy, lack of which has hurt the BJP significantly in the recent polls. Last but not the least, the status-quo will severely con-volute the already messy ideological relationship with Hidutva, which will only confuse and increase the already rampant disillusion among party rank and file.

So if not the “do nothing” what next? Another obvious trap would be to fall for the grand standing, statesman type approach of throwing away the pseudo-RSS message in favor of a pseudo-”sekoolar” agenda. This approach has been contemplated by many in the party and its supporters gained a new air of confidence after the drubbing in recent polls, especially in UP and Rajasthan. This approach has three basic problems, first of all its important to remember that political outfits almost all the time, occupy space that is available based on people’s preferences. In case of the “sekoolar” space, it is already quite crowded even if you only count the mainstream franchises like Mulayam, BSP, Paswan, Nitish and the mighty Congress, not to mention the All India Muslim League, IUML and other captive political outfits that have cropped up recently. Secondly, in Indian political system, no waves are created by standing up and giving a speech. You have to cultivate a strong panel of leaders and cadre to execute a philosophy, and that takes years if not decades. Thirdly, the strategy runs a severe risk of creating massive rift withing the base and could eventually be a catalyst for a breakup of the far right wing, which will only undercut each others base.

A third alternative is a more complex approach that hinges on unifying the Hindu vote in most of India, while being opportunistic in attracting the urban vote while implementing a new alliance strategy. A basic requirement of this approach would be to to first realize that caste plays a bigger role in politics of 2009 than religion. The BJP’s meteoric rise and the success of the Ram Janmabhoomi was partly a because of Hindu insecurities of late 80s and ealy 90s, and they no longer exist to the same level in India that is “Shining”. So to that extent the basic ideology should not be of Ashok Singhal/Praveen Togadia variety which only energizes the opposition, but of a more suble and nuanced version of culutral nationalism. It is also important to underscore the fact that BJP has no national leader to match Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In light of this, the best model for the BJP would be a some variation of the Karnataka model, where they have a strong Lingayat leader, who is sharing power with Vokkaliga and Brahmin leaders. This way they have been able to make inroads into communities that have not traditionally voted with the party. States such as UP, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra provide a perfect opportunity for such social engineering.  However, this approach only works if the government is perceived by the people to deliver above average governance(aka the Modi model).

This kind of an ambitious agenda cannot be executed without a strong yet accommodate central leadership. It is imperative to re-caste the parliamentary board and create a single center of power rather than having this three way split between the Rajnath, Advani and Nagpur. 

Lastly, the BJP will have to do a throrough review of its alliance philosophy. There will never be a one size fits all solution to this problem, because there are cases like Shiv-Sena, where the alliance has not lead to cannibalization of votes, and then there are cases like Naveen Patnaik, NC and TDP whose growth was at at least some expense of BJP’s base. In some states like Orrisa, Hariyana and part of UP, the BJP must put it’s foot down and try to create a long term base. In other states like Tamilnadu, where both Congress and the BJP are a sideshow to regional parties, there is no harm in striking a pre-poll alliance.

There are many additional facets to this approach in terms of agenda, message and party dicipline, but that will be for a future post, since this post already going over my preferred length.

As said before, these are not entirely conclusive packages of ideas but rather a starting point for a road map to rejuvinate a vibrant right of the center political force in India. 

 As always, your comments and feedback are very welcome.

If Jaswant is the new Ravan, than the BJP is the new Lanka

I guess I will do a “shree ganesh” of the blog on a somber note by adding a quick first post on Jaswant Singh’s ouster from the BJP.

First and foremost, the manner in which the whole affair was handled by the entire top leadership was shameful and unbecoming. All the standard protocol and courtesy that was typically accorded to small time state leaders who dissented in the past, was denied to a long time party worker like Jaswant. It will send a wrong signal to the party cadre and sypathisers and will dampen already gloomy mood in the party .  On on much larger level, it only surfaces some of the doubts people have had for a long time. That the BJP has become a party of organizational dysfunction, intellectual bankruptcy and is on a perpetual power race to the bottom. It is high time for it to introspect the decaying culture. And the party who’s roots go back to Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Deen Dayal Upadhyay and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, should start by ensuring a basic of decency and fairness for its loyal partymen.

Without reading the book, it does appear that Jaswant Singh’s thesis singles out Nehru, Patel and the British for the partition debacle more than Jinnah. The book also allegedly make a bold proclamation that Indian Muslims are a completely alienated lot who still suffers from the scars of the partition. I would completely disagree with the latter and partially disagree with the former. But this post is not about a critical review of his argument, that is for another day. However, it is important to point out that Jaswant Singh’s argument would have gone straight in the face of 62 years of ideological position of most of Indian political parties. So to that extent, action against him as a political leader was almost inevitable.

As it is said, timing is everything. If Jaswanthad written this after declaring his retirement from politics,  there would be very little tamasha that would have followed it. But for the sitting BJP MP from Darjeeling to express such a view, there was bound to be controversy.

Dispite my broad disagreement with some of the key arguments, I am glad that there is a serious work done on a topic that rarely gets public scrutiny, but the price Jaswant Singh, the BJP and Indian polity in general has had to pay, may turn out to be much higher than what the publisher might charge the average reader today.

Hello dunia!

After a long time of passive contemplation, I have finally done it. And hopefully I will be able to add a few drops of my own thinking in this sea of ideas on the Internet. The focus of this effort will be all things like politics(mainly Indian), food, films, media and occasionally cricket(test cricket that is, not the t20 bs). 

In addition, the blog will attempt to extensively cover global economic  issues with a specific focus on emerging markets, supply side vs Keynesian argument, monetary policy, game theory and my personal favorite, the crowding out of the debt markets in India by hyper socialist economic policies of the central government.

Lastly, we would like to hear from all readers and hope to provide a small space for informed discussions on critical topics of our time.

This is should make a semi interesting opening post, let’s see how much the blog sticks to its promise., thanks for reading. Ciao…..