‘In Praise of Coalition Politics and Other Essays’ by Manoj Kumar Jha: Speaking truth to power

It is almost an accepted truism today that the last 11 years of BJP rule have seen a steady shrinking of the democratic space in India, as well as a concerted effort to demonise the minority Muslim community. The only silver lining is that each incremental step taken in either of these directions has been loudly and doggedly resisted, though oftentimes in vain.

Among the most persistent resisters has been Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Kumar Jha, through his speeches in Parliament and other forums, as well as his writings in the media. Some of those essays and speeches have now been compiled in this collection.

The majority are responses to immediate developments: the 2024 Lok Sabha election results, the abolition of Article 370 relating to Jammu and Kashmir, the announcement of a nationwide caste census, the passing of the amended Waqf Act, the lynchings of Muslims for allegedly transporting beef, the movement against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the civil war in Manipur, the abject failure of the government during the second phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, and more.

However, there are also a few essays on broader topics — the abomination that is manual scavenging, the absence of compassion in India’s penal system, the distinction between ‘government’ and ‘nation’, which the current leadership is always seeking to blur, the crisis of motivation of the party cadre (in all parties) as professional agencies take over election campaigns, and more.

Particularly moving are the two ‘Letters to Gandhi’ — the first in the context of the lynchings, the second following the CAA being passed, which underline how Hindu intolerance, actively encouraged by the ruling party, is giving Jinnah’s two-nation theory retrospective validation.

In this brief review, only a few essays can be discussed. Among the strongest is the one on the government’s decision to include caste in the next census, perhaps the only occasion in the entire volume when Jha supports a BJP move! (No doubt, he also underlines the BJP’s volte face on the matter — as late as April 2024, PM Modi had been mocking the demand, only to appropriate it in April 2025.)

Jha acknowledges that it is not only upper caste arch conservative forces that oppose a caste census, but also some progressive liberals, and for valid reasons. But his concluding argument is irrefutable: if categories such as OBC, SC and ST are to exist at all (and no one can wish them away), how can special resources be allocated or quotas set for their uplift if the precise numbers of the castes they comprise are not known? It amounts to “flying blind”! “You cannot fix what you do not measure,” he notes. “Without updated numbers, policy (has been) running on presumptions and outdated formulas.”

The longest essay in the collection is the one on coalition governments, which also serves as the book’s title. Jha observes that for all the BJP’s mocking of coalition governments as inherently unstable, the last three coalition governments at the Centre — the NDA from 1999 to 2004 and the UPA, from 2004 to 2009 and again from 2009 to 2014 — completed their full terms.

“Coalitions serve as a crucial safeguard against democratic erosion,” he writes. “When parties are in a coalition, they cannot pursue extreme or anti-people policies unchecked.” Calling India a “civilisational coalition”, he culls out instances from history, starting as far back as the Vajji and Malla republics of 400-600 BCE, when governance was carried out through ganasangas or tribal assemblies.

Yet the post-1947 Indian coalitions could have been explored in greater depth. Why were the first few coalitions — both at the Centre and in the states — such disasters, marred by continuous infighting, while the later ones were not? Is it essential to have a single dominant party — whose leader is also the prime minister — with smaller parties clustering around it, for a coalition to work?

Equally important: how does the economic performance of coalitions stack up against that of single-party governments? Unfortunately, Jha veers off midway into recording successive instances of the BJP’s misgovernance, which, while valuable as a record, do not increase our understanding of coalitions.

A number of Jha’s assertions across various essays can certainly be contested. What cannot be is his vast erudition and the felicity of his writing. The essays are littered with relevant quotes from sources as diverse as Howard Zinn and Firaq Gorakhpuri, David Goldenkranz and Hiren Mukherjee, Yehudi Menuhin and Avtar Singh Pash, apart from the works of Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar and Tagore.

In one of his lighter essays, justifying his quoting the poet Om Prakash Valmiki in Parliament, Jha notes that “poetry allows for the distillation of complex concepts into digestible morsels of wisdom, making the message accessible to a wider audience”. Much the same can be said about Jha’s writing (and speaking) style as well.

— The reviewer is the author of ‘The Disruptor: How VP Singh Shook India’