Theatre of absurd alliances

Rajesh Ramachandran

TODAY is March 23, the death anniversary of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru — the greatest youth icons of the national movement. Such occasions always prompt us to ask the ‘what if’ question: what if the British had been less brutal and had given them a prison sentence instead of death? Even if the three were transported for life to Kalapani, they would only have been in their late forties when India gained freedom. Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev were just 23 and Rajguru 22 when they were hanged for killing Saunders, the Assistant Superintendent of Police of Lahore. They were much younger than Nehru and the rest of his Cabinet and could have lived up till the 1980s.

Well, in the real world there are no ‘what if’ questions. The real world also teaches us that sprays of opportunism often douse the flames of idealism. Unfortunately, since 2004, with our general election scheduled in May, the martyrs’ anniversary falls in the middle of electioneering every five years. And that is the worst opportunistic context to remember those who epitomised idealism. In fact, election after election, our national politics underscores the primacy of opportunism, falsities, hypocrisy and cynicism.

What have Tom Vadakkan and Hindutva in common? All that the BJP wanted was a headline: ‘Senior Congress functionary and close Sonia aide joins BJP’. Only those who understand the feudal workings of the Congress organisational hierarchy would know that he was neither a senior functionary nor a close aide of Sonia. The BJP seemed to have merely wanted to embarrass the Congress during elections by luring a spokesman visible across TV channels and that, too, a Catholic. The Congress returned the favour by getting the son of a former BJP chief minister to cross over. What achievements!

Worse is the case with pre-poll alliances. For instance, Shiv Sena was vocally abusive of the BJP, the Central government and the Prime Minister, until the dates of elections were announced. Now, they have kissed and made up, clearly indicating that a four-cornered contest — as it happened during the Assembly polls — may not be a viable proposition (Pawar may not want to play ball again). If this is the chemistry between the Hindutva siblings, what to expect from ideologically contradictory formations?

The Left and the Congress had fought each other all these 70-odd years. The Left had no qualms in sharing power with the RSS in the Samyukta Vidhayak Dal governments in Bihar and elsewhere in 1967, just to get the Congress out of power. Anti-Congressism was the only common factor that assumed the proportions of a political ideology. The CPI, the CPI(M) and the BJP joined hands to keep Rajiv Gandhi out of power in 1989 and to make VP Singh the Prime Minister. Now, there is a complete role reversal, a much-reduced Congress is joining hands with all and sundry just to push the BJP out of power.

It could have been done as a political programme over the past five years, building a strong Opposition, brick by brick, cementing it with the ethos of our plural polity. But the alliances on either side are only dictated by the compulsions of electoral opportunism. The worst example is the Congress’ Delhi dilemma: to go with Aam Aadmi Party or not. The essential vote base of the AAP is that of the Congress. In the AAP tsunami of 2015, the Congress vote share shrunk to just 9 per cent when the AAP votes swelled to 54 per cent. In 2008, the Congress had 40 per cent of the popular vote despite ruling the state for two consecutive terms. The BJP's vote share was only marginally affected: from 36 per cent in 2008 and 34 per cent in 2013, it came down to 32 per cent in 2015. Meanwhile, the BSP, too, was decimated with its vote share falling from 14 per cent in 2008 to just 1.31 per cent in 2015. It was very clear that the Dalit, Muslim and floating voters of the Congress and the BJP had gravitated towards the AAP, which won 67 of the 70 seats. But it just took two years for the AAP to lose its lustre and turn into an also-ran in a three-cornered civic body contest in 2017 April. The BJP swept the municipal polls with 181 of 270 wards and 36 per cent votes, with the AAP winning just 26 per cent and a resurgent Congress gaining 21 per cent votes.

So, all the talk about a joint fight against the BJP’s communal politics in Delhi is nothing but the fear of losing all the seven seats if the AAP and the Congress votes get split down the middle. If they come together, it could be a formidable alliance with a base vote share of over 45 per cent, something akin to the AAP tally in 2015. But a programmatic alliance over politics of diversity in 2017 could have lent a lot of goodwill, which this opportunistic last-minute tie-up lacks. After all, the AAP was born in an anti-Congress, anti-corruption crusade just a few years ago.

Similarly the CPI(M) is anxious to have an alliance with the Congress in West Bengal. From 30 per cent in 2011, its vote share dropped to 19 per cent in the 2016 Assembly polls, with merely 26 MLAs in a House of 295. Here, too, the pre-poll alliance is so opportunistic that it cannot sell this idea in Kerala, where the CPI(M)-led government takes on the Congress in a vicious campaign. The Left parties cynically hope that the Sabarimala issue will force Congress voters to move towards the BJP, thereby helping the Left gain the upper hand. The BJP’s pre-poll alliances in Tamil Nadu and elsewhere are no different.

A national election demands a programmatic political alliance based on a common agenda and a common ideological goal. But in this opportunistic theatre of the power-crazy, voters are mere spectators who get pick-pocketed every time the curtain goes up.