The Making and Breaking of Alliances in the Indian Political System
September 16, 2014
Recently, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ended its association with the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) and decided to go all alone in the upcoming state elections in Haryana. Obviously, the party was guided by its unprecedented success in the state in the last general elections. It had won seven of the nine seats that it had contested while the HJC failed to open its account. The HJC unsuccessfully tried its best for the continuation of the alliance. But why should the upbeat BJP yield? It is true that under a powerful general there are no feeble soldiers! And it is equally true that the powerful are never faithful!
Political Alliances : The Game of Possibilities
Isn’t the craving for power a great uniting force? I recall a speech by L K Advani at a BJP meeting soon after the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was dethroned after the 2004 general elections. Asking his party men to be prepared for a mid-term general election, he referred to a report that purportedly pointed towards such a scenario since the new Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was an alliance of those regional political parties that were the rivals of the Congress in their respective states.
Contrary to Advani’s forecast, the UPA survived as a ruling conglomerate for a decade! This despite the Communist Party of Indian (Marxist) withdrawing its outside support to the UPA-1 in 2008 over the issue of Indo-US nuclear deal, and thereafter the Trinamool Congress (TMC) parting ways from UPA-2 in 2012 over the issues of FDI in retail and increase in the diesel price.
It is understandable for the CPI (M) to withdraw over an ideological issue as the Left is always averse to the USA’s capitalism. But can it be said that its support to the UPA-1 wasn’t devoid of political opportunism. Its plank was to keep the right wing BJP (read ‘Communal Forces’) at bay by supporting the UPA. Yet hadn’t the Left parties joined hands with the BJP to lend outside support to the VP Singh-led minority National Front government in1989?
The BJP nonetheless was uncompromising on its Hindutva agenda that led to the fall of the Singh government after it withdrew its support once Singh’s crony and the then Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Yadav halted Advani’s march to Ayodhya to build a movement for the Ram temple at Ayodhya, and arrested the BJP stalwart when the latter’s much-publicised ‘rath’ (chariot) entered Bihar.
The BJP nonetheless was uncompromising on its Hindutva agenda that led to the fall of the Singh government after it withdrew its support once Singh’s crony and the then Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Yadav halted Advani’s march to Ayodhya to build a movement for the Ram temple at Ayodhya, and arrested the BJP stalwart when the latter’s much-publicised ‘rath’ (chariot) entered Bihar.
The Left had earlier too, supported the minority Indira Gandhi government at the turn of the decade in the sixties till Indira decided to opt for a mid-term poll. Wasn’t it a conflict of ideology then?
Irrelevance of Ideology in Politics
What role does ideology play in coalition politics? This could perhaps lead to a better understanding of why alliances fail.
There is an old saying that power corrupts. Equally true is that power attracts the corruptible.
Was there any ideology behind the Congress under Rajiv Gandhi supporting the Chandra Shekhar-led Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya) with just 64 MPs, to form a government, only to withdraw it within seven months?
Or how could one explain Ram Vilas Paswan being a part of every single government (with just a brief intermission during UPA2 when he lost the General Elections) since 1996? (He was also a minister in the VP Singh government in 1989) What makes his political party – ostensibly banking on his dalit vote bank – bond equally well with rival political groups and ideologies? Can it be called Paswan’s personal charisma or his political acumen?
Or how could one explain Ram Vilas Paswan being a part of every single government (with just a brief intermission during UPA2 when he lost the General Elections) since 1996? (He was also a minister in the VP Singh government in 1989) What makes his political party – ostensibly banking on his dalit vote bank – bond equally well with rival political groups and ideologies? Can it be called Paswan’s personal charisma or his political acumen?
Coalition Politics : Extension of Ayaram and Gayaram Syndrome
Remember the frequent defections till the mid eighties by the ‘ayarams and gayarams’ – the popular jargon for habitual political defectors? A lid was put on them following the anti-defection Act of 1985. But isn’t coalition politics a more institutionalised extension of such ‘ayaram and gayaram’ politics?
Much has been interpreted of the UPA Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s famous statement on ‘compulsions of managing a coalition’? As Singh blamed UPA allies for creating problems during major policy decision, his statement, indeed, deflected the whole issue of coalition politics towards a rather sinister plot of political bartering and expediency.
It may be recalled that unlike the UPA, the NDA was a grouping of political parties in a pre-poll alliance. Advani was the first to realise the indispensability of coalition politics and made the BJP tread such a path. Taking a high moral stand, to negate any speculation on a post-poll horse-trading, he ensured a pre-poll alliance of parties on the basis of common minimum programme for governance in case the NDA formed the government at the Centre.
Marriage of Convenience : A Norm in Indian Politics
Yet, we know about the arm-twisting ploys of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the TMC in the NDA despite such pre-poll alliances. But can we treat hard bargaining by stakeholders as isolated acts of defiance? Doesn’t even the BJP’s high moral standing on the issue merit a close scrutiny either? Wont we call its earlier experiments in states such as Haryana as examples of expediencies of electoral politics or a marriage of convenience, when it desperately made and broke alliances with well almost all the regional parties of the state – right from late Bansi Lal’s Haryana Vikas Party (HVP), to Om Prakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), to Kuldeep Bishnoi’s Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC)? Given the fact that all these parties rival each other in the state, obviously the quest to win in Haryana was rather too overwhelming a thought than to dabble on ideology and morality!
Political arithmetic is all about power equations, the more compelling parameter of forging or breaking alliances than any ideology. Doesn’t this also explain why the BJP snapped its ties with the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar, or revisited its ties with the rebel BS Yeddyurappa’s Karnataka Janata Paksha in Karnataka to strike a merger?
Obviously, politics is all about ambition though some common issues help forge an alliance. Can we forget the Janata Party of 1977? It was a conglomerate of political parties who were united against the Emergency imposed by of Indira Gandhi. But blame it on the personal ambitions of its leaders once they annexed power, the party disintegrated
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