Electioneering in India
September 13, 2014
It is interesting that when the first General Elections were held in 1951-52, the whole purpose of elections was challenged in the face of a fragmented Opposition. It was the Congress all the way as a party of stalwarts who had liberated the country from the British raj and Jawaharlal Nehru was the star campaigner who travelled about 40,000 kilometres to cover almost a tenth of the country’s population. He had then addressed nearly thirty-five million people of the country!
Birth of Anti – Congressism
The Nehruvian era was the one that saw complete domination of just one man – Nehru, till he breathed his last. The Opposition was insignificant and for a quarter of centuries after Independence there was not even a Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha for want of the required strength for the post! In 1951, the only Opposition party to have opened its account was the Communist Party of India, and that too managed to win just one seat !
A sustained ‘Anti-Congressism’ campaign was launched by socialist Ram Manohar Lohia in 1963 after the Congress swept the 1962 general elections. Lohia realised it was important to erase the perceived impression among the masses that none other than the Congress could rule the country.
He asked Opposition parties to appoint a single nominee against the Congress candidates. This formula did work in the 1967 when the Congress lost six states — Bihar, Madras, Kerala, Orissa, Punjab, and West Bengal — to the Opposition. In the general elections too that year, it for the first time got less than 300 seats.
Electioneering in the times of Indira Gandhi
Election campaign styles were in for some drastic changes thereafter. The Congress was jolted and this was the beginning of internal squabbling within ruling party that culminated into a vertical split in the party in 1969 and Indira Gandhi,the prime minister at that time, continued to lead a minority government supported by the CPI till December 1970. Yet the country was heading for its first mid-term general elections in 1971 and Indira, realising the strong anti-incumbency, coined the lasting ‘Garibi Hatao’ (Remove Poverty) slogan – a catchy tagline that caught the fancy of the nation that largely voted for the Indira faction. But she manipulated her own election that sowed the seeds of future electoral reforms and poll campaign strategies. Her election was invalidated on the grounds of electoral malpractices in a historic judgement by the Allahabad High Court on June 12, 1975, forcing a defiant Indira to invoke the Emergency provision of Constitution to ensure she continued to rule. This united the Opposition against Indira’s perceived tyranny and late Jaya Prakash Narayan’s call for ‘Total Revolution’ ensured anti-Congressism to be a reality now.
First Non-Congress Government
When Indira finally yielded to the Opposition pressure and called for the general elections in 1977, her campaign revolved around the issue of ‘strong government’ as against the ‘democracy or dictatorship’ plank of the Janata Party – a conglomerate of the Opposition parties of the country. The latter finally won to form the first non-Congress government in the country.
The Opposition’s unity though remained short-lived and the country was soon to see its second mid-term poll in 1980. Indira’s ‘strong government’ plank worked this time and she was again firmly mounted into the saddle in New Delhi. But her assassination forced yet another mid-term poll in the county in 1984 where her son and successor Rajiv Gandhi, rode an unprecedented sympathy wave to establish an overwhelming majority for the Congress in the Lok Sabha.
Mandalisation of Politics
Yet, the rise of VP Singh – a confidante-turned-foe of Rajiv and a whistle blower on what is now called the Bofors Gun purchase scandal – saw the rise of Machiavellian politics. Plots, deception and acrimony took over as new campaign formulas.
Singh’s failure to nail Rajiv on Bofors proved disastrous and his departure to ‘Mandal’ politics to garner the support of the backward classes and Muslims changed Indian politics as never before. His caste centric politics was severely challenged by his political ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was desperately looking to create a Hindu vote bank by raking up the issue of construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya.
BJP pulled down Singh’s Janata Dal government by withdrawing its support to it after Bihar Chief Minister and JD leader Laloo Yadav stopped LK Advani’s Rath Yatra when it reached Bihar.
Mandal Vs Kamandal
Laloo’s act of arrogance was indeed a defining moment of Indian politics as it signalled the rise of regional aspirations in no uncertain ways. These developments also emphasised two more significant attributes –
- A divided Hindu society along caste lines as a consequence of Singh’s obsession with the Mandal Commission report.
- A divided Indian society along communal lines following the vigorous pursuit of a Hindutva agenda of the BJP.
Add to them the rise of powerful regional satraps with their own regional political outfits (that so far seemed only confined to Tamil Nadu since 1969) and political campaigns were to change in a big way in this era of coalition politics – to cater to the local, regional as well as national aspirations.
Rajiv Gandhi Killed during Electioneering
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated midway through an election campaign in 1991 by Sri Lankan terror outfit the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) – one of the lowest points of India’s campaigning history.
Congress ruled the country from 1991 to 1996 under Narasimha Rao, But Mandal-Kamandal politics became soon became prominent. It was around this time that BJP emerged as an alternative leading to the five year rule of Atal Behari Vajpayee-led coalition – the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), beginning in 2004. Yet, its ‘India Shining’ campaign could not click at a time when it had sought to showcase its achievements in the face of the Congress’s plank of ‘Aam aadmi ko kya mila’ (what did the common man get?). that catapulted it to power in 2009.
US Style of Electioneering
In 2014, it was a strong pitch for a Presidential style of campaigning this election that put a lid to the coalition era and returned the BJP to power with absolute majority. It did signify a nation’s aspiration for a strong centre after decades of fragmentation of Indian politics. Narendra Modi broke all campaigning records. His personal website states that he covered a phenomenal 3 lakh kilometres, visited over 25 states and addressed an incredible 440 rallies besides 3D holographics, Chai Pe Charcha and other initiatives.
Despite these many changes in the campaigning processes, the basic features though have not changed so far as the style of campaigns are concerned – whether in form of election rallies, catchy slogans, and poster wars. With technology there has been an extension of mediums with the inclusion of micro-blogging, social networking, mobile messaging and 3D holographics. Yet, the key element remains the same – a people to people connect. Isn’t this the single core ingredient of a successful democracy?
Comments
Post a Comment