A major weakness of India 's secular and democratic forces has been their inability to forge pre-poll alliances to be able to decisively defeat religious, feudal and obscurantist forces during parliamentary elections. The division of votes under the first-past-the-post arrangement has enabled communal and divisive forces to gain respectability and project themselves as formidable opponents and, sometimes, even claim governments at the Centre and in the States. Though the blame lies mainly with the country's biggest political party, the Congress, the biggest culprits have been the Left parties which have been trying to undermine any secular coordination which would affect their interests.
After losing its monopoly of power, the Congress took several years to reconcile to the realities of politics and share power with others in order to retain its hold on office. The Left, on its part, has done everything to undermine the credibility of the United Progressive Alliance, which it still supports but threatens to pull down every other day. While it accuses the Congress of having aligned the country on the side of the United States , it brazenly follows the directions of another foreign power which does not want India to emerge as an economic power to reckon with. On issues, such as, the Indo-US nuclear deal, it has made common cause with the Bharatiya Janata Party (which it describes as "communal") which opposes the deal for no reason other than that the Bush Administration refused to trust it. The Left strategically aligned with the Congress in order to gain respectability at all- India level, but is doing everything in its power to prevent the Congress from strengthening itself.
Next year, the Congress Party faces another major test of its capability to retain power at the Centre, which it cannot do single-handed, but in association with other like-minded secular parties. Old equations are gradually changing and politics is now in a big melting pot. The National Democratic Alliance of yore has all but disintegrated, with some of its component parties having openly declared their intent to dissociate from "communal" forces and others hobnobbing with the emerging Third Front. The BJP, which has retired its old war-horse Atal Bihari Vajpayee and has projected RSS-backed L. K. Advani as its next prime ministerial candidate, is in a much worse shape than it was in 2004 and its Lok Sabha tally is likely to come down further, thus distancing it further from the goal of recapturing the Gaddi in New Delhi . Its biggest nighmare would be the BSP leader Mayawati pushing it further down to third place nationally, as she did in Uttar Pradesh in the last Assembly elections.
The time-worm slogans of building a temple to Lord Ram in Ayodhya (which it could not do during its six-year rule) and organizing countrywide rath-yatras or anti-nuclear agreement rallies will not work this time because the people are tired of them. If these appeals had worked, Uttar Pradesh -- the land of Lord Ram -- would not have rejected it. Mr. Advani and his Dharmic colleagues should not be surprised if Mulayam Singh Yadav together further uproot it from UP, thus dashing its hopes of capturing power at the Centre.
The disarray in which the BJP finds itself may not necessarily work to the advantage of the Congress Party, because it has not utilized the past four years that it has been in power to rebuild its base and retrieve its lost constituency among the Dalits, minorities and upper castes. It still has lack-luster leadership in several States and has not been able to mobilize the youth, which constitutes over fifty per cent of the electorate, in its support. The decision to induct Rahul Gandhi and plunge him in the thick of battle, though late, is a right one, provided he is given freedom to retrieve the party's lost constituency. He has talked of lack of inner-party democracy, denial of opportunities to the youth and poor monitoring of ambitious central rural welfare schemes on which thousands of crores are spent each year without benefiting the targeted population.
It remains to be seen if his enthusiasm too will be suppressed under the clout of the worn out Central party leadership, or he will be given all organizational support to implement his ideas about enlarging the party's constituency. His father, Rajiv Gandhi too had made some inspiring declarations at the Congress Centenary Session in Mumbai about ridding the party of the hold of the satraps, feudal elements and power-brokers and enlarge its mass base by enlisting the youth, the deprived and the oppressed sections. But, his dream remained unrealized and the Congress lost power by committing the same mistakes about which he had warned. Since the party President Sonia Gandhi was witness to the great upheavals in Indian politics and the state through which the Congress has passed in the past two decades, she is expected to project the party's younger face and implement the long over-due organizational reforms about which she too has talked quite often, but has hesitated to act decisively.
Considering how much the Congress has lost in terms of support of various sections of the population, the task of recouping the loss is, indeed, stupendous, but not impossible. It needs to concentrate attention in the states where it is out of power and its opponents want it dead. It needs to educate people about the welfare scheme announced entailing huge financial outlays and ensure that the aid reaches the targeted population. It must launch mass struggles in support of the people's rights and seek redressed of their grievances and righting the injustices being done to them. It requires identification with the people and their problems and extensive touring and party mobilization. The work of rejuvenating the party must be done in the dusty and hot villages, as also, urban areas and not in air-conditioned rooms and by passing resolutions containing timeworn clichés and too many busybodies crossing each other's path at party headquarters. Mrs. Sonia Gandhi ought to realize the enormity of the task involved and mobilize forces within her party and outside to accomplish it. Instead of fighting with the back to the wall, the Congress must go on the offensive as its opponents, as well as, Communist allies are desperately trying to put it on the offensive and prevent its gaining strength.
The Congress cannot draw comfort from disarray in which the main rival, the BJP finds itself. Much of BJP's upper caste base is getting eroded by defections to the Bahujan Samaj Party. Party leaders have revolted in Maharashtra and Karnataka and even though a truce of sorts has been worked out, deep dissensions in the party are sapping its vitality. In Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is marginalizing the BJP and in Rajasthan, a wave of dissidence against the authoritarian ways of Vasundara Raje is sweeping the party. In the recent by-elections in UP, the BJP candidates lost deposits in four out of the five seats which were all bagged Mayawati's BSP. It seems Brahmins voted against the BJP with a vengeance and attempts to woo Muslims failed. In Madhya Pradesh also, things are changing fast and the party cannot hope to do as well as it did in the last elections. With further erosion in its strength in UP and little possibility of making substantial gains elsewhere, the BJP will find it extremely difficult to retain its present strength in the Lok Sabha, much less think of coming to power, with whatever allies it is still left with.
Fully aware that it cannot return to power in its own strength, the Congress must seriously address the task of locating dependable and ideologically-tuned allies' right from now. A beginning could be made with the ensuing Assembly elections and the experiment could be repeated at the time of the next Lok Sabha election. Alliance-making is a difficult and sensitive task, involving negotiating skills and give-and-take. Formal announcements may not be made now, but understandings could be reached and acted up in order to prevent a division of votes to benefit sectarian and obscurantist forces. The party has done well in clarifying that there is at present, no vacancy for the Prime Minister's post and remove a sense of uncertainty in the government, which has a magnificent record of performance-oriented achievements. Mr. Rahul Gandhi has just been inducted and his projection by sycophants sends wrong signals. Let the party judge when he had gained experience and his times has come.
The Government should be prepared with measures to contain inflation and ensure availability of food and fuel to the masses and not be guided too much by free-market economists, who do not have to seek votes. Reforms should have a human dimension which, if overlooked, can have unsavory political consequences for the ruling alliance and cast it shadow in the next election.
MK Dhar, -NPA
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