T N Ninan: Unreformed politics

WEEKEND RUMINATIONS

There is something fundamentally undemocratic about a protest fast of the kind that Mamata Banerjee undertook in West Bengal for 25 days, against the acquisition of 1,000 acres of land for the Tata small car project in the state. Such a fast shifts focus from the original issue to the health of the fasting leader""and therefore has a coercive power that should not be used in the framework of competitive politics. To be sure, the tactic was sanctified by Mahatma Gandhi during the freedom struggle, but his context was different. Gandhi was battling an alien power in a captive country that had no democracy. Gandhi also used other weapons of the powerless, like the civil disobedience movement, including bandhs or general shut-downs, to put pressure on the imperial power. That weapon too has got corrupted in subsequent decades, so that political parties now call general strikes almost as a matter of routine, and ensure their "success" through coercion and the threat of violence. Fortunately, the courts have now begun holding political parties accountable for the damage they cause. It is time protest fasts too got looked on with disfavour.

Ms Banerjee's fast was a sideshow; the more serious question that West Bengal has to ask itself is whether it wants industrialisation, and to be part of the software and BPO boom. A state whose youngsters have suffered for nearly four decades because of sustained de-industrialisation and the lack of jobs, seems ambivalent even now about turning its back on the protest politics of the past""protests that have already sent the message to potential investors that the talk of a new Bengal may not amount to much.

The even more dispiriting development of recent weeks has been the recidivism of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Here is India in the 21st century, seeking to achieve double-digit economic growth, building strong relationships with the two most powerful countries on the planet, and seeking global recognition as a rising power. And what does its second-largest political party focus on? Nothing but the same old divisive issues that seek to revive a sense of victimhood among Hindus, who are more than 80 per cent of the population, and who have got more than 80 per cent of the benefits of progress. Whether it is Article 370 with regard to Jammu and Kashmir, or minority appeasement, or the rest of the familiar litany that dates back to the days of its predecessor, the Jan Sangh, it would seem that the BJP has nothing to offer today's and tomorrow's India; only a rehash of the slogans of the past.

The Congress is not much better. It has revived its faith in the "hand-out" politics of poverty that Indira Gandhi perfected, and which her son had wanted to shed because only 15 per cent of the money reached the intended beneficiaries. Indeed, today's Congress has done one better and also taken a leaf out of VP Singh's "reservation" book, by seeking to reserve jobs and seats for ever more categories of people""and not just in the government and government-aided sectors but even in the private and unaided sectors. The logic of pouring more water down leaky pipes is still not questioned; the thought that a surplus of seats and jobs should be the goal, so that no one needs reservation, goes unarticulated.

There can be little doubt that India's politics is failing its people. It remains stuck in old grooves of thought and old forms of action, with political leaders seemingly unable to articulate new issues and new approaches. For instance, can a proper social safety net be financed if the government were to shut down programmes and subsidies that don't really reach the poor? A basic programme may cost no more than 2 per cent or 3 per cent of GDP; but as in the case of other programmes, the constraint is not the money but the government's ability to correctly identify the needy beneficiaries. The question is, why is that not a matter of concern for the parties and their leaders?