Is there
middle space in Indian politics? This was the
great dilemma before the Socialists in the 1950s
and 1960s. The nationalist movement, which kneaded
the contours of ideology, did not offer much
clarity. Mahatma Gandhi broadened the Congress
umbrella to such an extent that every ideology
could claim to be a rib. His creed was simple and
effective as long as it worked: the nation
belonged to everyone, and therefore everyone
belonged to the struggle against the British. And
so members of the Hindu Mahasabha co-existed with
the Muslim League, till the early Thirties, and
G.D. Birla shared space with Communists in the
Congress tent till 1942.
The flaw in
this elixir was evident each time an important
decision had to be taken. Without the presence of
the Mahasabha the Congress might have come to
terms with the Constitutional formula proposed by
Jinnah at the 1928 all-parties conference in
Calcutta, for instance. By the late 1920s, Netaji
Subhas Bose had begun to sound out Jawaharlal
Nehru on his concerns about Congress’
commitment to socialism, and after the Tripuri
session, Bose was convinced that the only option
left to him was to split and form his own party,
the All India Forward Bloc.
Other
Socialists, led principally by Dr Ram Manohar
Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan and Nath Pai, left the
Congress after India became free. Unity proved as
elusive as socialism, and they split into the
Praja Socialist Party and the Samyukta Socialist
Party. Neither found any traction in electoral
politics; the people remained loyal to
Gandhi’s heir, Jawaharlal, and the Congress.
Denied middle ground, most of the PSP merged into
Congress; Jawaharlal was delighted to welcome them
back. Ashok Mehta was rewarded with a place in the
Cabinet, while the “Young Turk”,
Chandra Shekhar, went on to create history at the
party level by winning an election to the working
committee without the support of Mrs Indira
Gandhi. Dr Lohia’s SSP retained its
anti-Congress radicalism, and sought a solution in
“United Front” formations, which
included the Jana Sangh and had a working, if
arm’s length, relationship with the majority
faction of the Left, the CPI(M).
The crisis of the
Seventies provoked authoritarian tendencies within
the Congress, and drove most of the non-Congress
parties into a unique merger. This was too good to
last, not least because electoral success in 1977
brought power, and power inflated petty egos into
grand bubbles that had to burst. Non-Congress
politicians went back to their old shells,
sometimes redecorated with fresh names. The
Bharatiya Jana Sangh, for instance, became the
Bharatiya Janata Party; and the Lohia-ite Mulayam
Singh Yadav created the Socialist Party, while
Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar became embedded
eventually in the Janata Dal(U). A national
formation had disintegrated into parts of its sum,
but, interestingly, the parts became larger than
the whole as they adopted regional identities.
Vishwanath Pratap Singh made a serious
effort to create middle space at the nationwide
level when he sought to build on his election
triumph in 1989 by spinning out the Mandal report.
It did not work because he was an individual
without an institution. The tension between a
leader’s personal proclivities, often no
more than a desire to sustain a family hierarchy,
and the collaborative demands of a larger
structure, has been the biggest impediment to a
successful “Third Front”.
Can Sharad Pawar succeed where so many
predecessors have failed? He has sent, or re-sent,
an early signal indicating that he is more
comfortable in a Third Front than in his current
alliance with the Congress. It is perfectly
legitimate in politics to run with the hare and
hunt with the hound, but you need the
latter’s fangs and the former’s feet.
Pawar is shrewd enough to hone the combination,
but the more interesting point is the timing. Why
make this pitch with four years left for an
election, unless there is the possibility of an
earlier election?
There are four models
open to non-Congress parties: disparate regional
ambitions; the 1967 pattern of a United Front,
which was partially successful; the unity of 1977,
which was exhilarating while it lasted; and the
V.P. Singh balancing act, in which there is an
implicit understanding between middle and right,
without this being made too obvious to the
voter.
There is some
evidence that the need for prevarication might be
unnecessary. In Bihar Nitish Kumar has managed an
extraordinary feat in reshaping the image of the
local BJP. He has prevented social conflict and
concentrated on good governance, the two
fundamental requirements for electoral victory. He
is likely to get enough of the Muslim vote to
return to power; this, in turn, will propel him
towards the focal point of a larger understanding.
He was a junior minister in V.P. Singh’s
government, which survived with support from both
the Communists and the BJP; he clearly learnt far
more than his seniors from Singh.
There is middle
space in Indian politics, but it is full of
potholes. The ride will be bumpy; there might be
accidents. But it could still be the pathway to a
destination.
