december 13, 2008
The BJP Worsted
There was no clear winner in the elections to five state assemblies but there was one definite loser.
T
here may have been no clear overall victor in the recent
elections to five state assemblies, but there was certainly
one clear loser, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The BJP having worsted the Congress in a series of state elec-
tions over the past two years was confident that it had the latter
on the mat, and saw the elections as a dress rehearsal for its
r­eturn to power in New Delhi in the Lok Sabha polls that are to
be held in the first half of 2009. Inflation and the year-long t­error
attacks across the country that culminated in the Mumbai
h­orrors appeared to the BJP as the Congress having handed
v­ictory on a platter. In the end, the BJP has had to perforce turn
humble. It won in only two states while the Congress came on
top in three. (The results for a sixth state, Jammu and Kashmir,
will be known on 28 December.) More important, the electorate
has wisely not f­allen for the BJP’s campaign that whipped up the
i­ssue of t­errorist violence.
The BJP had been in power in three of these six states and it
had comfortable majorities in the previous elections, while the
Congress was seeking a third term in Delhi. The Congress was
able to retain power in Delhi, triumphed in Mizoram and
snatched victory in Rajasthan by coming ahead of an unpopular
Vasundhara Raje-led BJP. The saffron party retained power
comfortably in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
The Congress won in Mizoram by defeating the Mizo National
Front (MNF), which had been in office for 10 years. The MNF’s
unpopularity stemmed from its poor handling of the food and
famine situation (related to the flowering of bamboo) and the
Congress was able to win a two-thirds majority by stressing
widespread c­orruption and mal-­governance in the state.
Polling in Rajasthan, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh was held
a­f ter the terror attacks between 26 and 28 November in Mum-
bai. The BJP had made terrorism and security a major plank in
the polls and had expected to gain leverage in at least Delhi and
R­ajasthan (states which had suffered terrorist violence over the
past year). Yet, the success of the Congress in both these states
r­evealed the failure of the BJP strategy, with the electorate
p­ossibly seeing this as a collective problem rather than one that
could be put at the doorstep of the Congress.
The perception of Sheila Dikshit’s government in mostly
m­etropolitan Delhi as focusing on development and good
g­overnance helped the Congress trump the BJP. In R­ajasthan,
Economic & Political Weekly  EPW   december 13, 2008
Vasundhara Raje’s government was seen to have been a
f­ailure,   hopping from one controversy to another (the handling
of the peasant movement for water in northern R­ajasthan,
the    Gujjar agitation, widespread corruption and commun­
alisation of g­overnance). The Congress benefited from this
strong a­ntipathy towards the BJP government, which faced
c­r iticism from within the BJP as well for Vasundhara Raje’s
d­isastrous leadership.
In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP had to force three changes over
the past five years in the chief ministership of the government,
after a revolt by Hindutva leader Uma Bharati, who then left the
party to start her own Hindutva organisation. Intelligently shift-
ing emphasis from Hindutva to development and giving the
a­ppearance of (if not actual) better governance, the low profile
Shivraj Chauhan has taken the BJP to victory. Chief Minister
Chauhan’s projection of an everyday and down to earth
image helped the BJP resist anti-incumbency, even as Uma
B­harati’s party tasted heavy defeat with its leader herself
biting the dust in the assembly elections. The Congress, divided
as is its wont and unable to offer a steady alternative, was
not able to narrow the huge gap in the electoral vote in the
p­revious elections.
In Chhattisgarh a populist Raman Singh-led BJP won again on
the back of such measures as the subsidised rice scheme for the
poor. That the Congress offered no better alternative on the
o­ther prominent issue – Maoism in the state – and that both the
Congress and the BJP have supported the unpopular Salwa
J­udum exercise ensured that the opposition party could not
s­upplant the BJP.
In many ways, the results of these elections put paid to the
“anti-incumbency” theory, which has been the chant of com-
mentators who are unable to explain the voting out of govern-
ments that are unpopular everywhere other than in the TV
s­tudios and the editorial pages of newspapers. Development and
grass roots work have helped ruling parties overcome the
o­pposition, parti­cularly when the other side is divided, does
not    offer a credible alternative, is plainly communal or is
o­pportunistic. However, voting behaviour and outcomes are far
too complex to be e­xplained even in terms of “good governance”.
As the result in Madhya Pradesh shows, even an intelligent
p­ackaging of a government that seems to care can swing voters
5
editorials
away from the opposition, even if there is no true improvement
in people’s welfare. A better understanding is needed of how
local, regional and national factors affect election outcomes
at all levels.
The Congress and the United Progressive Alliance need not
now suddenly turn over-optimistic of their chances in their 2009
After the Attack
Tragically, it does not seem that even a beginning will be made to get to the root of the problem of terror.
T
he kind of organised violence that Mumbai was subjected
to over 59 hours from the night of 26 November needs to
be banished from the face of this earth. The challenge is
how to go about doing this. It is the diagnosis of a disease that
determines how it is to be treated and cured. But, given existing
class and power structures, in the main, it is ruling class-power
elite understanding of the phenomena that will guide what
kind  of purposeful action is deemed necessary. And, given that
class-power elite’s identification of “the terrorists” with the
forces of darkness in Manichaean conflict with those of light
(the self-­appointed protectors of “democracy”, “freedom”, and
“justice” on a global scale and all who are with them), the whole
discourse invariably gets confined to ways of meeting the
terrorist threat, which in practice boils down to “necessary”
counter-terrorism.
The new Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram, at his first
press conference after assuming office painted a rather unoriginal
picture of recent terrorist attacks, including the Mumbai one, pos-
ing “a threat to the very idea of India, a threat to the soul of India
that we know, this is secular, plural, open and tolerant”. He went
on to say that “we will respond with all the determination and
r­esolve to the grave threats posed to the Indian nation”. Are we
then in for expanded central powers in the maintenance of i­nternal
security? From all the talk so far, there are proposals to station
wings of the National Security Guard in major cities, set up a
f­ederal investigation agency on the lines of the US F­ederal Bureau
of Investigation (the latter is already involved in the investigation
of the Mumbai attack), upgrade the Research and Analysis Wing
and the Intelligence Bureau, and enhance coastal security.
But will the spending of hundreds of crores of rupees on inter-
nal security – with essentially the same set of higher-ups and
their political godfathers, whether of the BJP or the Congress,
who have failed repeatedly to stop the spate of terrorist attacks in
the recent past – solve the problem? The BJP is insisting that the
new national agency be backed by a strong Prevention of Terror-
ism Act, 2002-like law to make it effective. Will India then w­itness
a further shift in the balance of power between the judiciary and
the police in favour of the latter? Washington has already made
an offer to provide New Delhi with expertise in setting up “effec-
tive homeland security architecture” on the lines of what was
done in the US following the 9/11 attack.
All the recent acts of terrorism have arisen within the existing
structure of power and politics at the national and international
6 december 13, 2008  EPW   Economic & Political Weekly
Lok Sabha polls. Exactly five years ago, in the same states, the
Congress was routed everywhere other than in Delhi. That
e­mboldened the National Democratic Alliance to launch its
“I­ndia Shining” campaign and call elections a few months e­arlier
than scheduled. The assembly election results of 2003 were no
harbinger of the Lok Sabha elections of 2004.
levels. The 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the US have
to be seen in the context of that country propping up reactionary
regimes in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, its supporting and
bankrolling Israeli repression of the Palestinians, the Gulf
War against Iraq in 1991, and so on, all part of its imperialist
thrust in west Asia. Washington has since been engaged in a
g­lobal “war on terror” with the invasion and occupation of
A­fghanistan and Iraq and the threatening of Iran. And now,
i­nstead of distancing itself from this blatant violator of inter­
national law, New Delhi has c­emented a strategic alliance with
Washington and built a special relationship with Israel, all this
at a time when the epicentre of the “war on terror” has moved
eastward from Iraq to the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan
and Pakistan.
Understandably, there is a deep sense of public anger and
r­evulsion across all communities over the terrorist attack
in  Mumbai. But why was this same sense of rage and disgust
not as widespread when the Babri Masjid was demolished
even as the security forces, under official instruction,
remained mere b­ystanders when the demolition was on? Or,
when it was clear that gangs of Hindutva marauders had
swiftly gone about executing a  pogrom against Muslims in
Mumbai in January 1993 or in G­ujarat in 2002 (in the latter,
the Hindutva mobs had the b­lessings of those in power in
the state)? Why has there been no  public outrage in the rest
of India at the tens of thousands of deaths of Kashmiris
following the post-1988 armed resistance to the military
in Kashmir.
Of course, the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the pogroms
against Muslims, the deaths of tens of thousands of Kashmiris or
indeed, India joining what Al Qaida dubs the “Crusader-Zionist
alliance”, in no way justifies what the terrorists have done in
Mumbai. Nevertheless, it is time to pose the question as to why
young men choose to carry out senseless acts of violence know-
ing fully well that, as a consequence, a macabre death awaits
them. Upon an honest a­nswer to this question by the ruling
groups rests the prospect of beginning the process of banishing
such terror from the face of the earth. Tragically, given the
present structure of class power at the national and international
levels, even a beginning will, in all probability, not be made.
Meanwhile, the cost to humanity – especially in the most
wretched and deeply exploited regions of the world – will
c­ontinue to escalate.