april 14, 2012

The Regional Betrayal

Regional parties are stronger than ever before, but they are no different from their national counterparts.
n 2009, when the Congress Party increased its tally in the Lok Sabha elections, it was asked if the party was now going to regain its earlier political predominance. This followed the resurgence of the Congress in the parliamentary elections after close to two decades in Indias largest state, its near sweep in Andhra Pradesh and its retention of power in the assembly elections in the same southern state. There was even talk of the regionalisation of the polity having reached a plateau. The spectacular failure of the so-called Third Front a group of regional parties along with the left only contributed to the belief that the Grand Old Party was headed for a renewed national role in politics. Yet, after what is widely seen as a disastrous performance in governance over the past three years, as head of the second United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the Congress stands substantially weakened once more as a national force. It is not that the principal national opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has gained from the Congress decline. In the recent assembly elections in ve states, it has been the regional parties who many had claimed had reached the limits of their growth which have re-emerged as pivotal players in the national arena, and on whose support the governments survival continues to hinge. Parties that are constituents of the UPA like the Trinamool Congress, which enjoys enormous support in West Bengal, hedges its support to the ruling coalition. And the Samajwadi Party, which lends support to the UPA from outside and is now the dominant force in Uttar Pradesh, has begun to use its inuence in Indias largest state to advance its interests. Other powerful regional parties like the Akali Dal, the Janata Dal (United) and the Biju Janata Dal, while sitting in the opposition in Parliament have weathered anti-incumbency at home to entrench themselves in power in Punjab, Bihar and Orissa, respectively. Even in the traditional Congress strongholds such as Andhra Pradesh, new regional threats like the YSR Congress and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti have emerged. In short, the 2009 parliamentary elections were nothing but an aberration. The regionalisation and federalisation process in the Indian polity that began in the late 1980s only continues to grow in strength. But the larger question is if there has been any substantial change over the years in the character of these
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federal/regional parties. They emerged either to articulate federal/regional concerns that had been neglected in the Congress system or were developed by newly afuent sections of the regional bourgeoisie as new power centres. Normative commentaries about this process have tended to argue that this is in line with the broader democratisation of Indian society and is therefore a positive feature. The growth of the regional formations has also brought about a form of circulation of elites, providing representation to the hitherto marginalised but demographically numerous sections of Indian society. Many from the left have also argued that the rise of regional parties will help diversify economic policymaking, which is otherwise characterised by a consensus on neo-liberalism among the major national parties. Close to three decades after the process began, the experience with the regionalisation of politics has been negative, the only positive being the weakening of the dominance of the Congress. The regional parties have tended to be as authoritarian as, if not more than, the national Congress and the BJP. In many states they have been sectarian in their concerns, their developmentalism has been limited to handing out patronage and they have certainly not formulated any coherent alternative to neoliberalism. Most regional parties have not even provided much of an outlook on important issues related to the national political economy or foreign policy; they have preferred to toe policies formulated by their dominant national partner at the centre. Even the politics of identity built on the upliftment and representation of the majority middle/intermediary castes has not led to the weakening of the caste hierarchy or casteism. Instead, identity politics of this kind has tended to reify these given identities. Wearing caste labels has been shown to be a form of assertion which has hurt the interests of the most marginalised sections such as the dalits and adivasis. In sum, there now needs to be a new wave of democratisation that takes on authoritarianism, narrow identitarianism and sectarianism that have become all-pervasive in contemporary Indian politics. This is practised both by the dominant centre-right and right-wing national and regional parties. Will those who claim to offer a genuine and progressive alternative to the dominant political parties on political economy show their mettle and lead this wave? The answer will lie in the strength of the new challenges that are emerging to the existing regional forces. 7

april 14, 2012

vol xlviI no 15