Shiv Visvanathan
The results of the recently-concluded assembly elections came as a Christmas gift of sorts for the Congress. The party edged its way to power in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and created an unforgettable cliffhanger in Madhya Pradesh, leaving even the optimists incredulous. God seemed to be favouring the Congress this month. The problem is that such numbers are not objective, they are signals to be read in the long run.
The temporariness of elections is sometimes critical. The results lack a sense of fait accompli. They look more like hypotheses for the future, strategies to be played out than results in the terminal sense. The just-concluded polls had the air of a semi-final in the words of commentators and it has behaved like just that. It indicates possibilities, mumbles encouragements to dominant or passive groups, mutters the possibility of hope but never gives guarantees. Such an election result shuffles the cards a bit to make the game more interesting. In terms of time, it suggests present continuous with surprises is the theme of the hour.
The results as a set of messages conveys meaning at different levels for the future. At the national level it suggests that the BJP’s much-touted myth of invincibility can, like the predictions of the three witches of Macbeth, play havoc. Voter anxiety, violence, the slowness of the economy can all tilt the current windmills. As a result, 2018 is saying 2019 is an open process and should be so in a democracy. It is almost as if the voter concerned with the dullness of politics believes that the Opposition needs a sporting chance. The future becomes a playful political suggestion for just the lively democratic scenario.
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The second takeaway focuses more on the Congress, saying that the party needs to be more proactive about its future. Mere nibbling at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will not do. It needs to be the core, the crystal seed of a revitalised opposition. It suggests that the rest of the parties will hedge their bets till the lines are clear.
Thus, it is up to the Congress to turn probabilities into distinct possibilities. This requires a revitalisation of leadership, both at the national level and at the state level. The Congress has to inspire, lead, consolidate, invent, and place long-range bets with a confidence that inspires a cautious Opposition to join hands with it.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi needs to display a confidence that makes his BJP counterpart Amit Shah look empty. Gandhi has to bait a Modi staging a statesman like withdrawal, back into battle. Everything from Rafale to Babri Masjid has to be thought through with a different sense of connectivity.
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These elections have sent a clear message that the Congress should crack down on infighting, back its loyalists and go into battle as a revitalised force. The message is clear. It is the Congress that can promise a new future of possibilities. The BJP, if it wins, will merely be a more repetitive performance. The election is thus the joker in the pack, challenging BJP’s invincibility by claiming that democracy might die of boredom of incumbency at state and national levels if the BJP wins or wins too convincingly.
The third message is that the scenarios for the national and state levels have to be re-drawn separately. The silences of national politics-drought, the future of agriculture, the breakdown of institutions, the BJP’s tryst with corruptions in the Rafale deal, have to be transformed from silence to noise to a coherent electoral platform. Gandhi needs a systems perspective, a language and a rhetoric different from the utterances of current leaders like Nistish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee, N Chandrababu Naidu or K Chanrashekar Rao.
The other aspect of the results is emphasising that state scenarios need to be drawn with a different kind of flexibility, with a sense of the irritations of jokers in the pack like Ajit Jogi. The effort must be made to discourage independents and dissenting groups from playing selfishly, creating that cynical movement where middlemen and brokers destroy the openness of the electoral system.
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At a more cynical level, it is clear that what one astute observer called the Jayalalithaa effect has come to stay. The dole, the incentive either blatantly thrust as gifts or concealed as Yojana or Vikas events, has become part of the political game. There is a sense of the election bazaar where the vote is becoming a commodity. This commodification of voting might get even more entrenched as the 2019 stage is reached, given the desperation and the amoralism of those in power or desperate for it. The Election Commission and civil watch electoral groups need to be mobilised more creatively to see that India gets the democracy it deserves.
Election results as communication systems have overt messages following the logic of numbers, interpretive messages which demand a reading of processes, and a more astrological sense that goes into the tacit silences of the elections to capture imaginations that are becoming marginal. What is missing is the involvement of civil society, the creation of alternative possibilities and strategies.
Civil society has to mobilise the intermediate interstices of politics, so that a plurality of issues enter politics. In fact, the message of 2018 is clear: inevitability is not necessary. Dynamism, flexibility, and contestation add a vibrancy to society. The year 2019, it warns us not about Right or Left, the Congress or the BJP. It is a choice between majoritarian inevitability or democracy as open fluidity. The message is clear. The question is — will our politicians, used to political rhetoric, rise to the occasion?
(Shiv Visvanathan is professor, Jindal Global Law School and director, Centre for Study of Knowledge Systems, OP Jindal Global University. Views expressed are personal)
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