From the vantage point of Bihar now, what would Indian politics look like in the days ahead?
Seen in the context of the changing manifestations of various socialist parties, Bihar has always shown us the trend ahead. From being a bastion of Lohiaite politics culminating in non-Congressism in the 1960s through the Janata experiment of the 1970s to the end of Congress dominance in the 1980s to heralding the interplay of the ‘Mandal and Kamandal’ discourse in the 1990s and thereafter making a seamless rhetorical shift from ‘identity politics to development politics’ since the 2000s, Bihar has always set the trend. The state holds a central place in the emerging national reconfiguration because it represents the pulse of regional parties which have always played a critical role in affecting the prospects of both national parties and national politics.
Against this backdrop, what can one infer from the current fluid political events in Bihar? Does Nitish Kumar’s move reveal a pattern to the chaos prevailing among regional parties ahead of the 2019 general election?
These questions demand a fresh engagement with the nature and role of regional parties in contemporary India. In the post-Mandal phase, their ascendency in national politics was romanticized as mirroring the diversity of India, heralding a new phase of representative legitimacy, and inculcation of a national perspective among regional parties. Many social scientists declared this as the rise of vernacular and subaltern politics displacing the elitist political culture.
However, the ebb and flow of the political culture of regional parties since then flies in the face of these romanticized articulations and offers a gloomy picture that doesn’t bode well for the nation.
The dominant narrative, as thrown up by various half-baked Third Front experiments - Janata Party (1977-79), National Front (1989-1991) and United Front (1996-1998) - happens to be a saga of murky plots reminiscent of Game of Thrones wherein one is perpetually clueless as to who is whose friend and who whose enemy. Everyone happens to be in a state of constant flux. In a nutshell, fluidity and chaos are the characteristics of regional parties in India. This leads to the counter-factual argument against the romanticized notions about regional parties, as the latter present themselves as embodiments of the most brazen instrumentalities whose coming together always ends up in a zero-sum game rather than as a synthesis of the diversity of India.
Further, these chest-thumping, self-appointed guardians of authentic democracy have been found colossally short on democratic parameters. There’s hardly any culture of inner-party democracy in them. The absolute diktat of the supreme leader prevails. Dynastic politics and family feuds determine their politics, besides personifying the most parochial identity politics possible. Their social support base is contingent upon the feudal patron-client mode of politics. It can be argued that these symptoms are true of national parties too. However, even a cursory analysis would establish that there’s always a colossal difference of degree, if not kind, between the two.
Nitish Kumar’s shifting political alliances need to be seen against this backdrop and must not be treated in isolation. Rather, barring rare exceptions, they are part of the larger characteristics informing regional parties from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu and from Gujarat to Bengal.
Regional parties are driven primarily by parochial incentives. Their universe of power remains confined to their respective states where they need to maintain dominance over their rivals. However, the quasi-federal structure of the Indian Union requires them to acquire power to pull strings at the national arena to maintain regional dominance. This leading to their shifting alliances with national parties that currently have the winnability quotient. This trend gets accentuated by the fluidity of voters’ take on the ideological proclamations of the respective parties. Ideological posturing in contemporary India is always a bundle of contradictions, signifying a rampant moral corruption making opportunistic politics normal and normative. There’s no fear of public guilt.
What Nitish has done in Bihar signifies an emerging pattern that regional parties are likely to follow. He needs to be at the helm of affairs in the state perpetually. That has been the thread running through all his moves in the past. His national ambition is always linked to his compulsion to secure regional dominance. His exceptional position on the issue of demonetization, on the slogan of ‘Bihari vs Bahari’ in 2015 and his support to Ram Nath Kovind over Meira Kumar indicate his need of the moment. Adaptability is the key to political survival in the fast-changing socio-political context. One needs to adapt by taking stock of the political scenario, especially in sight of the 2019 general election. The ascendency of the BJP as the single dominant party is the overwhelming factor likely to emerge in the political calculations of a majority of regional parties. What Nitish Kumar has just done will be followed by others. The BJP’s goal of a Congress-mukt Bharat must pass through an intermediate phase of a ‘regional party mukt Congress’, that is, depriving the Congress of potential regional allies, as has been done in the northeastern states. The BJP doesn’t need to pull strings. Most of the regional parties themselves are likely to flock to its camp before 2019. They need to align with the ruling national party to have regional dominance. Nitish has merely taken the lead.
(Sajjan Kumar is a Ph.D from the Centre for Political Studies, JNU. He is associated with People’s Pulse, a Hyderabad-based research organization specializing in political, electoral and field work based studies.)