NATIONAL POLITICS
Not by Keeping BJP Out but by Establishing Revolutionary Democracy
Editorial in the Voice of the People Awakening, June 1996
The most significant development since the BJP formed the Central Government and then lost it, is the polarization of the political class into two camps - a pro- Hindutva camp and an anti-Hindutva camp. During the past seven years, political struggle was essentially a three-cornered fight with the so-called third force claiming to fight both the BJP and the Congress party. Overnight, the logic of a hung Parliament, coupled with the overriding aim of pulling the BJP away from power, has propelled the Congress and the Third Force into each other's arms.
The three-cornered dog fight in the political class helped the BJP to become the largest parliamentary party within a span of eight years by fully exploiting the split in the so-called secular vote. The present opportunistic ganging up of the Third Force and the Congress party will relentlessly push up the vote share of the Hindutva wadi camp as they are now privileged to be the sole opposition. As the BJP ideologues have succinctly put it, "For four decades, the country has had a united ruling party with a divided opposition. Today we have a divided ruling combination with a united opposition".
The Hindutva wadi camp grabbed the opportunity of forming a minority government for two primary reasons. The first, in order to announce to the electorate that it has one foot within the Red Fort. The second, to expose to the full view of the people, the opportunistic ganging up of the Third Force with its enemy of yesterday- the Congress party. It succeeded on both counts. For the first time, the BJP government gave the people the privilege of witnessing live on television the "dignity" and the "sacredness" of that hallowed institution of parliamentary democracy, the Lok Sabha. The result was a mass revulsion for this institution, as well as for those who had united only on the negative programme of pulling down the BJP government. This negative programme supposedly "to save parliamentary democracy" was nothing but a nail in the coffin of this democracy! This negative programme supposedly "to defend secularism" actually discredited secularism as it was fought with the help of the "secular" Congress whose hands are still sticky with the blood of the Sikhs killed in the anti-Sikh pogrom in 1984!
The most ironic aspect of the Lok Sabha debate on the vote of confidence was the manner in which the anti- Hindutvawadi camp castigated the Vajpayee government for giving up all contentious issues like the building of the Ram temple, the scrapping of Section 370 and the promulgation of a uniform civil code. It was as if the "secularists" were more affected than the Hindutvawadis by this compromise of the Hindutva programme. It was as if their secularism could be defined and sustained only if Hindutva was alive and vibrant. On the other hand, by dropping these contentious issues, the Vajpayee government successfully signalled to the bourgeoisie, how responsible it can become while in power. The BJP is no more a pariah for even sections of the liberals!
This neurotic and unprincipled anti-BJPism which we witnessed in Parliament can only help in the long- term consolidation of the BJP. The driving force behind this neurotic anti-BJPism has been the Left leaderships. They have carefully cobbled together the United Front and yet refuse to lead the flock. Right now, some of them do not know whether to sit in the treasury benches with the ruling coalition they will have to bear the ruling coalition or to sit in the opposition. If they sit consequences of all the government's actions. If they sit in the opposition, they will alienate their allies whom they were instrumental in uniting. Yesterday, they took to task the Vajpayee government for compromising on its Hindutva programme, and yet today, they are joint architects with Chidambaram in drafting the Common Minimum Programme which goes even beyond Narasimha Rao's New Economic Policy!
The Source of the Neurosis
This neurotic anti-BJPism has its source in their driving obsession to defend and to protect the existing system of parliamentary democracy. We thus are confronted with a historical irony. On the one hand, protection of bourgeois democracy is not a priority for the big bourgeois parties, while on the other hand, it has become a fixation for the Parliamentary Left.
The Parliamentary Left has correctly grasped that the biggest threat to Parliamentary democracy comes from the Hindutvawadis. The Sangh Parivar's cultural nationalism and economic nationalism, its fascist mass mobilization methods against minorities, Dalits and liberal and secular Hindus, its propagation of a Hindu Rashtra, etc. is preparation for not only gaining electoral power, but for changing the very nature of state power- from bourgeois democracy to fascism. However, the Parliamentary Left is only deceiving its cadres if it believes that the growth of the rightists can be halted by defending parliamentary democracy. Just the opposite.
The militant Right stands for change, while the conservative Left defends the status quo. It is because the masses feel the need for change that they are attracted to the Hindutvawadis (as) the Parliamentary Left has no agenda for change, leave alone revolution.
The only way to expose and oppose the rightists who stand for change, is not to protect parliamentary democracy, but to put forward a programme for revolutionary democracy. This is possible only if the class nature of the existing institutions of power, including parliament, is exposed to the masses. This is possible only if we spell out an alternative vision of democracy where the masses, organized from below upwards, control on a daily basis state officials and elected representatives; where the workers and the peasants, and not the exploiters, will be the centre of national reconstruction and development.
The Parliamentary Left leaderships neither have the programme nor are interested in formulating a programme based on revolutionary democracy. If they were committed to such a democracy, they would begin by exposing the rot that has spread to every parliamentary institution. They would expose the wheeling dealing that goes on in the hundreds of parliamentary committees.
Of course they cannot do such a thing. If they acted so "irresponsibly" what would happen to the United Front Government? Would this not lead to the fall of the government? Would this not help the BJP to come to power? And would this not be a national tragedy? This, in essence, is the convoluted logic of the conservative Left. A Left that wants to conserve the political system, conserve the existing government, conserve the existing class rule! Frankly, this is a greater national tragedy than the BJP coming to power!
But the Parliamentary Left is living in a fool's paradise if they believe their conservatism can stop the BJP. Conservatives have a morbid fear of going to the masses... The Hindutva wadis. are the only political force ready to go to the masses. They are the only political force that can indulge in the rhetoric of calling for another election soon. What a cruel twist of history! The fascists go to the masses and involve them in a political debate. The Parliamentary Left leaders on the other hand, scurry to cobble together the Hegdes with the Deve Gowdas. From consistently tailing the national bourgeoisie, our Parliamentary Left leadership have now graduated to leading the regional bourgeoisie!
The UF government daily survives under the shadow of the Congress party. It survives under the shadow of this party's history of corruption and crimes against the people.
Many fear that the Congress party will withdraw support and bring down the UF government. They forget that the Congress could break up the earlier coalition governments only with the help of forces within Charan Singh (and) Chandra Shekhar. An alliance of regional forces at the centre is inherently unstable. In a period of liberalization and globalization, the former contradiction between an authoritarian Centre and the states is giving way to intense competition between the states themselves. The centre plays a crucial role in setting the terms and conditions of this competition and playing referee. If states are fighting the Centre, it is primarily to get something for themselves by denying it to other states. The regional forces cannot compete with each other at the state level and also together referee the competition from the centre for long. There is no guarantee whatsoever that these parties, whose main rivals in their states is the Congress party, will not gravitate towards the BJP, if and when the UF cracks up.
It was to precisely pre-empt such a possibility that the Parliamentary Left leaderships played a leading role in forming this coalition of the regional parties. And they will have to continue to keep this coalition together even as its leaders discredit it and its government's policies fuel inflation and unemployment. But how long can they play this charade?
V.R. Krishna Iyer on BJP and Communalism
The plea is that the BJP should be defeated at the hustings as it is a great danger if it comes to power, and so all secular parties should stand together to achieve this objective. An appeal to the electorate to defeat the BJP in the UP polls is the thrust. In all likelihood, I must have signed the letter without reading all the details on the assumption that I was signing a statement demanding secular politics in India.
I do not belong to any party and do not wish to publish campaign letters for or against any parties, alliances, adjustments, fronts and like operations. I am skeptical of many other parties and their policies and programmes. I do hold firmly that secularism is implicit in humanism which is my creed and that on principle, not merely as a strategy, India must be secular. I further subscribe to the view that Hindutva, as commonly understood in political parlance, communalism and should be given up, that Bharatiyata expressed our finer nationalism and should be adopted instead.
The BJP, as I understand its functionalism, has many elements, some communalist in the extreme sense and others with moderate versions. Moreover, this too is important some other parties wearing secular apparel also have communal politics, covert and overt, hard-core bases and crypto-communal operational casteist strategies. The Congress(T) among others, has long ago lost its secular identity. In my view, therefore, secular politics is a battle against the communal component entrenched in many parties in different degrees and designs, using caste and religion and blended brews as appeals to votes positively and negatively. The BJP has no monopoly of communal magnetology and some Fronts are communal-friendly or caste-allergic. I cannot confine my secularism to opposing the BJP, since communal consanguinity is present in varying shades in other parties of plural labels even while choosing candidates, although they make secular noises.
While I see highly objectionable communal factors in the BJP and elsewhere, there are certain matters like swadeshi, self-reliance and anti-US hegemony which are welcome aspects of BJP politics, if what it says is what it really means.
Secondly, the intricacies of UP politics and the communal percentage in each party contesting elections, are beyond my ken. I do not wish to be dragged into that political jungle through statements or otherwise.
(Source: The Times of India, 18 September, 1996)
