Byline by MJ Akbar: The Bangalore Virus
Five questions sum up the breadth of news: What, When, Where, Why and How. The breadth of politics is spanned by a single question: Why? What, When and Where become largely irrelevant because you can hardly undo the past; and How helps with the gossip but does not interfere with facts. "Why" is crucial because its answer is the only means by which you can try to pre-empt a similarly unpleasant surprise in the future.
If you manage to get surprised by H.D. Deve Gowda, then you have not been in touch with his astrologer. On the scale of political mistakes, that is the full twelve inches of the ruler. The Congress, which was shocked rather than surprised when Gowda brought down the coalition government in Karnataka, has itself to blame. Anyone with an ear open in Delhi or Bangalore knew at least a fortnight back that Deve Gowda had placed his hands firmly on the carpet and was going to pull it from under Dharam Singh’s chair. Our newspaper had suggested as much in the political diaries we publish, and we were hardly alone. But ever since it came to power, the Congress has been floating in a delirium. It is hard to see clearly with eyes wide shut.
Five questions sum up the breadth of news: What, When, Where, Why and How. The breadth of politics is spanned by a single question: Why? What, When and Where become largely irrelevant because you can hardly undo the past; and How helps with the gossip but does not interfere with facts. "Why" is crucial because its answer is the only means by which you can try to pre-empt a similarly unpleasant surprise in the future.
So why did the former Prime Minister of India sabotage his own coalition with Congress in Bangalore?
The easy answer is: to satisfy the ambitions of his son, H.D. Kumaraswamy. That is correct as far as it goes. But that proposition makes two assumptions. The first is that the Congress would not have been amenable to making Kumaraswamy chief minister if pressed. As post-mortem flutters indicate, any deal would have been a better alternative to Congress than life in arid wilderness. The Congress is ready to accept Mr Kumaraswamy as the new leader even as I write.
But a deal is unlikely, even in the name of secularism, which brought the two together after the elections of 2004. Instead Gowda and BJP MLAs are off on the familiar countrywide package tour (a resort outside Bangalore for a day, then to the comparative safety of Jayalalithaa’s Chennai, before onward to the protection of Fortress Jaipur, under the pleasant but beady watch of Mrs Vasundhara Scindia) to keep them together, and out of reach of any possible enticement from the Congress.
The second assumption is that we are only dealing with the hopes of a son. You also have to factor in the ambitions of the father.
It is perfectly logical that those who became Prime Minister through the good graces of fortune should be confident that the astrologer who was, quite against the odds, right the first time should be correct again when he predicts a second successful tilt at the windmill. I don’t know who Deve Gowda’s personal astrologer is, but he would not be worth the sandal paste on his forehead if he had not studied the stars and predicted that Deve Gowda would become Prime Minister again.
It is now established that the way to Delhi is through the states. Deve Gowda has set in motion a process that, he hopes, will not only make his son chief minister of Karnataka but also make him either Prime Minister or at the very least deputy prime minister in Delhi. Hope is not quite the same thing as fulfilment but it is the first step towards achievement.
Any coalition in power has two principal strategic objectives. The first obviously is to keep the existing coalition together. The second, no less important, is to prevent the emergence of an alternative coalition. Very often the survival of the first lies in the success of the second.
Untouchability plays an important part in the psychology of coalitions. For a long while the Congress was treated by most smaller parties as untouchable. The riots in Gujarat gave Congress its opportunity to turn the BJP into the untouchable. Mrs Sonia Gandhi used the chance, with remarkable finesse, to put together a rainbow partnership that was very effective, electorally. Such was the pressure of success that Deve Gowda, who had not aligned with the Congress before the 2004 elections, was forced to join a Congress-led government after equilateral results made it possible for any two sides to keep the third in Opposition. In neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu broke his partnership with the BJP. In less than two years, Deve Gowda has quietly undermined that untouchability. That process may have started when Nitish Kumar stuck with the BJP in Bihar, and proved that he could still get at least a part of the Muslim vote. But Deve Gowda has taken it a decisive step forward.
To return to the basic question: Why? The Congress has not made any serious political miscalculation or appropriated too much more than it deserved. One could argue that it is hitting above its weight in Delhi, keeping all the key centres of power, but that is a reality which junior partners know they have to live with. The problem is not the present, but the future. The smaller parties in the coalition know one indisputable fact, that the Congress can grow in their states only at their expense. This is glaringly true in a state like Maharashtra, and only marginally less valid in Karnataka. There is only one point on which Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati are agreed in Uttar Pradesh, that they would rather be defeated by each other than be defeated by the Congress. Chandrababu Naidu has only the Congress to worry about, which is why he cannot be in a Congress-led coalition. Nor can Om Prakash Chautala in Haryana. The Left is less worried because it is confident that it will defeat the Congress in both Bengal and Kerala. Others cannot be as sanguine; and the Left might try a quick look over the shoulder just in case there is a de facto understanding between Congress and Mamata Banerjee in Bengal during this summer’s Assembly election.
This is the fundamental problem before the Congress, whether its leaders formally address it during the Hyderabad AICC or not. They might content themselves with pretty slogans rather than real issues, because an AICC has now become the Christmas party of a political party, a happy jamboree of sentimental reunions fuelled by pretty good food. The logic of a coalition permits no encroachment. The logic of power demands encroachment. The history of the Congress demands it as well. That is the dilemma.
Successful politics is the combination of personal ambition with unsentimental reality. Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy’s decisions will be influenced by what they want now as well as what they want ten years later. If the price of power now is elimination in the next elections, they will seek other options while they can.
One reason why the Left Front works in Bengal is because the various partners have, over two decades, established their territories: the Forward Bloc, for instance, knows that it will get this many seats in any election. The Congress-led coalitions are new, and no one knows what they will get in any future seat-sharing arrangement. Nor is it possible to know, for all political parties are personality-oriented. The presence or absence of the leader becomes a huge variable.
The political map of India is a stack of coalition governments: a straight line of coalitions from Delhi to Bengal via Patna and Ranchi, followed by a straight line from Kolkata to Trivandrum via Bhubaneswar and Chennai and back again to Mumbai via Bangalore. Andhra may not look like a coalition government, but it is one. The Congress is in power on its own strength only in small states like Punjab, Haryana and Assam. There is always the danger of a virus moving from one stack to another.
We are in a transition phase of Indian politics, and 2006 could be so transitory it might even bypass Deve Gowda’s astrologer.
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