Sonia Gandhi’s Telangana blunder

What politics giveth it taketh away

There is a sense of destiny with which the Law of Unintended Consequences operates.

There were just 7 months back staring at a triumphant Congress with a firm lock on Andhra looking at a stable and secure 5 year term.

And here we are 7 months later with a shaken up Congress with an uncertain lock on Andhra clueless on the political faultlines that will likey shape the rest of its term.

There was no way out for Sonia Gandhi on the long overdue demand for a separate state of Telangana. After having campaigned on the Telanagana plank in alliance with the TRS back in 2004 it was foolish of Sonia Gandhi to have put all her eggs in the immortality basket of YSR’s political persona.

Alas mortality is such a great political leveller for in the wake of its assertions it exposes many faultlines leading to even more political upheavals.

Sonia Gandhi had to do right by Telangana but to have done so in a knee jerk manner after being boxed into a political corner, reminds us once again of the Congress’ achilees heel.

No amount of media spin can help gloss over this monumental blunder.

Sonia Gandhi lack of natural political acumen, Manmohan Singh’s technocracy and Rahul Gandhi’s naivety have badly exposed the Congress.

That her political advisers blundered as well goes to once again highlight that political leadership cannot be an outsourced backroom function. A lesson for the BJP as well.

The many headlines say it all – Telangana in a limbo, Andhra in a mess and political chaos across the nation with latent demands for many states receiving a filip.

In the Telangana chaos lie many a political opportunity for the BJP, if only its moribund leadership could demonstrate vision. 

The political environment is ripe for a movement that advocates reorienting India’s fledgling federalism with a firm focus on administrative efficiency and governance.

The issue of smaller states and autonomy to local governance has the potential to rewrite many an existing political equations and marginalizing many an existing political power centers.

The BJP’s hopes of revival rest on breaking new ground and on stitching new social coalitions. There cannot be a better opportunity than this to take on the Congress over the next few years.

Is the BJP up to the challenge of offering a coherent vision and leading the movement on this issue of smaller states and freedom, autonomy to local government ?

Join us for a debate on the same at the next Offstumped Community Live Event on Sunday night – Telangana & Small States – What is the way forward ?

Filed under: DesiPundit, Live Events, Local Governance, Offstumped Community, Telangana

Maharashtra Results – End of the Road for BJP avatar

With Maharashtra assembly election results trending towards a Cong-NCP lead over Shiv-Sena BJP by a margin of around 30 seats it is safe to say that the BJP is headed for the dog-house in Maharashtra.

Barring any post poll horse trading which seems quite unlikely to do much to its status even if the situation were to manifest, the ramifications of the dismal electoral outcome are bound to have a ripple effect in the national party.

That some in the BJP were projecting Nitin Gadkari as a contender for the top BJP job irrespective of the outcome in Maharashtra is a reflection on the bankruptcy of imagination in the party and also a reflection of the grave inertia within the party to think boldy to embrace change.

More analysis and rationalizations will follow on this debacle once the final electoral outcome is clear. Much will be said of the Raj Thackeray factor and every other conspiratorial angle will be analyzed threadbare.

The bottomline however, as Offstumped had said before, is that the BJP is trapped in its rhetoric and legacy of the past while its Delhi based non-leaders are trapped in a Semi-finals mindset.

In the resulting impasse all decision making is reduced factional intrigue and myopic compromises stripping the Party of what little sheen was left of its claim to be the Party with a difference.

Irrespective of whether Narendra Modi is called upon to embrace the leadership of the BJP now or two years from now, we are staring at the end of the road for the BJP to emerge as a national alternative to the Congress.

This is not to say the BJP will not be a viable player in some states where it continues to fill the non-Congress political space.

However barring unprecedented acts of nature and god it is hard to see the BJP breaking new ground to sustain a bipolar polity at the National level.

It would take extradordinary leadership to make a clean break from the past and to chart a new course for the BJP, leadership that is nowhere on the horizon.

The defining faultlines of future electoral politics are decisively drifting towards socio-economic issues. Unless the Center Right stitches new coalitions around socio-economic interests to challenge the Congress’ maai-baap politics we are in for a Congress monopoly for at least the next two election cycles.

Filed under: Assembly Polls 2009, DesiPundit, India Elections 2009, Live Events, Maharashtra Polls 2009, Offstumped Community, Shveta Chhatra

Maharashtra Assembly Election Results – Live Blogging

With Maharashtra set to count the ballots, speculation is rife on the many scenarios that will likely unfold.

Here is what Offstumped will be looking forward to in the results.

#1 How viable is the Sharad Pawar factor – does he stand diminished, enhanced or just about stagnant ?

#2 What is the future for NCP as a standalone political entity ?

#3 In the akahara of Sena politics, which cousin emerges “tagda” ?

#4 How effective was Rahul Gandhi’s rhetoric ?

Finally of course the most important question to this blogger if not to the Maharashtra voter – What does this mean to the future of the BJP ?

Maharashtra BJP President Nitin Gadkari ran a marathon campaign of some 100 odd public meetings while his bete-noire Munde gave this election a nepotist hue. 

Nitin Gadkari who has also authored a Vision document on transforming Maharashtra’s infrastructure has been touted by both Swapan Dasgupta and Kanchan Gupta as likely to be promoted to New Delhi for BJP top job.

Will this election mark the emergence of a new viable leader who has been the BJP’s best kept secret ?

OR

Will this election merely reinforce the Rajnath stereotype that an election wipeout is a great Resume enhancer if you are contending for the top BJP job ?

So as Maharashtra prepares to count the ballots you can catch Offstumped live on

#1 Twitter

#2 at an Offstumped Community Live Event

#3 as always on this blog

Keep the comments coming ……

Filed under: Assembly Polls 2009, Lok Sabha Polls 2008-2009, Maharashtra Polls 2009, Offstumped Community , haryana

Mahrashtra Elections 2009 – A response to Rahul Gandhi

SEE NEW UPDATES BELOW

Rahul Gandhi campaigning in Raigadh for the Maharashtra Assembly elections on behalf of Congress-NCP combine had this to say:

“Two Indias exist today. One is the ‘Shining India’ and the other is the ‘Backward India’. There is a need to connect the two Indias,”

Below is a response from Offstumped in response to Rahul Gandhi in the form a speech that we dont expect any BJP leader to ever give.

Friends

It has become fashionable these days for leaders of the Manmohan Singh Sonia Gandhi lead Congress to be in awe of all things American. This affliction has become particularly acute since the ascent of the messiah to the American Presidency. Now the pandemic has infected Rahul Gandhi as well.

Let me explain this with a little story from American politics.

Most of you may not have heard of John Edwards, I dont blame you for it. John Edwards was one of the many challengers to Barack Obama for his party’s nomination for Presidency and he shot to fame with his rhetoric of “Two Americas”.

When one hears Rahul Gandhi plagiarise this formulation to talk of “Two Indias” one cannot but help but wonder if its similar to the “Two Americas” that finally sank John Edward’s political career – one legitimate and the other mired in clandestine affairs and illegitimate progeny.

Be that as it may, Rahul Gandhi’s rhetoric of “Two Indias” needs a coherent and incisive political response.

Let me take this opportunity to remind Rahul Gandhi of what this nation had to suffer the last time we heard such rhetoric of “Two Indias” – one Muslim and the other Hindu. 

No Rahul, this nation shall not countenance this divisive rhetoric that pits Indian against Indian. Your family excelled quite well at this rhetoric to script India’s partition, 6 decades ago, we will not let you do the same a second time.

Make no mistake my countrymen, this rhetoric of “Two Indias” is exactly same the rhetoric of those who thrive outside the ambit of law and go by the name Maoists. By lending credibility to this divisive theme of “Two Indias” Rahul Gandhi is rationalizing their anti-India activities.

Be that as it may, Rahul Gandhi’s political naivety is of little consequence to your everyday life and the core issues of this election. However the flawed policies of his Party’s Government in Maharashtra and in New Delhi have been of grave consequence to your everyday life.

Yes Rahul Gandhi is right there are two distinct political ideologies here. On the one hand there is the ideology of the “aam admi” that thinks very little of you or your abilities.

This ideology thinks so poorly of you that it would like you to remain poor if you are already poor and create incentives for you to declare yourself as poor if you are not already poor.

This ideology thinks so little of you that it sees your abilities as being only “banal’ and “common”, nothing special/

This ideology thinks you are so ignorant and naive that it has the arrogance to conclude that all wisdom lies in Delhi rather than in Raigadh so it can make choices for you sitting in Delhi.

This ideology is so ignorant of how different every one of you is that it is stupid to believe that a one size fit all solution designed in Delhi will work for all of your problems.

One such one-size-fit-all solution is this 5 letter word called NREGA that Rahul Gandhi never loses an opportunity to throw at you. But then Rahul Gandhi forgets to tell you what every one of you told the government during the 2002 BPL Census.

Rahul Gandhi who never forgets to tout NREGA as a panacea to all the rural poor’s problems has no clue that a majority of Rural Poor when asked what kind of assistance they would like from the Government had screamed in one voice that

they would like “Self Employment” over “Government provided wages”

they would like “Skill development” over “Subsidized food via PDS”

It is in that earthy rural wisdom that is inherent in every one of you is the second ideology that is exactly opposed to what Rahul Gandhi is preaching to you.

This ideology was not scripted in New Delhi by armchair intellectuals.

This ideology does not need 5 letter words to be understood and appreciated.

This ideology does not need the benevolence of Sonia Gandhi’s family to deliver benefits to you.

This ideology does not need you to depend on Government and Bureaucrats to make a difference to your everyday life.

This ideology my friends is what comes naturally to every one of you.

It is what makes every one of you unique and special.

It is the wisdom that was passed on to you by your parents and their parents before them.

It is the wisdom to be self reliant and self sufficient.

This ideology my friends is of freedom so you can become masters of your own destiny. This ideology my friends is that innately native spirit of India that saw each village and town, each trade and craft be masters of their own destiny with the autonomy and economic independence they desire. This ideology is the Dharma of how we used to do things when there was no sultanate in Delhi dictating how you should conduct your life.

I would be guilty of high sounding rhetoric and no substance at all my friends if I fail to explain to you how this ideology will make a difference to every one of you to meet your unique needs, understanding your special capabilities.

But before I do that I would urge every one of you to reject this divisive rhetoric that treats you as common and banal and to spread this infection called optimism that the answer to your problems lies in your hands through self reliance and enterprise.

If elected my party will ………………………………

Postscript: NDTV’s Sreenivasan Jain rips apart Rahul Gandhi’s claims on Congress-NCP governance in Maharashtra

Perhaps the most emblematic example of squandered greatness is Maharashtra’s employment guarantee scheme, conceived in the famine years of the early seventies and subsequently the template for the UPA’s national flagship. The EGS was, quite apart from its intent, a remarkable attempt to bridge wealthy, highly urbanised Maharashtra and its impoverished rural interior : the funds for the scheme were raised through professional tax.

About 3 decades on, Maharashtra’s EGS has come to represent much of the failed promise of one of India’s most progressive states: corruption, unspent funds, unpaid labour, incomplete works. Almost every CAG report is a familiar indictment: a  2006 report finds that ‘registration of labour is incomplete’, ’scheme has not met targets’, ‘of the 10,000 crores collected for the scheme, only 4677 crores have been spent’ and so on. In 2005 , a whistle-blowing collector in Solapur who unearthed massive rigging in the local EGS rolls faced an escalating level of official aggression that culminated in the chief minister’s office.

Filed under: Assembly Polls 2009, DesiPundit, Local Governance, Maharashtra Polls 2009, Offstumped, Offstumped Community, Offstumped Community Posts, Shveta Chhatra, UPA-II Critical Appraisal

A new Center Right Think Tank – Parts 3 & 4

Continuing the debate on the proposal from Rajesh Jain and Amit Malviya of Friends of BJP for a new Center Right Think Tank called the new India Policy Foundation. (Parts 1 & 2).

The Objectives and Activities

The two main objectives of the Foundation are:

• Research and propose new policy alternatives to address pressing national issues.
• Disseminate the work of the Foundation widely, especially with a view to directly impacting the course and content of national policy.

The Foundation will take up a number of activities:

• Undertake research studies on existing policies of the government, both at the central and state level, with a view to examining the impact of such policies, and suggest alternative approaches where such policies are not delivering in the desired manner.
• Initiate studies to propose new policies over and above what governments might have so far considered. This is expected to address the problem of short term thinking that is often prevalent in governments, at the cost of long term strategic planning.
• Hold consultations, seminars, closed door sessions with policy makers, conferences on important national issues to stimulate debate and guide the policy process. Engage with formal (TV shows / appearances etc) and informal media for large scale dissemination and outreach.
• Engage with and convene meetings with key policy makers (MPs / MLAs & beauracracy) and opinion leaders to shape national policy.

The Foundation expects to demonstrate tangible results within the first few years of its operation. The Foundation will try and forge links with like-minded individuals and institutions globally.

The Differentiation

The Foundation will be different from existing think tanks in at least two different ways: (a) It will focus on developing policy ideas for practical real-life issues, rather than engage in mere theoretical pursuits, and (b) Engaging with policy makers and opinion leaders will be an integral part of its mandate, and it will be judged by the direct impact it will make in shaping the policy discourse in the country.

This Foundation will institutionalise the process of public policy research and intervention outside of the Government machinery. It will do so by employing and engaging the best minds under one umbrella, aggregating valuable information and ideas relevant for India, initiating debates in the intelligentsia and civil society and influencing the collective conscious of legislators and bureaucrats. It will be intellectually best in class and a constructive source of inputs on all important areas of legislation and policy making. It will aim to become the fountain head of all policy research and decision making in this country.

It will distinguish itself from other Think Tanks by its “result-oriented” (outcome focused) approach to policy intervention. The effectiveness of its output will be measured in a scientific manner and employee benefits will be linked to it. It will only have a guiding philosophy, and will have no pre-defined political affiliation. It will be accountable to its trustees and the country.

Filed under: Guest Posts, Offstumped Community, Offstumped Community Posts, Uncategorized

A new Center Right Think Tank – Parts 1 & 2

Reproducing a proposal for a Center Right think tank by Rajesh Jain and Amit Malviya from Friends of BJP on what they call the “new India Policy Foundation” – Parts 1 & 2.

Inviting the Offstumped Community to further the debate on this proposal here and on the Friends of BJP blog.

One of the ideas that a group of us have been thinking is the creation of a centre-right policy foundation / think thank. Amit Malviya and I, with help from a few others, have put a concept note on the idea. We would be keen to get your feedback on this.

The Problem

India since Independence has seen politics of convenience, one that is driven by individual preferences and often catering to compulsions of electoral politics. In the process, public policy-making and delivery are severely compromised. It is ironical that the Congress party has at its convenience oscillated from opposing Socialism to being a strong proponent of it and then embracing free markets when driven by compulsion. The Party has straddled these positions all in a matter of a few decades. Likewise, the BJP when in power, neither emerged as Right of Centre nor did it espouse the cause of Swadeshi. Popular perception is that the two major national parties have little to distinguish their economic policies and are often accused of being opportunistic and short sighted when it comes to policy related matters.

As a result, it is no secret that India as a nation has not realised its potential even after six decades of Independence. Our agriculture is in dismal state, internal security is compromised with alarming impunity, manufacturing sector is not robust enough to employ the vast semi skilled work force, education is highly regulated, health services are woefully insufficient and infrastructure is grossly inadequate. A nation of over a billion people is ruled by absolute adhocism. We are invariably held hostage to one of the pressure groups operating to services the narrow interest of its subjects.

In essence, India suffers from a lack of critical thinking on several key issues of national importance.  The thinking that goes on happens within the confines of government – the civil service and the cabinet.  There is almost a complete absence of groups outside the formal establishment who develop new policy ideas and actively engage with policy makers to see the ideas through.

It is this state of affairs that has prompted the idea of creating a Foundation which will work towards creating a better future for India.

The Solution

There is a cross section of society who believes that there is space for new thinking beyond being wedded to socialist ideals. The Group believes that there is scope for new ideas with a right-of-centre thrust, on a range of economic and social issues in the country. This group is coming together to create a new think tank – the New India Policy Foundation — that will provide cutting edge research on a range of economic and social issues.

The Foundation will propose, educate and engage with policy makers (elected representatives and members of bureaucracy) with the objective of guiding public policy, legislation and delivery, and influencing public opinion. Its support in matters of policy and governance will be driven by India’s long-term requirement and not short-term opportunism. The Foundation will be guided by the principles of liberal democracy, free enterprise (keeping in mind the interests of wider sections of society), social inclusion, robust defence policy and nationalism and will deliver India-oriented research.

The Foundation will analyse ongoing programmes and make suggestions for new policies that can be taken up by policy makers across party lines. Even as the Foundation expects that it is likely to have a right-of-centre thrust in its work, the Foundation will take a well researched and reasoned position on issues affecting India, rather than being driven purely by any economic or social ideology. The Foundation will be supported by a wide range of actors such as grant making foundations, the corporate sector, and individuals.

Similar parallels can be found with Heritage Foundation and Centre for American Progress, which support the Republican and Democratic Parties in the US, respectively.

Filed under: Offstumped Community, Offstumped Community Posts, Uncategorized

Arun Shourie on BJP – Final Part

Arun Shourie brings to closure his multi-part analysis of the rot within the BJP in an Op-ed series in the Indian Express (previous posts on Parts 1 , 2, 3)

The final part is titled “Ring out the Old, ring in the new“.

AMBITION TO GREED TO JEALOUSY TO UNSCRUPULOUSNESSAs the circle narrows, animosities within it become sharper. Rivalries become more intense: for now, all that each has to do is to do two or three in, and he has the top job. Lust is rationalised: “But you have to have fire in the belly. Otherwise you shouldn’t be in this game.”

Insatiable ambition triggers unquenchable greed.

That greed incites unremitting jealousy.

And that compels ruthless maneuvers.

As others play by the rules, the one who has shed all scruple triumphs. A vital resource turns out to be the rivals’ respective reach into cabals beyond the party. The one who can garner more money from prospectors; the ventriloquist who can malign through surrogates and thereby frighten others in the circle — as he has a mass-base among half a dozen journalists; this kind of reach proves decisive.

Two consequences follow. Cunning, jealousy, unscrupulousness at the top permeate to every pore of the organisation. The party becomes, to pluck Toynbee’s words, “a moral slum”. True, some young idealists still join it. But by the time they rise to any position of authority, their edges have been rounded off, they have been fully domesticated — look not just at our political parties, look at the civil services. And this is the character of the whole that the people see. The party is thus delegitimised.

The process is hastened if by chance the party is swept into office. For such a bunch cannot but be venal and corrupt in office. But there is a twofold difference. When some individual is picking pockets at a railway platform, little happens even if he is caught: he is an individual; the infamy is confined to him. But when, as member of a party and government, he is caught, the entire party and government are tarnished. Second, we are all judged by the ideals we proclaim. As this party and government have come out of a crusade, as they have come to office proclaiming that they will clean up the mess, the stain is that much deeper.

All this is brought to the attention of the leader. In fact, there is little need to bring it to his attention — the facts burst out day after day, even the cloistered leader cannot miss them. But as these concern his appointees, he is the indulgent father: “You may be right about him,” he says, “but many say that if one becomes a minister and does not do these things, then where was the point of becoming a minister?”

The example spreads. The exemplars become bold. The bold become brazen.

Seeing the party out of office — with its knifing and defaming of each other; seeing the party in office — venal and corrupt even if less than its rivals, the people conclude, “They are all the same. This party is no different.”

Its USP gone, the party continues to lose ground. The cries to stem the rot become shriller. They demand that responsibility be fixed. But the decision to fix responsibility is in the hands of the very ones who have brought the organisation to that pass.  

 

THE FOOLS, AND THE REAL FOOLS

The leader steps forth. Told by his henchmen that, once the process starts, the clamour will reach up to him, he insists that no individual is responsible, that the tradition of the party has always been “collective responsibility” — but was the “collective” at all involved in decisions? the laity demand. The leader raises the ante: if any one person is responsible, I alone am responsible. That silences calls for accountability — for who can say that, as, on his own telling, he is responsible, he make way for others?

He and his circle have little difficulty. Each post at every level in the party has been packed with weak men or henchmen. When the voices for change become shrill, all that the leader has to do is to signal the office holders to “give their views”. Who can say that their opinion is worth less than of the deviants? After all, they are the ones who are general secretaries and secretaries, presidents and vice presidents of state units.

Nor is that “strength” confined to the immediate present. The leader and his coterie control the loaves for tomorrow too: who will get tickets for elections in the future, who will get inducted into posts within the party— All these are the prerogative of the leader and his circle. They proffer these, and thus buy prospective silence.

That he is in total control of the organisation dooms the leader and the organisation with him all the more certainly: precisely because Rajiv Gandhi so completely controlled the situation within Parliament, he did not see that the situation outside had slipped completely out of his hands.

The lay-members run from one mansabdaar in the inner circle to another. The latter are bitter rivals of each other, no doubt — and it is in this that the lay members rest their hopes. But those in the inner circle are one against the outsiders. Moreover, there is a certain naivety in that running: the followers are appealing to these worthies in the name of values and ideals which those in the circle have long abandoned. They listen politely. They insinuate that the other member is responsible. As the followers leave, they exhale, “The fools….”

In turn, the followers — steeped by now in the same deviousness and hypocrisy — also learn to just listen politely. And go on doing exactly what they were doing. Solely to advance their personal fortunes.

The real fools — the ones who still adhere to the original ideals — try once more to salvage the party. To no more effect than they would were they “to try and dam a river with their bare hands.”

The hangers-on in the inner circle have no difficulty in undermining the counsel and warnings of these fools: they smear them with motives. The challenge that has been mounted is to the culture of intrigue, of personal aggrandisement, of contracts and nepotism, of cabalism. But the henchmen drown it in smears: “He is saying all this only because he is frustrated…. Only because he has not been given the post that he thought is his by right….” Actually, the hangers-on have even less than no difficulty for the leader is only too eager to believe that the warnings are impelled by base motive. 

 

MEN OF LITTLE FAITH

The defeats and setbacks about which these would-be reformers are wailing become tests of faith. Instead of instituting remedies, the leader proffers homilies: “Ups and downs are a part of life,” he intones. “We have gone down earlier also. But we have always risen again. Put what has happened behind you. Brace yourselves for the next battle.” That would be fine if, and only if, in the meanwhile the factors, the personnel and culture which had brought about the defeat have been changed. The fact, of course, is that these declamations are hurled at the members for the opposite purpose: to smother the demands for change, to kill every proposal for reform. For reform, the time is never right. When the party wins, there is obviously no need to change — after all, the leader, his team, the ideology have brought victory. When the party loses, casting blame is destructive, it is defeatist. One must unite, look ahead.

The declamations become sharper, they now aim not at the proposals but at the ones advancing the proposals. “We have seen days that were so much worse. But never did we lose heart. Never did we hear such voices of defeatism. Now we can see who has faith in the party and who does not.”

Nor is it just a question of faith in some abstraction, the so-called party. The point at issue is faith in the leader. This is tested not when the leader is triumphant and right — after all, everyone will hail the leader when he is triumphant and right. The real test is when the party has fallen into a ditch, when the leader has made a blunder. Only the one who stands by him at such times has faith in him!

That is the new thesis.

As a result, everyone who points to errors that need rectification has not just lost faith in the party, he is, by definition, personally disloyal to the leader. “What I have heard today, has pained me,” the leader tells the assembly — that is, the one who was making suggestions has inflicted pain on the exalted leader, the kul devta. 

 

TO BEGIN AGAIN

It is most certainly not the case that the organisation, in this case the political party must inevitably descend and disintegrate. Nor is it “fate”, or some external “law of nature” on account of which the political party goes down.  Of course, external factors may accelerate its decline: we noticed, for instance, that the decline is made more likely and is hastened when the political culture itself has become such that all other political parties are also proceeding along the same sequence. But such facilitation, so to say, by external factors apart, the reasons on account of which the political party declines are internal to it. In particular, they concern the deterioration of the political party as an organisation.

And the reason why it becomes almost impossible to stem the deterioration of the party is that its organisation is at all times in the hands of persons who would be most inconvenienced, who would almost certainly be dislocated were the changes which are necessary for its survival to actually come about. The key to turning it around, to arresting its descent, therefore, lies in the organisation somehow getting liberated from this handful.

This can happen, it can be brought about in several ways:

n For instance, a leader may acquire control of the organisation by accident, but, having acquired control, may feel himself to be so hemmed in by the continuance of persons who have dominated the organization till then, that he or she throws them out and reconstitutes the top leadership of the party. Recall, as an instance, the way Mrs. Indira Gandhi  threw out the “Syndicate” in 1969.

n It may happen by control falling into the hands of a new princeling who has yet not been domesticated by the organisation, who still retains some of the idealism of youth, some of the ideals and goals that originally inspired the party and the movement out of which the party was born:  recall, for instance, Rajiv Gandhi at the time that he gives his speech in Bombay against the sway that “power brokers” have acquired over the Congress. But in such an instance, as Rajiv Gandhi’s own example shows, the princeling must persevere. In Rajiv’s case, the establishment soon domesticated him and his initial impulses for reform were successfully neutralised.

n Or it may be that the world moves so swiftly and so completely away from the party and its ethos and it becomes so totally irrelevant that the irrelevance bursts even upon those who have been blinded by its hierarchies, its rituals, who have remained hitherto in the thrall of the leader and his henchmen. They rise, “We have nothing more to lose. Let us make one final effort.”

Only when the ordinary members or at least a significant minority among them are prepared to risk being cast in the wilderness once again — a risk that will become easier for them to grasp if some catastrophe befalls the organisation and it loses so completely that there is no option than to begin again — it is only in such an eventuality that reconstruction can begin. In such a circumstance, it is almost as if a new organisation is being started.

One way or another, the organisation has to be liberated from the vice of the leader and his henchmen, and the organisation has to be rebuilt anew. And for that to commence, the entire leadership at the top, as well as every nominee of it at every level has to be thrown out and a new lot put in place. That is the first step.

It is the necessary step, of course. But, as we have seen, it is not a sufficient step. The cycle can commence again, and very soon, unless some novel ways are instituted by which the leadership is perpetually renewed; unless those little circles that are certain to form are broken again and again; unless ways are instituted so that advancement comes to depend on work, on competence and integrity, on dedication to the original goals of the party than on the new virtues — intrigue, cunning, unscrupulousness.

Filed under: Guest Posts, Offstumped Community, Offstumped Community Posts, Uncategorized

Arun Shourie on withering BJP – Part 3

Arun Shourie continues with his multi-part analysis of the rot within the BJP in an Op-ed series in the Indian Express (previous posts on Parts 1 & 2).

The fundamental reasonThis is the crucial factor: the decision to reform or not has come to vest in the hands of the very persons who will be finished were the reform to take place — recall the two examples we encountered at the beginning: the civil service that stymies every commission’s recommendations, and the legislators who do not rectify the manifest lacuna in the law which allows those convicted of murder to continue as members. Hence the paradox: the stronger that the leader and his circle appear, the weaker the organisation.

Factions mushroom

As ‘power’ now flows solely from the Leader, factions sprout even within this circle — tiny though it is — around him. All the more so because the only glue now is lucre, pelf. The courtiers are now an ever-changing kaleidoscope of ‘tactical alliances’: three join, get the fourth; then two of the three join and get the first. To each, the nearest neighbour is the greatest enemy. At every turn, each of the sudden allies prides himself on being clever, he preens himself on being successful. In fact, even as they succeed against each other, they are undermining the esteem of the people and the workers of the party itself for the circle as well as the leader who presides over it.

The leader frowns, but inwardly foments the factions; at the least, he does not scotch them. As each subaltern jostles to be closer to him, he feels important, indeed he feels indispensable — “They are not yet mature enough to manage on their own.” He preens himself as arbiter, as the dispenser of favour and frown.

But the jostling, the ever-shifting alliances and ruptures among the courtiers break through the curtains of the court. Three consequences follow. The character of the leader is soon evident to all: that he is the one who is fomenting factions, that he is the one who is playing favourites. Second, the courtiers defame each other successively: soon enough, people know enough about each of them to believe the worst of all of them. Third, both because the leader has been seen for what he is and because each of the subalterns has shown himself to be but a schemer and plotter, the whole — the so-called party — loses the esteem of the people.

As factions fight, as subalterns spread stories about each other, the leader moans, “The party was never like this… When we began, we toiled without any expectation at all that we would ever be in power. We just toiled. Today, everyone expects rewards, office, perks. The simplicity of our leader of the time, his utter selflessness, his humility…And this business of factions, and backbiting — it was unheard of.”

Each time he invokes that distant leader, he reminds the listeners how far he has himself come from that sainted person. He reminds listeners how, under his direct stewardship, the party has been converted from being a crusade to becoming an instrument for his aggrandisement and that of his chosen handful.

The slide accelerates

Cleverness in the leader produces cunning and deviousness among his henchmen. Cleverness, cunning, deviousness at the top produce feigned loyalty among followers. The followers stick to the party only in the expectation that their chance to grab the goodies will also come one day. But as the party suffers successive defeats, that prospect recedes. Seeing that this is not the vehicle to lucre that they had imagined, the followers lose enthusiasm. Chunks break away. To other parties — where, of course, the same sequence is in progress.

That the same sequence is being enacted in other parties makes it that much more difficult to arrest it in this party. The rival party is fielding a criminal. Only a more audacious, a more resourceful criminal can defeat him. As winning the requisite numbers is all, those who urge that tickets be given only to persons of integrity and competence are easily shoved aside as unpractical ‘idealists’ — in the very party that had been founded and nurtured by idealists, the word becomes a pejorative.

Such adoption of what is common to others is triply harmful to a party that grew out of a movement, that has sworn fidelity to ideals. To start with, it loses its claim to being different from the others. Next, its culture, its very character changes. And third, if by chance and for reasons that have little to do with its new character, it wins, its members are not able to handle the complex tasks of governance — any more than those ‘boors in office’ were able to manage the states they founded after destroying Rome.

These accidental victories, however, have consequences for the party itself also. The victories come about from time to time, for reasons that are independent of the drift in the party — the strength in an area of the candidates as individuals, the particularly perfidious conduct of opponents. But the consequence is that the leader and his coterie feel vindicated in their ways. Those who had been warning of what will befall the party should it continue in the direction it has been proceeding are now even more easily put down as the perpetual whiners, the disgruntled, frustrated alarmists, the congenital pessimists.

Even as the party wins the odd contest, it continues to lose that vital intangible — esteem among the people. It is seen as being more and more like any other conglomeration. Every memory of the movement from which it had originated, every memory of its original leaders only reinforces this inference. The party no longer claims that it is different from the others. On the contrary, the other parties hurl that erstwhile claim at it — as a taunt.

The party which was a movement has become routine. Routinisation robs every abhiyaan it launches of meaning. It dwarfs everyone. How true the lesson that historians hold out:

“Early Roman history has been described as the history of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. In the later Empire it took an extraordinary man to do anything at all except carry on a routine; and, as the Empire had devoted itself for centuries to the breeding and training of ordinary men, the extraordinary men of its last ages — Stilicho, Aetius, and their like — were increasingly drawn from the Barbarian world.”*

But the other parties are enacting the same sequence. They don’t have any extraordinary men either that this party may swear in. Yet something has to be done to shore up its fortunes. The party knows its own too well. They have been around, and have not brought victory. Those in rival parties may not be extraordinary, but they have the attraction of being in other parties. The party, therefore, inducts persons who are like members and leaders of the parties it has hitherto denounced. Better still, it inducts persons who are still members and leaders of those parties. To little avail. The entrants are seen as turncoats. That the party’s claim to being different is fake is reinforced. Those who have served it loyally for decades are incensed.

The clever spinners

The leader, cocooned, does not notice the ground slipping away, in part because he is by now surrounded by clever courtiers. The moment a victory turns up, they are able to produce a dozen reasons to show that it is due to the leader, and, incidentally, themselves. The moment a defeat occurs, they are able to produce two dozen reasons to prove that it is due to others. And another score why the defeat is due to special, transient, exceptional, local circumstances, and, therefore, is no cause for worry.

The party’s electoral losses resume. They accelerate. Fewer and fewer new recruits join the organisation. Those who join, join for reasons other than the ideas and ideals for which that party or organisation once stood — they do so, for instance, in the belief that doing so will get them jobs, posts, contracts.

The leader and his circle could easily see the portent, if only they would. Are only the already-converted coming to our meetings? Are they coming spontaneously, or do wehave to bus them? How many uncommitted, new listeners are coming to our meetings? Indeed, the leader and his circle do not have to go even that far. They just have to look only at their own diaries: how many persons outside our circle have we met in the last week? But they don’t see. The organisation is busy talking to itself. Those within the circle are busy knifing each other. And the leader? He is enveloped in an impenetrable fog of self-satisfaction: the day’s photo-opportunity, the day’s conclave, the day’s meeting of the ‘core group’, the day’s meeting of ‘office-bearers’, the day’s meeting of ‘allies’ — what a fulfilling day…

The party stops hearing those outside the party. The leader stops hearing those outside his circle — of weak men and henchmen.

Many factors continue to obscure the fact that the ground is shifting from underneath the party. For a while, to cite one factor, the ‘core constituency’ continues to support it: out of habit; out of loyalty to the old ideals; out of an obstinate consistency. But the leader and his circle reassure themselves, “Our core constituency is intact.”

They draw an operational inference: in the belief that doing so will solidify the support of this core constituency, they reinforce earlier slogans so as to demonstrate that they remain committed to their original ideology. But each time they proclaim the slogans, they remind listeners — all the more so, this core constituency as it remains truly committed to what those slogans had promised — that, when they had the opportunity, they did nothing for those promises to materialise. Regurgitating the slogans thus does little to mobilise the core constituency. On the other hand, it consolidates the opponents. And another thing has happened in the meantime: a host of new elements have entered the arena — for instance, the young. Each time the leader and his coterie proclaim those old slogans — ‘socialism’ of the Congress; ‘Hindutva’ of the BJP; ‘Marxism-Leninism’ of the assorted Communists — they remind these new entrants that they and their party are an obsolete bunch. And then, suddenly, one day, a day like any other, that ‘core constituency’ also walks away.

Kafirs and apostates

At each turn, well-wishers counsel reform, they counsel that the party change course. But by now the leader is the party, most certainly in his eyes. Therefore, he takes every suggestion to be a rebuke, an assault on him personally for conducting the affairs of the party as he has been conducting them. When the suggestion-which-is-censure comes from an outsider, the leader rejects it as the ranting of a kafir, of one who has never believed, who has never committed himself to the cause. When it comes from one who undeniably has been part of the crusade, the leader dismisses it as being the rant of a murtad, an apostate — as the rant of one ‘who has crossed the barricade’. His reflex is to insulate himself even more into an even tighter circle.

The leader whose example used to be the goad; whose mere presence induced attention; whose glance, whose whispered suggestion used to ensure compliance, he now stands on office, on rank, on the years he has spent ‘in the service of the party’. He demands respect — a sure sign that he no longer commands it. Another sign, a sure one that what, in the infinitely vaster context of civilisations, Arnold Toynbee had called ‘the creative minority’ — the small group that brought the civilisation into being, and presided over its flourishing — has become ‘the dominant minority’ — the small group that chokes, and presides over the ultimate disintegration of the civilisation.

The circle becomes tighter and more and more homogenous, more and more subservient and sycophantic.

As the leader and his cohorts move within this ever-narrower circle, they see less and less of what is going on without the circle, they hear less and less. This blindness and loss of hearing are brought about all the more swiftly the more hierarchical is the organisation — for the greater the respect for hierarchy, the more the leader and his circle are not just looked up to, they are venerated, they are treated as oracles, as paragons of virtue and dedication; and the more disciplined the organisation is — for the more disciplined it is, the less do subordinates speak the whole truth to their seniors, the less they think for themselves: “Sir, hamare yahaan to soochnaa aayi, sochnaa band,” a stalwart once explained to me.

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Arun Shourie on rot within BJP – Part 2

For the first part of this series by Arun Shourie on the BJP click here.

Reproducing the rest from the Indian Express today titled “The end of Ideology“.

After the others on whom blame may be pinned are exhausted, the leader and his circle turn on the ideals on which, on the ‘ideology’ for the realisation of which the movement had commenced and the party had been founded. So, one day they lunge for a ‘hard’ formulation — to win back the ‘core constituency’, they reason. The next, they lunge for a ‘soft’ formulation; one day they are stressing ‘our religion’, the next ‘our culture’; one day it is ‘return to basics’, the next ‘changing with the times’; one day they are declaring their faith in our history castigating persecutors of the past and their current heirs and apparitions, the next they are swearing by inclusiveness and geography¿ One day it is ‘reforms’, the next ‘Reforms with a human face’… One day it is ‘peasants’, the next ‘workers’, the third the inclusive ‘toiling masses’. And they are never short of quotations from the original leaders to justify each twist.

What the leader and his speechwriters convince themselves are sparkling new formulations, are, in fact, just clichés. “The party stands for a strong and prosperous India” — but which party doesn’t? “The party will make the 21st century, India’s century” — but which party says it won’t? Can one not go on adding to that declaration, and it would be just as acceptable? “The party stands for a strong and prosperous India, an India at peace with itself and the world”? “The party stands for a strong and prosperous India, an India at peace with itself and the world, an India in which no one goes to bed hungry”? “The party stands for a strong and prosperous India, an India at peace with itself and the world, an India in which no one goes to bed hungry, one in which the benefits of growth are shared by all”?

The leader and his circle convince themselves that they are making their party current, that, by the new formulation, they are going to attract new chunks. In fact, they convince the people at large that they believe in nothing; that their proclamations have all along been just opportunism dressed up; that they have no core — there is nothing that they will desist from doing if they see some advantage to themselves in doing it, that there are several things that just must be done but which they will not do lest some slight, momentary disadvantage befall them.

The people put no store by the words of these persons. They want to know, “Can this lot bring these goals to fruition any better than the other lot? Is the leader, are members of his circle living these ideals?” The ideas and ideology of this lot, rather the ideas on which, the ideals for the attainment of which this lot was founded no longer permeate or radiate into those who are outside the party or organisation. Even when they accept those ideas and ideals, those outside strain to hide their original source. Recall the net effect of the innumerable gurus and organisations that have been speaking for Hinduism in the last fifty years, or Marxism-Leninism and social justice for that matter: how well the words of Toynbee fit those who, almost furtively, live Hinduism today or do their bit for a more just society — “Under these sinister auspices, such selective mimesis [imitation, adoption] as occurs takes place on the barbarians’ own initiative [in our context, on that of those outside the party or organisation]. They show their initiative in imitating those elements which they accept in a manner which will disguise the disgraceful source of what has been imitated.”*

Character changes, relations are transformed

By such twists and turns, the leader and his circle, far from inducting new adherents, discredit ideology itself; they turn people off even the talk of ideals. Another factor smothers ideals and ideology. The movement became a party. That party has since become a mere electoral machine. But as general standards deteriorate, the party has to ‘adjust’; it has to effect ‘compromises’. The sole object is to attain office. And the sole criterion for that is numbers. Hence, winnability is all. Whoever can win a seat, be he a criminal or blackguard who has just deserted from the rival camp, is the one whom the party fields. Three consequences follow at once and inevitably. First, the proclamations of the party — ideals, ideology — reek more and more of hypocrisy. Second, the people at large see that this party is no different from any other. Third, and this is what has the deepest consequences for the future, the character of the party changes forever. Everyone above and below comes to rely on the clever strategist, on the deceitful, for he leads them to victories. Either that clever person or someone even more deceitful rises to the top. Gandhiji’s warning comes true — “An organisation that relies on rogues to do its work shall soon have rogues at its helm.”

But the transformation doesn’t stop there. Indeed, it has just begun. For the character of the one who has wrested the top stamps itself on the entire organisation, on every level of the entire organisation. His very ‘success’ legitimises ambition, greed, intrigue, double-dealing. “If he doesn’t have what it takes to capture even a party,” the thesis runs, “if he doesn’t have enough fire in his belly to capture even a party, how in hell is he going to lead the party to capture the country?” Ambition, greed, intrigue legitimised, every one becomes every one’s rival. Every one comes to suspect every one. That irreplaceable adhesive — Ibn Khaldun’s ‘group spirit’ — is rent asunder.

Both relationships — the one of the leader with his circle, as well as that of members of the circle with each other — are transformed. Every relationship is now pure and simple barter. The leader seeks out not colleagues but clients, not partners but dependents, not associates but instruments. He uses the henchmen, of course. But they also use him. They are nobodies without him. But with him, even with the rumour that they are close to him, they can strut around, and rake in the perks. They strain to be useful to the leader: helping one relative of his out of a difficulty, helping another relative set up a business… The leader demurs, “Is this really right?” They say what he wants to hear: “But why should he suffer just because he is your son?” The leader allows himself to be persuaded, after making sure that everyone has seen him hesitate. They now have him entangled into those “interlocking webs of mutual complicity.” He is as dependent on them, as they on him. Recall the cow-and-calf symbol of the Congress[I], and what the then chief minister of Haryana, Bansi Lal said during the Emergency, after he had helped ram through Sanjay’s Maruti plant, “Jab bachchda mere haath mein hai, gayiyaa kahaan jaayegi?”

But, of course, henchmen don’t just work to ingratiate themselves with the leader. They use their proximity to him to seize spoils for themselves. Indeed, in the organisation — and the more ‘disciplined’ and hierarchical the organisation, the more certain this is — they are the ones who are liable to make a grab for the riches because, even if evidence were to erupt in the public domain, the leader is least likely to act against them. They are the ones he is certain to shield.

What had begun as a relationship of devotees who had gravitated to an idol, of persons who had gravitated to the leader because he was devoted to a mission, because he personified ideals, becomes a purely transactional relationship. The first to erode is reverence for the leader. Next, the fear of him. That has but to happen and anarchy breaks out in the organisation, a free-for-all. The leader lectures, he admonishes, he threatens ‘disciplinary action’. Members listen. They even make a show of cowering. And resume their skirmishes. The leader wrings his hands, “The party was never like this…Nobody listens… Indiscipline…” Even as he does so, he is externalising the state of affairs — as if he himself has nothing to do with what has come about.

The Zulu proverb

As relatives and henchmen acquire properties on the sly, as they run businesses benami, the party loses its ability to fight the rulers. The leader knows, the henchmen know that the rulers know. So, they take up ‘issues’, but never push them to the point where the rulers will be really inconvenienced. As the Zulu proverb has it, “A dog with a bone in its mouth, can’t bark”.

Indeed, they go farther. They cultivate links sub rosa with opponents, in particular with rulers. They say this is so as to give the country ‘a constructive alternative’. In fact, it is for getting a few crumbs from the rulers’ table, at the least to keep out of trouble. Rulers readily flatter them by making a show of paying attention, they readily steer a few contracts their way — and thereby gain control over the very party that was to watch over them. The sequence weakens the leader vis a vis the rulers. It weakens him as much within the party: no leader who is crooked can straighten others.

The henchmen

These henchmen become the leader’s eyes and ears. Indeed, his ‘reference group’, they function as the pliable conscience he now wants. They feast off him when he is in office. They dissuade him from quitting when he clearly should. Truth be told, that takes less doing than one might imagine: at such turns, the leader is only waiting to be ‘persuaded’. They pander to his vanity exactly as Ibn Khaldun describes: by heightening the pretences of authority around him, even as they rake up the fruits for themselves.

But the henchmen don’t try just to be useful to the leader. Their power, their indispensability depends on making the leader feel insecure. So, they are always conjuring up news of conspiracies. They are forever isolating the leader — sowing doubts in the leader’s mind about one and all, in particular about his former comrades.

It is not that the leader never sees the cost these henchmen are bringing upon him. From time to time, evidence bursts forth that makes the continuance of some one of the henchmen completely untenable. The clamour against him becomes so insistent that the leader is brought to the brink of sending him away. Quite apart from the danger that exiling one who knows so much may entail, the leader is easily persuaded to hold his hand: “But they are not after me. Their real target is you. The moment you show that you can be pressurised, they will come after you” — recall the time it took for Indira Gandhi to act against Antulay; recall how Rajiv hung on to Ottavio Quattrochi.

The ordinary members watch with dismay as the sway of these henchmen envelops the leader, and, just as much, as their pillage begins to discredit the party. But at this stage they shiver at doing anything: they do not speak out; they do not collect evidence. They wait for something to turn up. They wait for someone else to expose and nail the henchmen: Ibn Insha was right, Haq achcha, iske liye Koi aur mare, to aur achcha

They wait for the leader to do something — “At least in his own interest.” Of course, the leader does nothing. He is immersed in his interests of the moment, and, the henchmen are useful agents.

Precisely because his failure to act against the henchman who is causing him so much avoidable trouble makes him seem weak, the leader just has to act against others: to show that he is strong, that he will not tolerate “indiscipline”, that he can and will quell “insubordination”. He lashes out — naturally at persons outside his circle. What were mere suggestions from them are projected as criticism; what was criticism merely to arrest the decline is projected as disloyalty. Everyone sees through the vehemence: everyone sees that the leader has an elastic ruler — a long one for his cabal, his instruments, a much shorter one for others.

The transformation cannot be hidden from the people any more than a grating cough. The group begins to lose legitimacy. Constitution? What Constitution? One norm after another, one rule after another is set aside. The so-called constitution of the party provides that posts — every post at every level — be filled by elections. In fact, at each level, each gathering hails the leader, and ‘unanimously resolves’ to leave the choice of office-bearers to him.

The party hierarchy comes to consist entirely of nominees — of the leader, and of those who, for the moment, have managed to insinuate themselves into the good books of the leader. Tickets have to be distributed for the forthcoming elections? The ‘state leaders’ — nominees all — ‘recommend’ some names. Neither the leader nor his nominees in the central organs have any system of independent verification. Lobbying, insinuation, come to count more than analysis; collateral ‘persuasion’ more than evidence; bargaining more than deliberation. The nominees don’t do well? There was dhaandali in the selection of candidates, someone shouts. He is smeared with motives, drowned with innuendo.

Meetings follow meetings. In each, ritual replaces substance. But the rituals, the routine are not for nothing. The ritual — the same “state-wise” reporting — is a device: a device to dodge the issues that are on everyone’s mind. Abhiyaans follow abhiyaans. They too become just routine.

The losses mount. Calls for honest examination. For accountability. The leader and his circle swing into action. They galvanise their nominees in the states. “No, no. We can’t afford any witch-hunts,” these nominees of nominees declaim. “Elections are coming up in our state. Inquiry-shinquiry will cause all sorts of mud to be hurled. The media will be full of it. Our chances will be destroyed.”

As further losses occur, an inquiry to fix responsibility is at last instituted. But who is to inquire? The leader and his circle — who, after all, are responsible for all the decisions that have led the organisation to this pass — are the ones who alone can decide. They pick from among themselves, or, if the façade of ‘independence’, of ‘objectivity’ has to be maintained, their weak men and henchmen.

The inquiry never sees the light of day. In any case, no reform that may have resulted from the inquiry is ever visible. Perhaps for good reason: in all probability, each inquiry has concluded that no individual was responsible. The shortcomings were ‘systemic’!

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Arun Shourie’s damning analysis of BJP – Part 1

Reproducing from the Indian Express what is the most profound and candid analysis of what ails the BJP from a long time insider, the Party’s only Center Right public intellectual and middle class role model – Arun Shourie.

Inviting the Offstumped Community to discuss and debate Mr. Shourie’s analysis.

Four instances, two questions.•Indira Gandhi is able to block the implementation of the Allahabad High Court judgement by changing — with retrospective effect no less — the law under which it held her guilty of corrupt electoral practices;

•Rajiv Gandhi is able to use his control over three-quarters of the House to block all inquiry into Bofors.

Do these instances testify to the strength of Mrs. Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi? Or to the weakness of the political system?

•Scores and scores of committees and commissions have been set up to reform the civil services; the services have continued exactly as they have been.

•Subsection 3 of Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act lists a number of grave crimes, and provides that if a person is convicted for any of them, he shall be disqualified for six years, and, if he is imprisoned, for a further six years after his release. The next subsection reduces this provision to a nullity. It provides, “Notwithstanding anything [in the earlier subsections] a disqualification shall not, in the case of a person who on the date of conviction is a member of Parliament or the legislature of a state, take effect until three months have elapsed from that date or, if within that period an appeal or application for revision is brought in respect of the conviction or sentence, until that appeal or application is disposed by the court.” The result? In August 2008, four persons come straight from Tihar jail to participate in the confidence vote in the Lok Sabha —persons who are serving life sentences, as they have been held guilty of murder!

How does a gaping crater of this magnitude in the law continue? How are civil services and legislators able to ward off reform so successfully?

Birth to senility

A movement, an organisation is originally inspired by an ideal: to undo what is wrong, to establish what is right.

Whether it triumphs or fails in its initial objective, over the years it becomes a political party.

At its inception, the party too is impelled by ideals. The crusade from which it has taken birth is still vivid, the idealists who led the movement, who then founded it and toiled to raise it are a living presence. Propelled by these memories, the party seeks to change the order, it wants to recast the polity of course, but more: it wants to recast society into the ideals to attain which it has been formed.

Over time, it forsakes this idealism, and becomes a mere electoral machine.

Soon, it putrefies into a machine that fails to win even elections.

Members become increasingly anxious: after all, if the party continues its decline, they tell each other, it isn’t just that the ideals which are its very reason for existence will not be attained, that the transformation for which they have been striving will not come about; but also, their personal fortunes will evaporate. They run from leader to leader, urging reform, a return to ideals. Their efforts go nowhere. The party does not reform. It does not die. It just goes on falling to pieces.

Why does this degeneration take place? Why do efforts to arrest its decline come to naught? By what symptoms may we know that a particular organisation is on its way down?

In one of the greatest works of history, Ibn Khaldun chronicled the founding, rise, decline and eventual disintegration of dynasties. In the introduction to that work, The Muqaddimah, he set out the patterns he had deduced: the abandonment of the austerities of the desert for the luxury and ease of settled courts; the waning of the “group spirit”; the culture of cunning and intrigue within palaces that replaces the valour of open battle… We have but to tweak the conclusions a little and we have the reasons on account of which our political parties moulder and waste away. And that should not surprise us. After all, so many of them are collections around dynasties; so many of them are gangs around individuals; so many of them are — at all levels, from their central offices to their local branches —parties of four/five persons for the projection of four/five persons. Not just the conclusions of Ibn Khaldun, the very words ring true as we see the parties deteriorate and eventually crumble.*

Two suggestions about reading this updated version. Do not rush through it. I have kept examples to a minimum: after a paragraph, recall the examples you know from your own personal experience that fit the words. Second, you will miss the point entirely if you think, “Oh, this is about the BJP… Oh, this is about the Congress…” Instead of concluding that I am out to convey some “hidden meanings” and trying to figure these out, think of your own party or organisation, the party or organisation that you know best, from the inside — the Congress, the BJP, the Communist parties, the regional parties: Telugu Desam, the DMK, the BSP, the AGP. It is then that you will get the point of the updating, namely that the symptoms are true of all our political parties today.

Hence, our real problem: there is nowhere to turn for an alternative.

The orientation, and its consequences

Our system, indeed our society is heavily oriented towards the state. He who occupies offices of state at the moment, receives deference, he is surrounded by hangers-on, by pelf; he gets the opportunity, if he is so inclined, to rake in money: in a word, as they say in Punjab, “the usual pump and show.”

Hence, when the party acquires office, its leading figures acquire all this: deference, pelf, the opportunity to rake in money. As they commence to use these, five things happen:

•Even if they are personally honest, the principals in the government are implicated by association: they have the clear duty as well as the clear opportunity to put an end to the doings of their juniors; they do not do so — this is enough to put them in the position in which, when the evidence of wrong-doing erupts, they have only one option: to defend their colleague. And there is a ready rationalisation for doing so: “How can we desert our colleague when he is trouble?” Suddenly “loyalty” acquires a new meaning: it does not mean loyalty to those pristine ideals; it comes to mean sticking by the colleague — the very one who has departed from those ideals.

•That robs, first, the leaders; then the government; and therefore, the party of its claim that it is different, that is inspired by ideals, that it is in politics not for power and pelf but to recast governance and society in those ideals.

•Being in government is far more exciting than staying back in the organisation: for those still committed to the ideals that had originally enthused the movement and organisation, being in government affords an incomparable opportunity to translate those ideals into practice; for those who are impelled now by other goals — money, “power”, pelf — remaining in the backwaters of the organisation is anathema. Hence the “best and brightest” rush into government. Whether the government as a whole does well because of the few who are still dedicated to ideals or not, the party certainly languishes.

•A distance develops — first between adherents who are still inspired by those ideals and those who have forsaken the ideals; then between the leaders — who are in office and are visibly enjoying the perquisites of office — and the followers; the latter now ask, “These fellows came to office because of us; they have their bungalows, they have their cars with laal batties; what have we got?”

•And distance develops even sooner between the principal leaders themselves: portfolios, size of offices, the ear of the ultimate boss, money — everything becomes a trigger. Comrades become colleagues; colleagues become competitors, rivals. But, in a sense, these spoils can all be managed. That one principal gets more of one thing can be made up by the other being enabled to get more of another. But there is one thing which really is a zero-sum magnitude: prominence. As there is only one front page, if one of the principals is splashed across it, by definition the others are excluded. Distance becomes envy; envy becomes jealousy; jealousy becomes venom. You can see the transformation in the very faces of the principals.

Even by themselves, just these features are enough to cause the party to begin losing its vitality as even an electoral machine.

The leader and his circle

But the leader has done more to weaken the machine. The more power is vested in him, the less secure he feels. Hence, exactly as Ibn Khaldun wrote about the choice of wazirs and successors, in choosing his circle, the leader’s concern is to choose the ones who will least threaten him, who will best advance his dynasty, who will best secure and perpetuate his position — that is, he chooses weak men and henchmen, not ones who will best advance the ideals for which the organisation had been founded. The weaker the man, the more compromised he is, the more dependent he is on the leader. The more unscrupulous the henchman, the more ruthless he will be on the leader’s behalf. Weakness, vulnerability, unscrupulousness become qualifications.

The arrangement works when the going is good. No one now is strong enough to harm the leader. But no one is strong enough — in the sense vital in a democracy, that is of having legitimacy, of commanding esteem — to help him when a crisis erupts.

But there is an even more consequential change: ideals, the commitment to higher objectives, for the interests of the group as a whole, these are restraints, they are the banks that enable a river to flow. When these are replaced by the interests of an individual and his little circle, the only glue that binds – followers to the organisation as much as members of this circle to the leader — is the prospect of spoils. Pillage commences. Legitimacy begins to dwindle.

The leader and his henchmen are unable to stem the decline. Enervated by luxury, by pelf, capable now only of giving directions to others, they are no longer able to toil in the field. They give out calls: “All workers shall hold dharnas at district headquarters against price rise…” “The abhiyaan against the corruption of this government shall be taken to every village, to every hamlet¿” A few desultory meetings are organised. People are bussed in. The abhiyaan disappears as a rivulet in the desert. No one even notices that it has been abandoned. At best, the leader sets out to repeat the performance that had once secured attention — the “struggle”, the fast-unto-death-between-meals, the yatra. But you can’t make the soufflé rise twice: the very fact that nothing was done after the first performance, robs the repeat of all credibility. Some ‘emergency’ is invoked to give up the performance midway.

The leader convenes meetings of his ‘core group’, the ‘working committee’, the politburo. Members of these private coteries hold further meetings with their own private core groups.

Everyone but the ‘core group’

The factor most responsible for the rout has been the state to which the leader and his circle have reduced the party as an organisation, but that is the one factor which the leader and his cohorts will not admit into the discourse. Is the party seen as, is it in fact different from the others? Are its candidates any different? Is every unit of the party not riddled with factionalism? That these are the reasons for the setback is manifest to all. But the leader and his circle would have none of them — for that would immediately raise further questions. The party is no longer different from others? Who has allowed the party to sink to this level where it cannot be distinguished from the very parties it has been denouncing? The candidates are no better than those of the rivals? Who has selected the candidates? Factionalism has been allowed to continue? Each state faction has a line to some ringleader in the central cabal? Who has allowed the factionalism to fester and swell?

They blame others — the rival party; the third party that has stolen their vote; the accidental reason on account of which a section whose vote was to have split got consolidated; the youth; the middle class; the poor who voted on money, the rich who did not vote; the holidays on account of which so many went out of town; the disenchantment with the party’s ally in one state, the absence of an ally in the other; the anti-incumbency factor against us in this state, the advantage that the rival party had in the adjacent state of being in office and thereby being able to use the state machinery; the ‘shameless’ use of money and muscle by the rival… In a word, everyone and everything other than themselves.

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