Unlike anti-Congressism, politics of anti-BJPism is still to ripen in 2019

File photo of PM Narendra Modi along with BJP president Amit Shah and party leader Rajnath Singh | PTI

2019 election is going to be all about electoral sanity versus electoral vanity.

As it becomes clear that the next Lok Sabha elections will be announced in March, there is a rush to build coalition alliances. Rahul Gandhi’s Congress party has decided to form working fronts in each state, stitching together a larger national front against the BJP for the 2019 elections. BJP president Amit Shah’s strategy, it seems, is to not let such a front emerge or break it wherever it evolves.

The enforcement agencies have gone into overdrive. And that is a sign of political blackmail and muscle-flexing, since many leaders fear that they are under their lens. Fear is the key, to quote Alistair MacLean rather out of context.

The political equations have been simplified into an “either you are with us or against us” binary. In the next 60 days, the fence-sitters will have to decide either way. Those who cannot decide soon enough, the enforcement agencies will ensure they hurry. Both the BJP as well as the Congress are showing openness in making new friends.

Intense speculation on whether Narendra Modi will become the Prime Minister again has already begun. The political market is giving the BJP anywhere between 160 and 250 seats. If the party gets 160 seats, there is no chance for a new NDA to emerge and the BJP MPs will not let Modi lead the parliamentary party. However, if he gets around 200 seats, he will create a new NDA and become the PM. With 250 seats, he is unchallenged, goes the speculative math.

Modi’s campaign handlers say that just as Indira Gandhi won in 1971 by decimating the grand alliance of the opposition with the slogan ‘They say remove Indira, and I say remove poverty’, Modi will stun India and the world with a grand victory. It is a cocktail of hope, hype, logic and faith.

Index of opposition disunity

But the fact is that the BJP MPs are becoming more vocal (though privately) against Modi. Therefore, the three questions frequently raised are: What are the options left before him to again ‘mesmerise’ the electorate, and what are chances of the opposition coming together? The third question posed ad nauseam, of course, is who will be their PM?

Therefore, it is necessary to go into the question of the Index of Opposition Unity, as well as the Index of Opposition Disunity.

How do the parties ally with each other and how are the fronts formed? What differentiates them and which features bring them together. Almost all regional or small parties, in both current as well as prospective fronts, have at some time or the other been anti-Congress or anti-BJP.

Both the DMK and the AIADMK have been strong allies of the Congress or the BJP at one time or the other. Ideologically, both the Dravidian parties are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Same is true for the Shiv Sena and Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). And yet their hostility towards each other is deep.

The BJP and the Shiv Sena are allies, but are mostly engaged in virulent, internecine fights with each other. Both the Shiv Sena and the MNS are harsh critics of Narendra Modi today but were great admirers of him three years ago. Modi and Shah have always been indifferent, if not inimical towards the Shiv Sena. That is why the question of how parties form alliances and fronts becomes intriguing.

Janata Party and its collapse

Only two parties have fought consistently against each other – the Congress and the BJP. There have been defections. The BJP was not a party to reckon with till 1980. Its earlier incarnation was the Jana Sangh, and any association with it was considered a political blasphemy.

Ideology had united them, but politics divided their Hindu bonhomie. The BJP and the Jana Sangh could never work under one banner. The NDA could bring into its fold a visceral critic like George Fernandes, but not its own Hindu brothers – the Jana Sangh or the Hindu Mahasabha. It is, therefore, clear that similar ideologies and belief systems do not necessarily bring two parties together into an alliance.

Indeed, the Janata Party, mentored by Jayaprakash Narayan, had four diverse partners. The Congress (O), the Swatantra Party, the Jana Sangh and one of the socialist parties. The Janata Party came to power in 1977, defeating the Emergency regime of Indira Gandhi. But the JP-led party was divided on the question of the Jana Sangh’s participation in the Janata Party. JP had brought in the Sangh Parivar, stating that they should be part of the mainstream politics. It is wrong for the progressives, JP used to say, to question their patriotic and nationalist credentials.

But that certificate of nationalist morality could not help the Sangh Parivar. The socialist faction of the Janata Party demanded that the Jana Sangh must severe its relationship with the RSS. The Jana Sangh was not prepared to do that. The Janata Party was split and the government collapsed. The grand alliance of the Janata Party could not survive the ideological/political contradictions. The Janata Party devolved over time into multiple factions and parties.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Janata Dal (Secular), the Janata Dal (United), the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), the Samajwadi Party, and, of course, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are siblings of the Lohiates and Jayaprakash-ites. There is no trace of the original Janata Party today, which was credited for launching a second freedom movement in the country and defeating the Indira Rule. The lone surviving soldier of the party was Subramanian Swamy, who later joined the BJP.

Politics of anti-Congressism

While the two major political parties in India have seen defections, Communist parties have hardly seen this trend. In fact, socialists too have joined defected, deserted, realigned or formed different parties and split them again, claiming the legacy of the Janata Party or different versions of the Lok Dal. It is interesting to note that although all of them claim the legacy of Ram Manohar Lohia or Jayaprakash Narayan, they often cannot see eye to eye.

The BJP has had bedfellows of all colours. Even the CPM had, in the name of ‘floor management’, worked along with the BJP – when both supported the V.P. Singh government from outside in 1989-90, and opposed the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Anti-Congressism has been an old and ripe political ideology. But the anti-BJPism has not yet emerged as a strong binding force. The Janata Party in 1977, the National Front in 1989, the United Front in 1996 or even the NDA are all manifestations of anti-Congressism. Almost all parties in the local or national mahagathbandhan have at times subscribed to the politics of anti-Congressism. But Narendra Modi gave the politics of anti-Congressism a strong and sinister turn. Never before has India witnessed a politics of vengeance with single-minded obsession like now.

It should be clear from this contemporary political narrative that fronts and alliances have little to do with programmatic agreements or ideological relevance. And yet Narendra Modi has been ‘successful’ in polarising the polity in a way that the politics of anti-BJPism could determine the coming Lok Sabha election.

There is a real chance that polarisation could also swing against the incumbent. The 2019 election is going to be all about electoral sanity versus electoral vanity.