If 2007 was a year of upset political equations, regrouping (of regional parties) and ascendancy of new forces (e.g., Bahujan Samaj Party, or BSP), 2008 is likely to prove a year of instability, intense competition over a range of agendas, and anticipation —of probable changes in the next general election. In some ways, the stage is already set by three major trends emerging in 2007.
Politics: Praful Bidwai, Political Commentator
The first is the growing estrangement between the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the Left parties on whose support UPA is dependent. UPA-Left tensions pertain to many issues, including economic policies, social programmes, and foreign and security policies. But it was manifested in a stark fashion on the US-India nuclear deal. The Left virtually put UPA on notice of withdrawal of support if it moves ahead with further negotiations on the deal. It has since diluted its opposition—partly because of its vulnerability over the violence in Nandigram. For its part, UPA will hesitate to push through the deal, which has apparently run into difficulties at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
UPA-Left differences are nevertheless likely to widen on domestic and international issues as the Left prepares for the next Lok Sabha election, whenever it’s held. Given that the Congress is its main opponent in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, where it rules, the Left will have to increasingly demarcate itself from the Congress-led UPA some months before the election —even if they enter into a collaborative arrangement afterwards.
Both partners will look for alternative sources of support: BSP, and possibly Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) in UPA’s case, and some of the parties that constitute the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA), in the Left’s case. But such support is unlikely to be easily or cheaply available. BSP will certainly extract a high price. And UNPA’s future is uncertain because of the likely steep decline of the Samajwadi Party.
The second trend is the apparent reversal of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s, or BJP’s political decline after the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections. Narendra Modi’s victory is certainly impressive and will help him play a larger national role. But it’ll be hard for him to replicate the Gujarat success, based on state-specific factors, including virulent Hindutva, chauvinistic sub-nationalism and an authoritarian personality cult. By moving further to the communal Right, BJP risks narrowing its support base, which could prove expensive given the sorry, much-depleted state of the National Democratic Alliance.
Much will depend on the assembly elections due in 2008 in three BJP-ruled states— MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh—where there’s growing anti-incumbency owing to elitist economic policies and confusion over job reservations (witness the Gujjar agitation). If “normal” electoral arithmetic prevails, BJP is unlikely to win in this core support area or expand its base there enough to offset its marginalization in UP and Bihar.
The third, and perhaps most important, trend is the growing tension between maintenance of the existing social economic-political status quo, and the democratic aspirations of a large majority of the people for a humane and minimally just order. The former is based on elite structures and privilege, and entails growing income and regional disparities. The latter is increasingly taking the form of self-assertion by the underprivileged of their fundamental rights and of defence of their livelihoods threatened by predatory commercial forces.
This self-assertion is often expressed in what has been called the “Dalit upsurge” and the “Forward March of the Backwards” (OBCs). But of late, it has also been visible in grass-roots movements focused on land, forests, water, the right to employment and other basic needs. Wherever the state has trampled on such popular aspirations, it has created conditions conducive to heightened conflict, social turmoil and extremist activity of the Naxalite variety.
Mainstream-party based politics is likely to be shaped by this trend insofar as it involves real competition over enriching democracy, and not just identities. But this may mean more short-term instability. 2008 will see political uncertainty, but could produce new and creative possibilities.