Conceptualización sobre el aprendizaje

makes the boldest move away from Old India Politics.

26 February 2011

26 February 2011

The first week of a functioning Parliament in nearly six months has made one thing dramatically clear: that the election of 2014 is no longer a done deal. Opening exchanges showed a new energy in the opposition, particularly the BJP. In a debate that must rank among the classics of our recent parliamentary history, Sushma Swaraj notably worsted veteran Pranab Mukherjee, point by point, and

then gave us one of those moments you cherish in parliamentary politics, by giving a smiling Pranabda a friendly hug at the end of the day. It’s been a long time since we saw a moment like this in our Parliament.

The BJP’s mood is easier to explain. At this time last year, it was staring at a hopeless future. Its top leaders engaged in a Mahabharata of sorts, no happy turning point in sight. Across the ideological fence, Congressmen were sharpening the knives as well, to stab their own in the back as they

ockeyed for the spoils of an election already ‘won’ in 2014. And, in the process, brutally undermining their own government much like a body afflicted with some autoimmune disease that begins attacking itself. Both sides would acknowledge that an upset of sorts has now been caused. Not that the tables have turned but the next election has been thrown open in a way nobody had

anticipated.

Five things have made it happen, three of which are rooted in our major states, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu. The UPA can’t repeat its near-sweep of 2004 and 2009 in Andhra and Tamil Nadu. And the disaster of Bihar stunned the Congress. Even more than its tally of four seats, the

shocker was the fact that its candidates lost their deposits in 221 out of the 243 seats it contested. For the NDA, on the other hand, the success of Bihar showed what kind of political gains were available in the new India if you were willing to dump old, exclusionist, negative agendas. Bihar has, therefore, emerged as that fortuitous turning point that an opposition in the dumps prays for. The two factors outside of these states are the obvious ones: the withering damage the UPA has suffered because of corruption charges and the discordant, disruptive noises that began emerging from within the

Congress exposing its disastrous complex of ideological laziness, conflicting ambitions and political imprudence.

To understand this shift, National Interest has to revisit its long-held theory that an Indian national election is now like a best-of-nine-sets tennis match—whoever wins five of these will take the trophy. These nine ‘sets’ are our large states where electoral fortunes can change: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. Together, these account for 351 seats in the Lok Sabha, so whichever coalition wins five of these is

likely to cross the 200 mark anyway. That 200 is the new 272 in our Lok Sabha now, as you would presume that the same coalition would collect some more seats out of the remaining 192, and if it is

still short, some small parties with ideologies totally fungible with power would join it. If you were a Congress strategist, that equation would look far from reassuring today. And you would be a fool not to acknowledge, at least to yourself, that this will be a much closer election than you had expected it to be. And how does the BJP pass this ‘best-of-nine-sets’ test? It would err in hoping to ride Bihar’s euphoria to victory in the Lok Sabha, because it does not exist in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra, and has been decimated in Uttar Pradesh.

So where do the UPA and NDA—or, more accurately, the Congress and BJP—go from here? The lesson for each is somewhat similar. The next election is its to win or lose depending on whether it can dump some of its awful, outdated and politically suicidal habits or not. Take the Congress first. Its entire politics is built around loyalty to one family. It also implies that the party will build no other strong leaders, particularly regional chieftains like YSR, Hooda and Sheila Dikshit. The party has none such in these nine key states? To expect Rahul to go out and win all these states by himself will be a tough call in 2014, when so many of India’s voters would have been born after the assassination

of Indira Gandhi. So the Congress will have to build a new set of genuinely empowered state leaders. The BJP, similarly, should know from its Bihar experience that its srcinal Muslim-hating, narrow Hindutva is now outdated. In a state with a sizeable Muslim vote, the BJP has won 91 of the 102 seats it contested, possibly the highest strike rate (90 per cent) for any party ever in our history. Would it have done as well if Modi, Mandir, Hindutva had been floating in the Bihar air? Only if it takes that logical lesson forward, apologises to Chandrababu Naidu, Naveen Patnaik and Jayalalithaa, can it put together a coalition that will once again begin to look like a winner.

Remember the nine-set match. The first week of this budget session has confirmed to us that the election of 2014 is now open. The winner would be the party that makes that bold, final and convincing move from its outdated politics of grievance to India’s wonderful new politics of aspiration.