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Video Producer: Shohini Bose
Video Editor: Harpal Rawat
Camera: Shivkumar Maurya
Does ideology matter in Indian politics or are leaders utterly opportunistic, ready to compromise everything for power?
But that’s a bit odd, right? How can the rise and fall – i.e., such opposite events and outcomes – exemplify the same political theorem?
My mind is spinning back to 1977 when I first acquired a fledgling political consciousness. Indira Gandhi had unexpectedly lifted the Emergency to revive democratic functioning.
But there was a problem. Ideologically, the half a dozen or so Opposition parties were completely disparate, even inimical:
the free-market liberals of Swatantra Party
the centrist, disgruntled ex-Congressmen who had bitterly broken away from Indira
the sworn anti-Congress, anti-Sangh socialist followers of Lohia
the conservative, RSS-blessed Jana Sangh
And many others spanning the Left and labour unions’ spectrum. But all ideologies were put in abeyance – nay, even dissolved – and a ‘united’ Janata Party was formed.
A decade later, India was ripe for one more irascible coalition when the 'renegade' VP Singh welded socialists and ex-Congressmen into another Janata Dal in 1989, which won the second-highest tally in Parliament but needed 150 more MPs to get a stable majority against Rajiv Gandhi's defeated, but single largest party, Congress.
The BJP ratcheted up Hindutva with Advani’s political chariot, and VP Singh retaliated with Mandal's caste arithmetic.
These two ideologies –
one that saw India as a monolith Hindu nation
and another which built itself on the caste underpinning of an intrinsically diverse/divided society
– collided. The Left parties were left smouldering with their uncompromising secularism. Within 11 months, another unholy, incompatible political experiment came to grief. But those who forget the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.
In 1996, a ‘reverse VP Singh of 1989’ structure was crafted. Now, the Congress joined the Left and gave oxygen to the Deve Gowda-led United Front (a new nomenclature for the erstwhile Janata formations), while the BJP occupied the Opposition space.
Again, doom was written all over, as most United Front constituents practised diehard anti-Congressism. Naturally, a restive Congress destroyed the United Front twice:
by replacing Deve Gowda with Inder Gujral, and later,
by pulling the rug from under Gujral too.
I will end my examples with perhaps the most stunning volte-face in Indian politics. In 2015, Nitish Kumar tied the knot with sworn political enemies, Lalu Yadav and Congress, to annihilate the BJP in Bihar.
What all of these examples prove is that whenever parties with utterly incompatible ideologies – those who’ve been sworn, implacable foes over decades – have tried to cobble an unnatural alliance, it has not lasted, never.
So, ideology does matter, it does define uncrossable boundaries, a 'Lakshman Rekha' beyond which political decimation is foretold. And while a political party can stray into grey compromises, it comes to grief when itdoes a volte-face, crossing the boundary into impermissible territory. That’s resisted by, and is unsellable to, its core supporters and cadre. They revolt.
That’s precisely what happened in Maharashtra. The Thackerays crossed the Rubicon when they chose to cohabit with two Congress formations with whom they’ve been in a blood sport for half a century.
How could they have defied history? They couldn’t. They didn’t. So clearly, ideology, or at least deep-rooted political beliefs and convictions, do matter.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)