The game’s in the middle

To this scenario, add these finishing touches: all parties function in a system that is still in intense motion. Large sections of the electorate were politicised belatedly, long after they were formally enfranchised. Over the last few decades, under the weight of the several political mobilisations, parties have fragmented till they can fragment no more if they want to remain in the game. They are now searching for ways to come together. But the decision to make alliances or part ways is governed by complicated calculations that take into account the cross-cutting cleavages of caste, class and community.

In UP, for instance, there are four parties in the fray and little hope of any of them forming durable coalitions any time soon. There is intense distrust between parties, and insecurity about encroachment on their turfs. A law that forbids parties to defect from coalitions will impose an order from the top that is completely at odds with the churning on the ground…

This is not an implausible scenario. Last month, the Veerappa Moily panel submitted its recommendations for ‘Ethics in Governance’ and they included this one: If a party quits a coalition “… with a common minimum programme mandated by the electorate either explicitly before the elections or implicitly while forming the government”, it must be forced to go back to the people. The odds are that such a prohibitive law will meet with our instant approval. After all, the Anti-Defection Act which similarly constrains individuals within parties, remains in our good books.

Evidence of its many subversions — on display in the recent crisis in UP triggered by the SC judgment on BSP defectors — only adds to our zeal to turn the legal screws tighter on our MPs and MLAs. If only we could find a way to make our speakers behave, stamp out inconsistent interpretations of the law, lay down strict timeframes. We rarely ask whether such a law is the right, or the whole, answer to the problems of political corruption and instability. In a party system marked by the absence of inner party democracy, does the Anti-Defection Act end up strengthening the dictatorial party whip? Where does it leave the “good” defectors, who defect because of genuine dissent?

Our refusal to ask these questions is part of a pattern. We are resolutely pessimistic about our politics and politicians. We seek the legal quick-fix to the political problem. So obsessed are we with the making and unmaking of governments, we are insensitive to the dynamic that falls in between, or the “Middle Game”.

But our focus wasn’t always so fevered, this shrunken. Go back to the time when an anti-defection law was first talked about, and you find a far more patient and spacious debate. There was awkwardness about talking of a law, or only the law. In November 1967 the Lok Sabha took formal notice of defections when private member, P. Venkatasubbaiah, moved a resolution for constituting a committee to study defections. The Union government appointed a committee in February 1968, headed by then Union home minister Y.B. Chavan.

The Chavan Committee made two broad points — one, defections are not just to be seen as driven by corruption and bribery, they also take place due to genuine dissent. Two, law is a blunt instrument, “… the best legislative or constitutional devices cannot succeed without a corresponding recognition on the part of political parties… the problem requires to be attacked simultaneously on the political, educational and ethical planes…” Remedies for this complex political problem, it said, must balance the need for political stability with the need to protect freedom of speech, the organic growth of the polity on the basis of multi-partyism and the expression of genuine dissent.

In Ideas for an Alternative Anti-Defection Law (2006), R. Kothandaraman traces some of the debate that led to the 1985 law. In the early years, there’s the unmistakable ring of the same discomfort — that law won’t make the problem go away, we cannot mix up dissent with defection, and ‘stability’ can come at an unaffordable price. On the eve of the UP poll, as anxieties about another unstable governing alliance overtake us again, it may be useful to go back to that debate.

Ironically, in the case of coalitions, stabilising devices may have grown more sophisticated while we weren’t looking. In a recent article on the ‘Middle Game in Coalition Politics’ in the Economic and Political Weekly, Kailash K.K. plots an impressive learning curve.

The National Front had neither a formal coordination committee nor a common programme. The United Front established a three-tier mechanism — the CMP, Steering Committee and direct interaction between the PM and the main supporting party. The NDA used multiple coordination agencies, political and governmental. The National Agenda of Governance became a crucial stabiliser; the Coordination Committee met more regularly than the UF mechanism, often extending to the state level. The NDA also used the all-party meeting and chief ministers’ conference to spread out consultations and contain conflicts. At the governmental level, it relied on inter-ministerial groups.

The UPA has added its own layers to coalition coordination. Apart from the NCMP and the UPA Coordination Committee (UPACC), there is a Left Front Coordination Committee and the UPA Government-Left Coordination Committee (ULCC). Then there is the National Advisory Committee or NAC.

It will take time for coalitions in UP, for instance, to learn from the Centre and adopt such mechanisms. But it won’t happen without coaxing on our part. We need to invest attention in these committees, ask them careful questions. We need to shine the light on the inner patterns of parties and governing arrangements even when elections do not loom large.

If we treat parties and coalitions as black boxes, to be opened up for public airing only in case of breakdown, restrictive laws will appear as the only solution. The Anti-Defection Act has shown us how the legal way out often guides us into the political deadend.