The Soren-sized headache

But Shibhu Soren could not be wished away. He was, after all, one of the 8220;tallest8221; leaders in the UPA coalition with an avowed mass following among the tribal populace of Jharkhand 8212; a state he fought hard to create. Besides, he was both affable and loyal to the Congress leadership at the Centre, never mind all those murder charges. And so, having weathered the storm created by the BJP-led NDA on the 8220;tainted ministers8221; issue in the early phase of his tenure, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not show much reluctance in re-inducting Soren into the union cabinet in late November 2005.

Exactly a year later, just as the UPA regime entered the post mid-term comfort zone, Soren has struck again. This time the case is a lot more serious. He is the first minister to have been convicted by a court on charges as grave as kidnapping and the conspiracy to murder. The Chirudih massacre could be, at a stretch, put in the category of 8220;mass politics8221; that mass leaders invariably engage in. But the current case, involving the murder of Soren8217;s private secretary Shashinath Jha after the two fell out over the spoils from the infamous bribery case involving JMM MPs, wears no such fig leaf. As such, Soren who was made to resign for the second time from Manmohan Singh8217;s cabinet, is unlikely to get back inside again.

But both Congress and JMM 8212; and indeed the entire political class 8212; know that this isn8217;t the end of the Soren saga. For even if Shibhu Soren the man is sent to jail by the courts today, Shibhu Soren the phenomenon is not going to go away.

One obvious reason is the so-called 8216;coalition culture8217; that is upon us. The mainstream national parties 8212; Congress, BJP, CPIM 8212; may claim to have superior norms of morality, more organised structures of discipline, more stricter vigilance on aberrant behaviour, but they know that in today8217;s polity it is the smaller parties that call the shots.

And smaller parties tend to be largely one-man or one-woman dispensations where the boss exercises supreme control. It might seem a paradox but it is also true that the most autocratic leaders who often get entangled in cases of corruption and other more heinous crimes are also invariably charismatic figures who draw political sustenance from a huge mass following. If their subaltern origins make them that much more appealing to their electorate, they also make them more vulnerable to greed and ostentation and all the attendant crimes that such an inclination entails. But charges of corruption or worse seldom dent their popularity. That is why, come election time, the big parties make a beeline to the doors of these powerful chieftains and have little choice but to make them chief ministers or members of the Union cabinet.

But to blame it simply on the compulsions of coalition politics is a little too facile. A more important reason behind the phenomena of the Lalu Yadavs and Shibhu Sorens, the Mayawatis and the Uma Bharatis lies in the failure of the big national parties to accommodate grassroots leaders with a following of their own. If the smaller outfits lack inner-party democracy that enables the leader to be a law unto himself which sooner or later leads to flouting both laws and norms, the national parties are often too regimented and centralised to allow charismatic regional leaders to flourish within their midst.

There was a time when the epithet Grand Old Party reserved for the Congress was a tribute to the first word and not the second. The party was grand because it allowed all shades of opinion to co-exist within its broad, catholic embrace; because it had giant leaders at the helm who were not insecure about regional stalwarts 8212; K. Kamraj, Atulya Ghosh, Pratap Singh Kairon, who could hold their own. As the 8216;Congress system8217; narrowed and atrophied from the late 1960s onwards, the phenomenon of small parties 8212; struggling to break out of an increasingly undemocratic party structure only to form far less democratic outfits of their own 8212; came into being.

The BJP is much younger than the Congress but is going the same way. Be it Babulal Marandi or Uma Bharati, the BJP too is unable to find space for mass leaders who display an arrogance that comes from their autonomous following. There are others, too, of course. The rise of identity politics based on caste and region and tribe has certainly played a role in bolstering the popularity and profile of a set of leaders over the last couple of decades. But that is a given today; it can no longer suffice as an excuse for the shortcomings of the mainstream, national parties.

Sonia Gandhi periodically exhorts her party colleagues to strengthen the Congress organisation and revive the party at the grassroots. But unless the Congress leadership learns to sustain and nourish grassroots leaders, allows them the requisite space to grow and come into their own, masters the difficult task of tempering centralised authority with regional autonomy, there will be more Shibu Soren-sized headaches for the UPA 8212; and, when the time comes, for the NDA as well.