Things fall apart

The time for writing the epitaph of the Janata Dal seems to have arrived. Karnataka Chief Minister J.H. Patel's announcement on Thursday ...

The time for writing the epitaph of the Janata Dal seems to have arrived. Karnataka Chief Minister J.H. Patel’s announcement on Thursday that the JD would join the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) could well be the last nail in the coffin of a party that once ruled the country. Although Patel has clarified that his announcement is subject to the approval of the Political Affairs Committee of the party, a split in the JD is now more or less a certainty.

Former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda is unlikely to concur with Patel’s decision, not so much because he dislikes the BJP but because he detests Lok Shakti’s Ramakrishna Hegde. That Patel has little hope of returning to power is clear from his criticism of the Election Commission’s decision to hold simultaneous polls for the Assembly and the Lok Sabha in the state.

Thus it is self-preservation that has prompted him to latch on to the BJP soon after the party took a decision not to ally with either the “corrupt” Congress or the “communal” BJP.Small wonder then that the state unit of the BJP has not been particularly elated over Patel’s willingness to join the NDA because it realises that this will strike at the root of its own credibility. It sees Patel’s move, which has the blessings of both Hegde and Samata Party’s George Fernandes, as part of these two leaders’ bid to consolidate their own position in the NDA vis-a-vis the BJP.

Whatever be Patel’s motive, his decision cannot be seen in isolation. It could not have been a mere coincidence that the day Patel made the announcement, another prominent JD leader, Ram Vilas Paswan, reiterated his intention to align himself with the Samata-BJP alliance in Bihar. Given JD chief Sharad Yadav’s irreconcilable differences with Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Laloo Prasad Yadav, he too may find it necessary to adopt the Paswan line. Thus, to all intents and purposes, the split will not be confined to the southern state alone. As it is, the party has some presence only in Karnataka. If it is able to keep itsflag flying in Bihar, after Laloo Yadav parted company with it, it is because of Paswan and Sharad Yadav.

The party has long lost its hold in Orissa, which was once its stronghold. The JD leaders have only themselves to blame for the present denouement. Their cantankerous nature as also their willingness to embrace the BJP or the Congress, whenever they found it politically convenient to do so, have a lot to do with the collapse of the Third Front which, incidentally, was led by the JD. The result was that even when the Janata Dal was at the zenith of its popularity, it was never seen as a stabilising force.

The disintegration of the JD is symptomatic of the disintegration of the Third Front and the resultant polarisation of the political space between the Congress and the BJP. That a party which had at one time fired the imagination of the backwards and the Muslims and produced three prime ministers should lose its identity so quickly is unfortunate.

If exploitation of caste feelings helped it in thebeginning, it also proved to be its undoing in the long run. After all the party could not have carried on for long when the people have lost their faith in the Mandal card, which had only accentuated caste feelings without doing any good to improve their lives.