Welcome the Second Front

It is easy now to dismiss the 8220;third force8221; as a ragtag coalition comprising the Left, regional parties and secular remnants of the Janata Parivar that never had the numbers or the cohesion to survive. But in retrospect, what is amazing is that this motley group actually ruled India for a while and even held out hopes of a secular, democratic, subaltern alternative to both BJP and Congress.

It is a measure of the Third Front8217;s great decline that today the Congress is being wooed and cajoled into agreeing to alliances after being assiduously kept out of power by the very same constituents of that front. In 1996, the Third Front formed the government by forcing the Congress to support it from outside. The BJP had emerged as a major force but anti-Congressism was strong enough to rule out a Congress-led government. In 1999, when the Vajpayee government fell, Mulayam Singh Yadav scuttled any chances of a Congress-led alternative.

Now, the same Mulayam Singh is keen for a tie-up with the Congress. True, his desire is motivated by the narrow concerns of Uttar Pradesh where he is desperate to bring down his bete noire Mayawati. But it would be myopic to see the phenomenon only through the limited prism of UP.

The end of anti-Congressism as the guiding creed of opposition politics has been a far more gradual and complex process and can be attributed to a number of inter-related factors. First, anti-Congressism has declined because the Congress itself is a pale shadow of what it once was. Much of the opposition to Congress stemmed from its total hegemony over power after Independence. Congress was not a party but a system, and over time came to represent all that was wrong with the system. Barring the Dangeites, parties across the spectrum felt that without breaking Congress8217;s hegemony, no alternative politics could emerge in the country. The change in the party8217;s fortunes no longer makes that plank valid.

Second, the vacuum left by the Congress has been filled by the BJP and not the left of centre forces. Like other political formations, the BJP and earlier the Jan Sangh used anti-Congressism to fuel its growth, but from the end of the 1980s went beyond that to advance its own Hindutva-inspired 8220;distinctive8221; brand of politics.

The rise of the BJP leads to the third factor 8212; the radical revision of the communists8217;, particularly the CPIM8217;s, attitude towards the Congress. Although pitted directly against the Congress and not the BJP in its strongholds, it is they who have accepted the centrality of the Congress in any national alternative to the BJP.

The change in the position of the CPIM 8212; which provided the theoretical ballast to the United Front even while refusing to lead it 8212; is clear from a cursory perusal of its documents through the 1990s.

At its 14th Congress in 1992, the party adopted the slogan of defeating both the Congress and the BJP. This was reiterated at the 15th Congress in 1995, with the party calling for an understanding with 8220;the secular opposition forces to present an effective electoral alternative to the Congress and BJP.8221;

But after the 1998 elections that saw the BJP assume power, the line shifted. Party resolutions noted that 8220;in the event of the Congress being prepared to lead an alternative8230; we should support it from outside8221;.

At its 17th Congress last year, the CPIM emphasised that while it would not enter into any programmatic alliance with the Congress, the days of equating the BJP and Congress 8220;as equal dangers8221; was well and truly over. The Forward Bloc and RSP continue to cling to the 8220;equidistance8221; line but that, perhaps, has more to do with intra-Left power dynamics than any rigid ideological stance.

Decline of anti-Congressism apart, another factor that has contributed to the erosion of the Third Front is the fundamental change in Centre-state relations in the wake of the economic reforms of the 1990s. The participation of regional parties in national opposition politics was fuelled largely by their animosity towards an overbearing Centre rather than ideology.

In a liberalised economy, the Centre8217;s economic stranglehold over the states has slackened. Coupled with political decentralisation of the coalition era, it is that much easier for regional players to form a coalition with national parties at the Centre.

This partly explains their 8220;opportunism8221; in abandoning the secular platform to join the NDA in 1998 and 1999. But opportunism cuts both ways. If they can ally with the BJP today, they can do so with an accommodating Congress at a future date.

The ground is thus set for the Congress to take the initiative to build a Second Front to take on the BJP-led alliance which is indubitably the First Front as of now. It will be far more difficult for the Congress to make alliances than it was for the BJP for both objective and subjective reasons.

For one, the Congress still has the most widespread presence in the country and has to sacrifice its own eroded bases to potential allies. Then there is the nagging problem of Sonia Gandhi8217;s leadership, though opposition to her is clearly ebbing. But the biggest stumbling block is the Congress8217;s innate hubris and the belief 8212; not sustained by ground reality 8212; that it will soon re-emerge as the country8217;s sole ruling party.

It is time Congressmen realise the true import of the end of anti-Congressism and respond with tactical finesse and strategic vision to the new political reality. Or else, the Grand Old Party will contribute in no small measure to the making of a unipolar India dominated by the Sangh and its satellites.