Opinion New Politics,Old Leaders

Within just a fortnight,what an upheaval in Indian politics! It is not often,that all at once,two Congress chief ministers fall and Parliament is in chaos week after week. The Congress is making a virtue out of the departure of Ashok Chavan (remember him?) but then why Andhra Pradesh chief minister K Rosaiah as well? Was it the effect of late chief minister Y S R Reddy’s son Jaganmohan maligning Sonia Gandhi on his TV channel? What will the Congress do if he really retaliates?The BJP,meanwhile,showed its lack of clout with Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa. BJP president Nitin Gadkari has a lot to learn about good governance but also to acquire some weight in the top echelons of the party. The victory in Bihar saved BJP’s face but surely that is more due to Nitish Kumar than any positive measure on the BJP’s part. Its eagerness to project Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in Bihar nearly backfired. No matter how much good governance Modi may have achieved in Gujarat,neither he nor the BJP appreciates why he remains a liability. If Muslims voted for the NDA coalition in Bihar,it was despite rather than because of the BJP. If the BJP does not realise that,it will waste more years in Opposition at the Centre. Of course,in the midst of the Bihar campaign,former RSS chief K S Sudarshan came out with his gem of a conspiracy theory and any thought one may have had that RSS is not a loony outfit was instantly removed.Yet,the NDA victory in Bihar is a bigger problem for the Congress than for anyone else. It gambled by going alone and contested all 243 seats unlike any other party. Maybe it was a trial run for UP for the Rahul Gandhi factor. If so,it was a repeat of 2007,not of 2009. The Rahul Gandhi charisma may work for national elections but not state ones. Of course,Bihar became hopeless as soon as Jagdish Tytler was sent there. The Congress remained without a recognisable leader in Bihar till the end as it remains in Gujarat,West Bengal,Karnataka etc. There is much to be said for Rahul Gandhi’s work at the grassroots,but it is clear that the fruits will not show just yet.This is clear when we see the undemocratic way in which the new CMs were chosen for Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. But what Andhra shows and Maharashtra may show yet is that India can no longer be governed from the top. Jagan will reassert himself soon enough since he knows where the bodies are buried. The Telangana Report may salvage the pride of High Command but I predict nothing but trouble for the Congress in Andhra.Nitish’s victory shows that state politics is local and not national. This should be no surprise. The US has this characteristic and India as a large federation is bound to have it. The British gave India the centralising ideology but even in UK with devolution to Scotland,Wales and Northern Ireland,the separation between local and national elections is now routine.Neither the Congress nor the BJP see this new reality. They thrash about trying to dictate from the top; hence,the Yeddyurappaa debacle. Narendra Modi may never make it to national level and Nitish may not even aspire to do so. After all,DMK chief M Karunanidhi is happy in his patch. Good governance is local not national. Indian politics could well have different parties at the top and in the states. The Congress may go on winning nationally and losing locally.The real heroes of the new politics are the two old socialists—Lohia and JP. They wanted the Congress to be weakened as they thought it was an obstacle to change. UP and Bihar owe their backwardness to decades of Congress upper-caste rule. They saw that and wanted the Congress out. Lohia with his anti-Congress platform and JP with his crusade in 1975 sowed the seeds of the change we see today.Perhaps that is the lesson for Rahul Gandhi. Real change takes decades in India,not years.