Opinion The Janata dodge
A new party announces itself. But is it a way of evading old incoherences and questions?
Another reunion of the Janata Parivar has been announced but its leading lights may still not have fully come to terms with political change. Leaders of the six outfits that trace their origin to the Janata Party of the 1970s and share the political legacy of Rammanohar Lohia have chosen Mulayam Singh Yadav to head the party, which will be given a name, symbol, policy and structure. It is foretold, however, that the binding themes of this anti-BJP gathering will be “social justice” and “secularism”.
A third force that called itself secular and held aloft the Mandal report became relevant and successful in the Eighties and Nineties, which was also a time when the backward castes were visibly under-represented in the Congress and the BJP, and the BJP pursued an explicitly polarising agenda in its bid for a political-electoral foothold. Much has changed since then. For one, the BJP has travelled far — it has fashioned itself into a party of governance and a pan-Indian force with a formidable organisation and an expanding social base. The political narrative has also shifted — it has taken on a more aspirational idiom and hue, it seems less tethered to the past or weighed down by it. Recent elections have shown the limits of negative agendas and diminishing returns from identity-centric mobilisations — a younger electorate favours affirmative governance agendas that promise change.
The 2014 general election saw the Janata outfits relegated in Bihar and UP, two states headed for polls later this year and in 2017, respectively. The Janata leaders evidently expect that the arithmetic of the merger will enable them to paper over the gaps. Of course, when he came to power in Bihar, Nitish Kumar had promised a creative and astute balancing between “samajik nyay” and “vikas”, or social justice and development — and he had even delivered on it. In neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav also rode to power on the hope of good governance and change. But Akhilesh’s record in office has been disappointing on both counts, while Nitish has seemed disoriented after his break-up with the BJP.
The Janata combine may or may not be successful in halting the BJP’s advance. But will the comfort of numbers avert the need for each of them to confront the incoherences and failures that have led to their relative relegation in 2015? In the noise of coming together, will the individual moments of reckoning again go unheeded? For leaders of the Janata Parivar, the more compelling question could be this.
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