Opinion The past isn’t past
Without internal democracy, parties struggle to gently phase out the old guard.
Without internal democracy, parties struggle to gently phase out the old guard.
As the Congress and the BJP reconfigure themselves ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the old fealties are being challenged. Jairam Ramesh drew flak from Congress colleagues when he said politicians over 70 should retire, that “mentors” who didn’t know when to exit ended up becoming “tormentors”.
The BJP expelled founding member Jaswant Singh, who had filed his nomination as an independent from Barmer after being denied a party ticket there. Sections of the party had earlier expressed their “hurt” at the senior leader being passed over for a younger candidate who, it was argued, could bring in the Jat votes.
Picking on age is as superficial as the thoughtless premium on youth. There is a growing tendency to identify younger faces with new political ideas, but there is little to support this assumption. Younger leaders can often mean more of the same — Akhilesh Yadav, the face of a supposedly refurbished Samajwadi Party, has brought little to the table so far.
Equally, older politicians can provide dynamic leadership. Yet, it’s also true that most parties struggle with a layer of leadership that has outlasted its uses, so-called party stalwarts who cannot speak the language that resonates with a changing electorate.
Both the Congress and BJP have seen the rise of new power centres under Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi, respectively, leaders with a stated intent to redefine their parties. In both cases, this has given rise to the perception of a rift between the old guard and the emerging leadership.
In the absence of inner-party democracy, decisions by the high command to remove or transfer senior leaders to different constituencies inevitably cause indignation or disappointment. The BJP may have cited electoral calculations for denying Barmer to Jaswant Singh or keeping L.K. Advani guessing, but both moves have been seen as motivated by factionalism. Only institutionalised competition for tickets and collective decision-making can solve this dilemma, ensure that those who win, old or young, have the party workers’ trust.
Share
