Barely eight months before the 16th general election in the world’s largest democracy in April-May 2014, India’s economy is experiencing considerable turbulence. Gross domestic product growth has decelerated sharply, the rupee recently collapsed before recovering somewhat, and industrial production has declined or remained stagnant. Investor sentiment remains muted and inflation remains stubbornly high, driven by high food and fuel prices. Under the circumstances, the prevailing political uncertainty is hardly helping.
Recent opinion polls indicate strong anti-incumbency sentiment against the ruling United Progressive Alliance coalition led by the Congress, India’s “grand old party”, which has been running the government since May 2004. But the surveys do not anticipate a sharp rise in the popularity of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which heads the National Democratic Alliance coalition that was in power from 1998 to 2004.
The possibility of a non-Congress, non-BJP coalition forming a so-called Third Front government with outside support from one of the two large political parties — of the kind that took place in 1989 and 1996 — cannot be ruled out.
In the run-up to the elections, internal bickering within the Congress has intensified, especially on economic ideology. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, widow of former premier Rajiv Gandhi, heads a National Advisory Council which includes representatives of civil society who hold left-of-centre views. Their ideology is often perceived to be at odds with the positions adopted by the government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his confidantes.
The premier, who as finance minister introduced sweeping reforms credited with opening up the Indian economy in the early 1990s, has surrounded himself with people who share his views. They include Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, Communications and Law Minister Kapil Sibal, and External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid. Other key players include two non-political aides: Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, and Chakravarthi Rangarajan, the head of the premier’s Economic Advisory Council.
The gung-ho economic liberalisers in the government have been preoccupied with increasing the GDP growth rate, cutting the fiscal deficit, aligning domestic energy prices with world prices, paring subsidies (including those on fuel, food and fertilisers), bringing down interest rates and attracting foreign investment.
Those on the left wing of the Congress, on the other hand, argue that the government’s policies of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation have so far not been able to create enough new jobs, nor bring down food prices. Instead, the gap between the rich and the poor has only widened.
Those who are not particularly enamoured of the current free market policies include President Pranab Mukherjee, Defence Minister AK Antony, Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, and Science and Technology Minister S Jaipal Reddy.
While the opinions of the neo-liberals led by Prime Minister Singh have by and large prevailed over those of the “socialist” faction, both groups have come together before the elections to enact a new law that seeks to provide two-thirds of India’s 1.2 billion people with highly subsidised food grains.
The Congress realises, after all, that the government’s inability to control food inflation has been the single biggest factor that has contributed to the unpopularity of the current regime.
While the Congress is projecting its newly anointed vice-president, Sonia Gandhi’s son Rahul as a prime ministerial candidate, the 42-year-old gives many the impression that he is not enthusiastic about the job. That hasn’t stopped some in the media from portraying next year’s campaign as an American-style presidential battle of sorts between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi, the BJP chief minister of the western state of Gujarat.
While quite a few in the BJP do not wholeheartedly endorse Modi’s candidacy, he is nevertheless being projected as a strong and decisive administrator who has the support of many of India’s biggest industrialists.
Despite the accolades he has received from time to time from capitalists, Modi polarises opinion very sharply, especially outside Gujarat. Opponents regard him as an authoritarian and even a “fascist” who failed to contain the communal riots that killed more than 1,000 people (mainly Muslims) in the state between February and May 2002. Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari has repeatedly compared the BJP strongman to the German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Despite his brilliant oratorical skills, many believe Modi’s popularity will not travel well outside his state. His prominence in the party prompted one former ally, the Janata Dal (United) led by Nitish Kumar, chief minister of economically backward but fast-growing Bihar, to leave the NDA coalition.
Up to the turn of the millennium, many believed that coalition governments in India were an aberration, a temporary phase that would give way to single-party governments led either by the Congress or the BJP. This line of thinking has now changed. For two decades up to 2004, one of the most significant aspects of India’s polity was the relative decline of the Congress and the rise of the BJP. In the 2004 general elections the number of Congress MPs in the Lok Sabha went up for the first time since 1991; after two decades, the number of MPs owing allegiance to the BJP fell from 182 in 1999 to 138 in 2004.
The two largest parties put together (without their allies or partners) got roughly half the votes cast in successive general elections in 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2009. The remaining votes went to dozens of parties, some of which have opportunistically switched allegiance between the UPA and the NDA coalitions. The combined vote share of the Congress and the BJP (minus their pre- or post-poll allies) actually shrank by 1.5% between 2004 and 2009.
In only six out of the country’s 28 states and in the national capital is the electoral battle primarily between the two largest parties. In some states either the Congress or the BJP is one of the major players, but the other is minor or insignificant. They include Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and some states of the northeast such as Assam. In Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, neither the BJP nor the Congress can claim a leading role.
From 1996 onward, no government in New Delhi has been formed by a single party — each government has been run by a coalition. Although two coalitions, the UPA and the NDA, dominate, it would not be accurate to describe India’s political structure as bipolar with smaller parties having no choice but to become appendages of either the BJP or the Congress.
The present unpopularity of the incumbent regime is primarily a consequence of two factors: the inability of the government to curb food inflation, and the perception that many of its functionaries have been brazenly corrupt. Most political observers will not be surprised if, after the next election, the Congress weakens but the BJP does not become significantly stronger.
Such an outcome would imply a more significant role for smaller parties, making national politics even more opportunistic — and unpredictable — than at present. The fragmentation of the Indian polity is far from over.
The writer is an independent educator and journalist on the political economy of India.