Third Front – stability at stake

Election fever is slowly gripping the country.

The next general elections are, of course, due by early next year as the new government has to be installed by the month of May going by the schedule.

But speculation is rife that the ruling Congress, which leads the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition, may go for early polls on the back of the highly populist measures in the Union Budget for 2008-09 and also some other drastic measures like the possible signing of the nuclear deal with the United States; an agreement which the Congress managers believe will take the country a long way in terms of energy security.

Sensing the spirit of the situation, some of the leading players in the country’s political scene have started talking about forming new coalitions and tie-ups. The run-up to the elections happens to be the most favoured season for establishing new equations and liaisons. Among the rest, the CPI(M) has started efforts aimed at reviving the Third Front as a viable alternative to the UPA and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

While addressing the CPI(M)’s 19th Congress at Coimbatore recently, party general-secretary Prakash Karat said: “The need for a third alternative is being felt all the more…It cannot be a mere electoral alliance. We have learnt from our experience of the earlier formations such as the United Front of 1996-98.”

The Left parties – read the CPI(M), the CPI, the RSP and the Forward Bloc – have committed a virtual political suicide by choosing to support the UPA at the Centre as they take on the Congress at the election front in their strongholds such as West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. They need to do a lot of explaining to convince their committed rank and file and sympathisers over the rationale of such a decision.

The CPI(M), the largest among the Left parties in the country, itself is in an unenviable position. Even after offering unconditional support to the UPA government all these years, the party is far from being impressed over its performance if Karat’s words are any indication. He feels that the government has failed to address vital issues like the agrarian crisis and the steep rise in prices of essential commodities. He also alleged that the Union Government pursued economic policies which benefit big businesses and the affluent. “The overall thrust has been on liberalisation and privatisation,” he said.

It is this dilemma which has prompted Karat and his comrades to take the lead in the attempt to resurrect the long-defunct Third Front once again. It’s not that the Left leader is unaware of the difficulties involved in reaching the magic figure of 272 (the numbers required for a simple majority) in the Lok Sabha with only the non-Congress and non-BJP parties on board his bandwagon. He has already had the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) along with him and hopes to rope in a few more influential regional parties such as the DMK, the National Conference and the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP).

And, even if the Third Front becomes a reality and manages a majority in the Lok Sabha after the elections (which looks quite a distant possibility), the biggest question will involve the stability and longevity of such an experiment. With their damn narrow regional outlook and approaches, most of their allies in the prospective Third Front would prove to be perennial headaches for the champions of the experiment. Even national parties like the Congress and the BJP have a history of wrecking coalition governments at the Centre.

Stability doesn’t necessarily mean avoiding elections for a period of five years and save Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) for the exchequer. But it means a lot more and is quite vital for a fast-growing economy like India. For ensuring continuity in policies and economic outlook; for carrying out welfare measures in a proper manner; for maintaining the pace of Gross Domestic Product (GDP); for having a good inflow of foreign capital and a healthy stock market -- stability of governance is a pre-requisite.

The global economy is being shaken by the onset of a recession in the US and the financial crisis is spreading around the world. Still the South Asian economies remain more or less unaffected so far. But the International Monetary Fund has already lowered India’s GDP growth rate forecast to 7.9% in 2008, against the Finance Ministry’s hope of maintaining an average growth rate of 8.8%. This is nothing short of an alarm signal.

It may be recalled that PV Narasimha Rao’s government (1991-96) was able to salvage the country from the jaws of the worst-ever economic crisis in history just because there was political stability all along the five years.

The writing on the wall is quite clear: the nation and its economy crave for a few more decades of political stability.

The Republic at 60 – least expectations

The Republic of India is turning 60 in a year from now. And, for a country which is often hailed as the biggest democracy in the world, it’s the track record in the promotion of human rights and availability of opportunities that should count rather than the mere percentage of people who exercise their franchise every five years, or even more frequently.

But still, the popular concept, nay the myth, goes that ‘participatory democracy’ is the cornerstone of any so-called democratic polity. But participation is often limited to voting, leaving governance to politicians and bureaucrats.

The claims regarding the achievements India has had during the last six decades of existence as a democracy merit stark comparison with its western counterparts – especially the US and the UK.

Drinking is very much a social activity in Europe and elsewhere in the West. And, UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling has gone for quite a ‘drastic’ measure – he raised the duty on alcohol in his Budget.

The result – he has now been barred from entering some of the pubs in the UK. A bar in Edinburgh has put up a poster that reads: "Barred. We hereby give notice that Alastair [sic] Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, is barred from this pub until further notice." And, an internet campaign is going on in support of a nationwide pub ban on the Head of the Treasury.

Well, imagine the same thing happening in India where Finance Minister P. Chidambaram effects a steep hike in the tax on alcohol or any other essential commodity (alcohol too happens to be one these days, we should say), will any individual establishment or organisation in the country dare to clamp such a ban on him? That explains how vibrant and freewheeling a democracy the United Kingdom is.

Yet another event in the West has been capturing much media attention for the last couple of months: the race for winning the nomination of major political parties to run for the White House. Even the candidates for the presidency are elected after a rigorous democratic process.

Now, come to the world’s biggest democracy, and there you can witness a rarest of the rare phenomena. One gentleman is made the Prime Minister one fine morning without even having to face the electorate. And the guy who lost the Lok Sabha elections has been entrusted with the all-important, all-powerful portfolio of Home Affairs.

Interestingly, Dr Manmohan Singh holds the rare distinction of being the only Indian premier who never faced the voters in a public election. On both the occasions when he was in power – during 1991-96 as Finance Minister and the current innings as Prime Minister – he managed to make a backdoor entry to the Parliament through the Rajya Sabha. Maybe it’s constitutionally valid, but the big ethical question remains unanswered.

Of course, it’s very difficult to fit the definition of the term democracy into the state of affairs prevailing in India. Maybe, Rousseau was preaching an utopia while dwelling on ‘participatory democracy’. Abraham Lincoln sounded too idealistic envisaging ‘a government of the people, by the people, for the people’. But Bernard Shaw was more or less prophetic while defining democracy as ‘a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve’.

To a large extent, it’s the organisational grooming of the Indian National Congress that is responsible for the stifling of inner-party democracy in the country’s political landscape. Most of the parties in the opposition, a good number of them break-away groups from the Congress, too go for the nomination option when it comes to the election of office-bearers. The Left parties – especially the CPI(M) and the CPI – who conduct organisational elections from the grassroots level to the top on a regular basis are the only exception.

At 60, any democracy should have come of age. But the Indian democracy is still in its infancy when it comes to several important aspects. The Right to Information Act remains mostly on paper. Apartheid-like situations prevail in some remote north Indian villages even now. State-sponsored encounter killings are rampant. But still, we take pride for being the citizens of the world’s biggest democracy.

The latest Gandhi incarnation is all set to take over the reins of the country’s leading political organisation. And Rahul has already started talking about the need for restoring inner-party democracy in his party. Let’s hope the mindset for a change is not for the worse, and the initial enthusiasm prevails.