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Mamata Banerjee's and Jayalalitha's
victories in the West Bengal and Tamil Nadu assembly elections
reflect two crucial aspects of Indian politics. One is that
Marxism has lost much of its lure and the other is that
allegations of sleaze can be hugely damaging to politicians. The
second assertion can seem obvious but, surprisingly enough, it
does not seem to be appreciated by the political class.
For instance, Rajiv Gandhi did not realize how the Bofors howitzer
scam will erode his popularity in 1989. Similarly, Tamil Nadu's
outgoing ruling family led by the octogenarian M. Karunandhi
defended the scam-tainted former communications minister Andimuthu
Raja without realising that he was digging his party, the DMK's
political grave.
But to start with West Bengal, having built their bases in the
heady days of the Vietnam war with anti-American slogans, the
ruling Communists were oblivious of the fact that, four decades
later, the old tirades against US "imperialism", as during the
nuclear deal in 2008, were virtually meaningless to the present
generation. The same is also true of the routine Leftist
castigation of market-oriented policies, which were said to have
been undertaken by the Manmohan Singh government at the prodding
of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
The setback suffered by the Left in West Bengal, evident in the
loss of votes to the extent of nine percent, was due to its
conviction that as long as it propagated its supposedly pro-poor
ideology, its inadequacies in the matter of governance would not
matter. Moreover, not only was the Left unapologetic about ruining
the state's industrial potential through militant trade union
tactics, there was no moderation of the "arrogance" of the cadres,
as the communists themselves occasionally admitted.
The absence of ideological appeal, compounded by administrative
deficiencies and lack of development, meant that the situation was
ripe for an aggressive opponent to sweep the Left out of power, as
Mamata Banerjee has done. But even she might have failed if the
Marxists did not follow two contradictory policies. One was to
make up for the earlier hounding out of industrialists by inviting
the corporate sector to invest in the state. This decision to sup
with the so-called "class enemies" meant that the Left was letting
down its "ideological guard", as the Leftist economist, Prabhat
Patnaik, has said.
But while compromising on the dogmatic front (which suggests that
even the Left is not unaware that their doctrines have lost their
sheen), the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government banked on the
familiar "arrogance" of the party's rank and file to browbeat
farmers into giving up their lands. When the cadres violently
confronted the resisting farmers in Nandigram, Bhattacharjee
proudly said the latter, who had established a base there by
driving out Marxist supporters, have been paid back in their own
coin.
Although he later apologised for his remark, the damage had been
done. As his personal defeat in his constituency, and of several
other ministers, has shown, the voters' rejection of the party has
been total. While the Left's loss of Kerala is in keeping with the
tradition of victories and losses by the two rivals - the Left
Democratic Front (LDF) and the Congress-led United Democratic
Front (UDF) - every five years, the setback in West Bengal means
that the comrades will have to reinvent themselves if they hope to
return to power. Since Marxism is no longer a paying proposition,
the cadres and their mentors will at least have to shed their
Stalinist ways for any chance of success.
But while the Left's decline has been a continuing process since
their reverses in the 2009 parliamentary polls, the success of
Jayalalitha's AIADMK in Tamil Nadu means that she has bounced back
after five years in a Kerala-style alternating stints in power by
the DMK and the AIADMK. However, she might not have but for the
DMK's follies.
It wasn't only the allegations of corruption which cast a shadow
on the DMK's and its partner, the Congress' prospects, the affairs
of the ruling family in which the aging patriarch was unable to
control his two power-hungry sons did not endear him to the
voters. Given Karunanidhi's advanced age and the antics of the two
uncharismatic sons, the DMK's future looks bleak. If it fades
away, the much younger Jayalalitha - she is 63 - can look forward
to happy days if she does not allow her own imperious ways to
alienate the electorate.
For the Congress, the setback in Tamil Nadu will be compensated by
the return to power in West Bengal, though as Mamata's junior
partner, and the successes in Kerala, Puduchery and Assam though
it barely scraped through in Kerala. Four out of five is not a bad
score.
All the parties will have to take into account, yet again, the
acute judgmental qualities of the Indian voter. Although the
unknown person, who presses the button on the voting machine, has
shown time and again that no one can fool him - neither Indira
Gandhi with her socialistic promises during the Emergency, nor
Lalu Prasad with his championing of the backward castes in 2005 -
the politicians do not seem to realize this. In the latest
electoral exercise too, the voter has displayed his maturity by
evicting the palpably corrupt and the pretentious ideologue.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached at
aganguli@mail.com)
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