Governance or Oblivion

Governance or Oblivion

The election to the 15th Lok Sabha has rewarded performance wherever it was perceived to have occurred. Regional parties, the BJP, the Congress, have all won, in a clearly non-doctrinaire manner, in every location where the voter thinks they have provided good governance. By the same token, the Left, ensconced in their former citadels of Kerala and West Bengal, has lost power, or their firm grip on it, because of an abject lack of performance.

Incumbency has not mattered. Ideology has not mattered. Unity of organisational effort probably has, in so far as it prevents the same party working at cross-purposes against itself, but not enough to elevate “Identity” politics, however emphatically described, refusing to let it gain traction in a vacuum made up of empty sloganeering.

This new phenomenon of merit-based rewards in electoral politics has also seen a number of multi-term winning criminals losing at the hustings. And this spontaneous de-criminalisation of the Lok Sabha appears to have made an electoral beginning, cutting across party lines. This is not to say some history-sheeters and jail-birds have not won, but, much reduced in number, they must be criminals that have succeeded in delivering good governance!

All in all, the new buzz about “performance politics” has set the bar a lot higher for the new Government, beginning its work with a windfall of 206 seats of its own, and vastly reduced dependence on its allies.

However, the craven sense of entitlement on the part of the DMK, an important pre-poll ally, not above threatening to provide outside support if its bluff was called, which it emphatically was, are oblivious to the voter’s message. Likewise, smaller allies, with even three or four MPs, are giving vent to muted murmurings and sulking, as they are unable to force compliance to their demands.

The victorious politicians from allied parties are busy, as usual, scrambling after the loaves and fishes of office, attendant on the process of government formation and allocation of portfolios. Nothing has changed in their minds as yet and the verdict of the people is firmly behind them. They have not even registered the irrefutable arithmetic that has reduced their influence and it may take some more time for this fact to sink in.

The Government, on its part, seems to realise the changed reality—both of its dramatic increase in strength, and the imperative to deliver performance to the electorate, preferably with a minimum of corruption. The implication is that there will be no excuses accepted and non-performance will lead to ejection. This is cramping the style and ambitions of many Congressmen too, constrained as they are to accept any responsibility or portfolio that comes their way. They may have preferred to bargain too, but this time, the Prime Minister has strong hands, and no challengers, as he has undoubtedly contributed to the electoral success.

On his part, he must appoint a much more competent council of ministers. But it remains to be seen whether this government will judge itself eventually against an objective yardstick of performance, or merely in relative terms, satisfied to keep one jump ahead of itself. Relatively speaking, as in when a tiger is running after you and some others, you don’t have to outrun the tiger, merely the next man running.

If this is the self-serving judgement call, the electorate should, based on present experience, throw out the incumbent. And it may begin to do so in the next round of assembly elections itself. But if the performance is good in absolute terms, another term will, most likely, be assured. The stakes this time are therefore a lot higher.

Some commentators have been citing this new phenomenon as a permanent shift in voter behaviour. They call it the “politics of aspiration”, well on its way to replace the “politics of grievance” inclusive of victim-hood, even identity that has been endemic to the post-independence discourse.

It is the new politics, as New York Times columnist Tom Friedman puts it, of, “dreams” rather than “memory”. Under this formulation, no more will yanking the chains of caste, religion, name-calling or indeed name-dropping, dynasty, entitlement, and so on, move the electorate to vote in favour.

If this is true, it needs to bear itself out over several elections, to be sure, both at the state assembly level and nationally. But assuming for a moment that it is; we are likely to finally begin to get money’s worth out of our democracy.

More so, if the “performance politics” is inclusive, and addresses the needs of various sections of the people. And, of course, it will have a profound, civilising, constructive effect on the politics of opposition, on agitational and disruptive politics in general, and the tone of parliamentary and legislative assembly goings-on across the board.

But it may be too much to expect such a radical changing of spots in such a hurry. Evolution is rarely so drastic. So if the merit-based direction that is being set today, stumbles, it may still get us there in the medium term. So, even with a few swings and roundabouts thrown in, we have no reason to be disillusioned.

The desi take on faltering “Governance” may not lead to immediate punishment. It may not take us to a Nixonian pass when he said, “Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.” Nixon was unnecessarily harsh on himself because when he lost an election he always over-reacted. And when he was finally impeached, half way through his second term as president, he lost power and was disgraced; but not, as he realised subsequently, his significance, or his place in history, particularly for opening up to China.

Marcus Aurelius, the 2nd century Roman Emperor, had a rather more irrefutable take on oblivion when he said, “Life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion”. Stoic that he was, it’s strange how he saw things the Indian way. In terms, that is, of the ultimate meaningless of all worldly achievement, of the concept of maya. But perhaps it was a little unfair of him to talk of a thing so clearly beyond the realm of mere “performance politics” and its very tangible benefits. And the hopes it arouses.


(1,044 words)

22nd May 2009
Gautam Mukherjee