For every party, its interest is National Interest! | N.R.Mohanty

Published on 21-07-2008 In General

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For every party, its interest is National Interest!

For many, the nuclear debate has spun off the welcome ideological debate in Indian politics. But for others ideology may be just a veneer for cold political calculations. After all, no individual or organization -- at least those who nurture ambitions to make it big in the power stake -- would pursue ideological politics if it is not politically expedient. So a decision has to be first weighed in the scale of political mileage, and if it passes muster, then it has to be buttressed by ideological justification. Where the professed ideology runs counter to the political action undertaken, the ideological posturing has to be suitably altered to legitimize the political needs.

This is the universal truth of power politics. Those who have emerged successful have done so because they have sacrificed ideological steadfastness at the altar of political expediency. Those who have sought to sacrifice expediency to uphold ideological principle have fallen by the wayside. So the bottom line is: power at any cost. One has to strive hard to find exceptions to this general rule.

When Jawaharlal Nehru led the independent India for over a decade and a half, he did not find a conflict of interest between power politics and ideology. He could play out his ideological convictions on the political centre stage without making substantive compromises, as he was the supreme leader of a party which was firmly in saddle all over the country. India was in fact dubbed as a one-party dominant state then. So Nehruvian socialism had an unfettered sway in Indian politics till the mid-sixties.

When Indira Gandhi got saddled in power, the situation had changed. There were many states, especially in the northern India, where non-Congress governments had come to power. Even Indira Gandhi's position within the Congress was far from settled, with many senior leaders of the party resenting her elevation to the top job of the country. So she had to resort to ideological politics to create her support base among the masses. 'Garibi Hatao' slogan was an ideological extension of the Nehruvian socialism; it put her firmly in the league of the political left and it also ensured that she became a household name all over the country. So, in her case, power politics and ideology coalesced and reinforced each other.

But once Mrs. Gandhi consolidated her position in the party and the country, ideology took a backseat and protection of her power and position became an obsessive concern. That became starkly manifest when she became politically vulnerable----when the Allahabad High Court judgment declared her election to the Lok Sabha void and Jayaprakash Narayan started a nationwide movement against her 'illegitimate' government. She took the politically expedient decision to clamp Emergency and suspend the Fundamental Rights, all in the name of saving the country from chaos and anarchy.

Rajiv Gandhi's dalliance with the soft Hindutva (decision to open the gate of the Babri Masjid for Hindus to do puja) and the hard Muslim fundamentalists (Shah Bano appeasement) only reaffirmed the belief that the ideological commitment (secularism) was only a matter of convenience.

It has not been the case with the Congress alone. Every other party has followed the same rule: considerations of power politics have preceded ideology when it comes to making a political choice.

The BJP made Hindutva its major ideological plank when it needed to create a political base of its own; once it created and consolidated a Hindu nationalist support base, it realized that it could not enjoy the perks of power on its strength alone. So it decided to push the Hindutva plank to the backburner to woo the other parties, not comfortable with the Hindutva, for a broader coalition. The strategy succeeded; the BJP-led NDA ruled over the country for nearly six and half years. It now realizes that the Hindutva card has lost its emotional potency to stir even that section of the electorate which had once gone into frenzy over it. The party has, therefore, chosen to go soft on the plank which is supposed to define its existence.

The ideological somersaults are not typical of the national parties alone; the regional parties are quite adept at it. Mulayam Singh Yadav is supposed to be a great champion of the Muslims; he had waged a campaign for the dismissal of Kalyan Singh who was the chief minister when Babri Masjid was demolished.

But the same Mulayam embraced Kalyan for a few Lodh votes.

Kalyan Singh who used to thump his chest to say that December 6, 1992 (the day Babri Masjid was demolished) was the proudest day of his life became a comrade-in-arm of Mulayam Singh when he was expelled from the BJP. The 'communal' Kalyan overnight became 'secular' and remained so till he returned to the BJP fold.

Same is the case of the BSP. Its founder Kanshi Ram had positioned it as the party of the deprived sections – SCs, STs, OBCs and Muslims. Kanshi Ram used to harangue against the BJP. The same Kanshi Ram had no scruples in joining up with the BJP to form a government in Uttar Pradesh. Now, again, his protégé, Mayawati, who became the chief minister with the BJP's support, is raising the communal bogey again as she has found the bearings on her own.

Another crass example of political opportunism is that of Deve Gowda. Here is a man who used to rail against the BJP as a communal party. But he embraced the 'communal bandwagon' when it helped to install his son as the chief minister of Karnataka. Now that he has broken up with the BJP, the communal-fascist terminologies have re-entered his vocabulary.

Ram Vilas Paswan is another stark example. Paswan was an avowed secularist until he found merit in joining the BJP-led NDA. It helped him to become a cabinet minister. But when he was divested of the lucrative portfolios, he chose to make an ideological issue of the Gujarat massacre, a full one year after the killings took place, and resigned from the government.

That time he made a full-throated campaign for rescuing Bihar from the jungle raj of Lalu Yadav. But when the elections came, he joined hands with Lalu to 'save the country from communal politics'.

In 1977, the socialists and the Jan Sangh merged, along with others, to form the Janata Party government. But the socialists made an issue of the Jan Sanghis' affiliation with the RSS and brought down the government midway into its tenure. Socialists, who had formed the Janata Dal, swore not to touch them with a barge-pole. But George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar, socialist leaders of the Samata Party, found greener pasture in an alliance with the BJP. They could foresee the rich political dividends they could reap if they crossed the ideological lakshman rekha. They took the risk and they were richly rewarded. Both became important ministers in the NDA cabinet and now Nitish Kumar is ruling the roost in Bihar.

So it is a political process where use-value is significant and every twist and turn of the political strategy is explained away as the public good. After a frosty relationship for years, the Congress warmed up to the Left to get back to power. And the Left embraced the Congress so that it could install its loyalists in key positions in different centres of power (academia, government think tanks and advisory boards), without sharing political power and the consequent responsibility directly. Now that the elections are drawing near, the Left parties, which have been bruised badly by the developments in Singur and Nandigram, want to re-capture their lost credibility by launching an ideological offensive. The nuclear deal has presented itself as a shot in the arm for the Left. Its buzzword is the national interest. The Leftists are right in this case that India's national interest lies in not allowing its sovereignty to be compromised at any cost.

But examples are galore when the Leftists have allowed India's national interest to be sacrificed to protect their political interests. A glaring example is the Chinese invasion of India in 1962. The same left parties were championing the cause of China when the nationalists of India were united in condemning the Chinese aggression. Their international loyalty took precedence over their national commitments.

It seems every party identifies its own interest as the general interest of the people and the national interest of the country. That explains why the parties and their leaders are prospering by the day whereas the majority of the people of this country are left to rue their fate.

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