7/30/2019 The Regional Betrayal Parties Ed

1/1

april 14, 2012

Economic & Political Weekly EPW april 14, 2012 vol xlviI no 15 7

The Regional Betrayal

Regional parties are stronger than ever before, but they are no different from their national counterparts.

In 2009, when the Congress Party increased its tally in the

Lok Sabha elections, it was asked if the party was now going

to regain its earlier political predominance. This followed

the resurgence of the Congress in the parliamentary elections

after close to two decades in Indias largest state, its near sweep

in Andhra Pradesh and its retention of power in the assembly

elections in the same southern state. There was even talk of

the regionalisation of the polity having reached a plateau. The

spectacular failure of the so-called Third Front a group of

regional parties along with the left only contributed to the

belief that the Grand Old Party was headed for a renewed

national role in politics.

Yet, after what is widely seen as a disastrous performance in

governance over the past three years, as head of the second

United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the Congress

stands substantially weakened once more as a national force. Itis not that the principal national opposition party, the Bharatiya

Janata Party, has gained from the Congress decline. In the

recent assembly elections in five states, it has been the regional

parties who many had claimed had reached the limits of their

growth which have re-emerged as pivotal players in the

national arena, and on whose support the governments survival

continues to hinge.

Parties that are constituents of the UPA like the Trinamool

Congress, which enjoys enormous support in West Bengal,

hedges its support to the ruling coalition. And the Samajwadi

Party, which lends support to the UPA from outside and is now

the dominant force in Uttar Pradesh, has begun to use its influ-

ence in Indias largest state to advance its interests. Other power-

ful regional parties like the Akali Dal, the Janata Dal (United) and

the Biju Janata Dal, while sitting in the opposition in Parliament

have weathered anti-incumbency at home to entrench them-

selves in power in Punjab, Bihar and Orissa, respectively. Even

in the traditional Congress strongholds such as Andhra Pradesh,

new regional threats like the YSRCongress and the Telangana

Rashtra Samiti have emerged.

In short, the 2009 parliamentary elections were nothing but

an aberration. The regionalisation and federalisation process in

the Indian polity that began in the late 1980s only continues togrow in strength. But the larger question is if there has been

any substantial change over the years in the character of these

federal/regional parties. They emerged either to articulate

federal/regional concerns that had been neglected in the

Congress system or were developed by newly affluent sections

of the regional bourgeoisie as new power centres. Normative

commentaries about this process have tended to argue that this is

in line with the broader democratisation of Indian society and is

therefore a positive feature. The growth of the regional formations

has also brought about a form of circulation of elites, providing

representation to the hitherto marginalised but demographically

numerous sections of Indian society. Many from the left have

also argued that the rise of regional parties will help diversify

economic policymaking, which is otherwise characterised by a

consensus on neo-liberalism among the major national parties.

Close to three decades after the process began, the experience

with the regionalisation of politics has been negative, the only

positive being the weakening of the dominance of the Congress.The regional parties have tended to be as authoritarian as, if not

more than, the national Congress and the BJP. In many states

they have been sectarian in their concerns, their developmen-

talism has been limited to handing out patronage and they

have certainly not formulated any coherent alternative to neo-

liberalism. Most regional parties have not even provided much

of an outlook on important issues related to the national political

economy or foreign policy; they have preferred to toe policies

formulated by their dominant national partner at the centre.

Even the politics of identity built on the upliftment and repre-

sentation of the majority middle/intermediary castes has not

led to the weakening of the caste hierarchy or casteism. Instead,

identity politics of this kind has tended to reify these given

identities. Wearing caste labels has been shown to be a form of

assertion which has hurt the interests of the most marginalised

sections such as the dalits and adivasis.

In sum, there now needs to be a new wave of democratisation

that takes on authoritarianism, narrow identitarianism and

sectarianism that have become all-pervasive in contemporary

Indian politics. This is practised both by the dominant centre-right

and right-wing national and regional parties. Will those who claim

to offer a genuine and progressive alternative to the dominant

political parties on political economy show their mettle andlead this wave? The answer will lie in the strength of the new

challenges that are emerging to the existing regional forces.