- Valson Thampu
Not long ago, we used to hear about an Alliance called Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance; or INDIA, for short. We rarely do, these days. Instead, we hear, now and then, members of this motley assortment of regional parties referring to each other in unconcealed acrimony.
Coming to think of it, we have before us two major formats, or models, of unity. The first, and the brilliantly successful one is the Hindutva movement, created by cobbling together disparate elements so as to consolidate pan-Indian Hindu unity. The hallmark of this model of unity is its fierce earnestness of purpose. It was not a romantic leap in the dark, or a flash-in-the-pan of good intentions. It was a fiercely purposeful, incredibly motivated, almost militarily regimented movement that gained traction with many over the decades. The results are there for all to see.
The second is what engages our attention here for the present: the INDI-Alliance. We were told a few things about the nuts and bolts of this piece of electoral engineering. We were told, in particular, that the opposition parties who would thus come together -stimulated no doubt by visceral fear of the ED and other investigating agencies- to improvise this chemically unstable compound represented a majority, say 60%, of Indian voters. And who could doubt that there was strength in unity? But no one asked the question: strength for what?
It is naïve to assume that unity is an end in itself. Unity is neither a gain nor a loss in itself. It can be good as well as bad, depending on what for it is improvised. If you tie ten horses to a cart, the cart will move faster and better, provided the horses are comparably strong, efficient and disciplined. But what if one of them is weak or recalcitrant? While the other nine are eager to gallop along, this one slumps to the ground in equestrian cussedness.
Or, consider this other model of unity. Shift from the unity of horses to the unity of carts. Instead of harnessing ten horses to a cart, now harness ten carts to a horse. A terrible achievement of unity indeed! So, it is not enough to advocate unity. There must be cogent answers to questions like: Unity for what? On what foundation?
By its nomenclature, INDIA was a political front crafted to serve the democratic wholeness of India. But, so far we haven’t had any worthwhile demonstration of the sincerity of that intent. Instead, what we have seen are chronic eruptions of the instinct of self-preservation among the constituent member parties. Many of them are keener to protect their regional turf from possible incursions by the mildly resurgent Congress, the Big Brother in the Alliance, than they are to constitute a credible and effective opposition to the BJP.
As citizens we are indifferent to who defeats whom. To us what matters is who serves the best interests of the nation, which includes our bottom-line interests as well. In this regard, what impacts public perception most is not how many state elections are won or lost, but how steadfastly a political alliance sticks together in the face of setbacks and adversities. Such steadfastness cannot be a matter of good intentions alone. It has to be founded on a shared vision for India. As a citizen, I am not greatly interested in what strategies various parties and coalitions adopt to capture power. I am interested in what any front will do with the power they gain, if and when they do. And that’s precisely where I sense a problem.
Rahul Gandhi is a man of good intentions. But, while good intentions might suffice in social tete-a-tete or international seminars, they are, in themselves, inadequate in the rough and tough of electoral politics and democratic governance. The critical question is: What will you deliver? And how? You can’t go around promising kirana stores of love in the hypermarket of hatred, politically reassuring and spiritually refreshing as that might sound. Love is not only a sentiment. It expresses itself fundamentally as works. Love acts, affirms, serves, protects, provides, enriches. Love is the fundamental energy of the cosmos. It is the nourishment that sustains life in its myriad forms. But it can be so, only if love is made to work. Love as a mere sentiment is pastoral and poetic; but can’t be an anti-dote to the politics of hate today. For Rahul to secure public faith in his apostleship of love in the time of BJP, he has to make it prevail, to begin with, among the members of the INDI-Alliance. The ground reality is otherwise; there is no love lost among them. This is a problem of particular acuteness for Rahul who is also the Leader of the Opposition, in which capacity he has to care for all opposition parties also. How can he expect anyone to cast his or her faith in his mission to detoxify the poison of hatred with the elixir of love in the manthan of Indian politics, if he cannot make love prevail among the coalition parties he leads in the parliament?
I am inclined to believe that the formation of a credible national alternative to the BJP has to be in the mold of Easter: a new beginning on a radically different foundation. The power of love is revealed in self-abnegation. You can’t pay lip-service to love as a prelude to gaining power. The power of love is proved by transcending the love of power. At least that was how Rahul’s mother, Sonia, won our hearts and minds in 2009. She renounced her legitimate right to occupy the most powerful office in the country. It is not enough that Rahul presents himself as one indifferent to the lure of power. It is necessary that he takes on the far more difficult task of establishing a national coalition characterized by a love for the people of India that supersedes the love for power. As yet, he doesn’t even seem mindful of such a need.
