Comment

Beyond the verdict

THE fact that election analysts and number crunchers are still deep-mining data to get a better handle on how the Modi-Shah-led combine of BJP/NDA managed to pull off a remarkable (and unanticipated) victory in the 2019 general elections is no surprise. Clearly the verdict, and more, the scale and margins across constituencies and demographic segments, demands that voter behaviour analysts honestly revisit their favoured propositions to understand what has changed and how. Be it common assumptions about sectional loyalties and group behaviour, or the relative importance of different factors from the economic to the emotional, the recently concluded elections provide ample material to understand the efficacy of different strategies from selection of candidates to stitching up alliances, deployment of cadre, messaging through multiple media, campaign rhetoric and meetings to enhance appeal.

Unsurprisingly, there will be less public discussion over the unprecedented use of money, unhealthy control of media – withholding of government advertisements, direct coercion – and the differential use of different state agencies – investigative, coercive and regulatory – to game the system. It is worth remembering that even as the more extreme allegations about the ‘fixing’ of EVMs have been dismissed (though they refuse to vanish), worries over the partisan role of the Election Commission remains. Disturbing because over the decades the EC had become one institution, alongside the Supreme Court, which continued to top the public trust charts. And if India, unlike many other democracies, has so far not questioned the legitimacy of its electoral verdicts, the credit must go to the gatekeepers as also our politicians. The fear is that this tenuous compact might be fracturing. Possibly this may be why the maiden speech by TMC MP, Mahua Moitra, drawing upon an article by Martin Langman, ‘The 12 Early Signs of Fascism’, Washington Monthly, to signpost the dangers to our democracy has received unprecedented purchase.

Moitra’s speech is both compelling and nuanced. Her brief discussion of seven early signs – powerful continuing nationalism, disdain for human rights, identification of enemies as a unifying cause, controlled mass media, obsession with national security, intertwining of religion and government, disdain for intellectuals and the arts, alongside protection of corporate power, suppression of labour power and obsession with crime and punishment – strike a chord primarily because the regime in power has recurrently been associated with these tendencies in pursuit of a strategy to stoke fear about an ‘unnamed and shifting enemy’ (external and internal) and building up the rationale for a strong, unchallenged leader.

It is worth remembering that Ms. Moitra is no textbook old style left wing ideologue railing against neo-liberalism. If anything, her long experience with investment banker Morgan Stanley makes her an informed, insider critic of our economic and social policies. Equally that while, expectedly, her primary focus remained on the party in power (her dharma as an opposition MP), she was careful and restrained in her use of language, preferring allusion to direct speech. At no stage did she characterize the current regime as fascist.

Unsurprisingly, her critics have lambasted her for being obsessively anti-Modi, a common and difficult to refute charge levelled at most opposition politicians; for disregarding if not misreading history and being cavalier with facts; and intriguingly, for plagiarism. The last in particular needs to be dismissed outright because Moitra clearly cited the source of her inspiration. It also, at least to this reader, did not appear that she was tracing the disturbing tendencies to the ideological proclivities and actions of only the present dispensation, even as it needs to be admitted that she did not widen the ambit of her analysis. All previous regimes, across parties and ideologies, in both the Centre and the states, can be similarly so classified, though assessments of the degree to which they fail the democracy test would differ.

The reference here is not merely to the Emergency under Indira Gandhi; the rampant misuse of laws like TADA, MISA and UAPA; the cult of the leader (‘Indira is India’); misuse and stacking of regulatory and investigative agencies; curbs on the media; crushing of dissent; invoking communal-caste and religious sentiments; and the list goes on. Or to the authoritarian tendencies of multiple leaders, including many subsequently (and posthumously) hailed as democratic icons. All that this demonstrates is that designing, maintaining and nurturing a democracy is a continuous, unending and difficult task, and that the best amongst us often fall prey to deploying questionable means when confronting difficult choices including, but not merely, threats to personal power. Rather the plea is to constantly look for ways including innovation in institutional design, systems of incentives and disincentives, and popular education to help strengthen democratic, anti-authoritarian tendencies.

A recent book by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (Penguin 2018), warns us against taking democracy for granted. They remind us that democracy is both a system (a relatively recent one in human affairs) and an aspirational norm (the best or least harmful among existing alternatives), that it is a work in progress demanding continuing validation and nurturing, a strengthening of not merely institutions but laws, norms and procedures which when flouted weaken/subvert institutional design. Drawing upon multiple examples, across continents and history, they foreground the importance of the need to treat political rivals as legitimate, as adversaries and not enemies; cultivating mutual tolerance, self-restraint and civility in behaviour and speech; to underutilize institutional prerogatives and powers including those which are legal and so on, as part of a conscious effort to widen the sphere of shared beliefs and practices. ‘Democracies may die not merely at the hands of generals (or revolutionary leaders) but of elected leaders – presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brings them to power.’ The allusions to our own situation, though not discussed, are unmistakable.

The process through which parties/leaders acquire power often provides a good indication of the strategies they might pursue in order to retain and deepen their hold over power. The likelihood of questionable choices escalates if those in power are ideologically and temperamentally convinced that they have truth, history and the ‘moral high ground’ on their side, and they have the wherewithal – numbers in Parliament/assemblies, organizational strength and cadre; access to resources, both private and public; differential control over institutions of legitimation – to push through their vision. Building and strengthening an opposition, both in the electoral arena and civil society, even though appearing counter-intuitive, helps strengthen the foundations of representative democracy, more so in multicultural and deeply stratified societies holding competing visions of the good. Prime Minister Modi, having convincingly won the electoral mandate, both in his speech to Parliament and his Man ki Baat stressed the importance of democracy. He now needs to walk the talk. Democracy, after all, is more than the regular holding of ‘free and fair’ elections.

Part of the problem with our political discourse and practice is the tendency of treating electoral victory as the decisive, if not exclusive, arbiter of what is ‘correct’. Consequently, the incessant invocation across parties of the need to choose a ‘winning’ candidate, irrespective of other unsavoury attributes; pursuit of strategies to ‘ensure’ electoral victory by ‘any and all means’, with little regard to norms and thus legitimizing unethical behaviour; proclivity to ‘game’ the system disregarding long-term systemic implications, and so on. Once electoral contests are treated as akin to war, everything is subordinated to winning – hardly conducive to inculcating self-restraint and prudence.

The onus of protecting and deepening democracy is, however, not merely the responsibility of those currently in power, Centre or states. Even as it is the duty of opposition politicians, media and civil society, to hold those in power to account, blind and intemperate opposition equally facilitates the hardening of entrenched positions and prejudices, deepening divisions and mistrust. Expecting ‘consideration’ from a weakened opposition, more so when appeals for cooperation and balance are likely to be portrayed as capitulation, seems a seemingly impossible task. This is more so when ruling party politicians are keen to drive home their contingent advantage, reluctant to discipline their cadres and associates from demonstrating their ‘privileged’ status while reminding ‘others’ that they survive on sufferance. Nevertheless, it is critical. It is useful to remember that Jawaharlal Nehru inducted major opposition leaders into his first cabinet, including ideological adversaries and critics like B.R. Ambedkar and Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. And Vajpayee chose an opposition politician to represent India’s case on human rights in the United Nations. Possibly these partial but important lessons from our history need to be built upon as we seek to chart a course through difficult times.

Harsh Sethi