India’s problem is an opposition deficit

Of late there has been much talk about India’s governance deficit, as evidenced by the series of scams, the massive daily corruption that Indians have to endure, the Maoist menace in the heart of India, and so forth.

The fact is that India suffers not from a governance deficit but from an opposition deficit. One might add that India’s problem since Independence has been the absence of an effective opposition to the Congress party, and which has allowed the latter to get away with assorted crimes, including corruption and playing communal politics.

It is also India’s tragedy that since Independence, the country has not thrown up even once a viable opposition, one that is capable of winning elections and ruling for its full term. In the last 63 years, opposition parties have ruled for about a dozen years. In fact, the Congress often vote based on the TINA (there is no alternative) factor.

In their path-breaking book, A Compendium of Indian Elections, authors David Butler, Ashok Lahiri, and Prannoy Roy introduced the ‘index of opposition unity’, which clearly showed that the lesser the unity, the bigger the Congress victory.

It is this opposition deficit by our political parties that has seen millions of Indians turn to non-politicians. Time and again, the lack of opposition, particularly from the 1960s, has seen Indians turn to non-politicians such as Jayaprakash Narayan, and of late, Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev.

Narayan best symbolised the desperation of Indians for an effective opposition even as no political party filled that space. In the 1967 elections, opposition parties swept to power in quite a few states, giving state voters a choice.

But the victories in the assemblies did not translate into an effective opposition at the Centre, where the main battle in 1971 was not between the Congress and an opposition party (or parties) but two factions of the Congress.

Later, in the mid-70s, opposition against the Indira Gandhi government peaked, with protests as far across as Bihar and Gujarat. Yet, local opposition did not mean national opposition; no wonder then that Indira Gandhi believed, with some justification, that there really was no alternative to the Congress. A desperate nation turned to JP; he became the rallying point; it was in him that the people reposed their faith; it was in his persona that Indians saw an alternative.

The imposition of Emergency and incarceration of various opposition leaders gave them time to reflect and unite for the greater good of the nation; they were ably assisted by JP’s moral authority. And thus, India got its first non-Congress government in 1977.

If the 1980s an 1990s did not see any JP-like figure rise, it was simply because the opposition was an effective voice. Ex-Congress leader VP Singh emerged as the rallying point in the late 1980s, and in the 1990s, there was the National Democratic Alliance, led by the BJP. The ‘90s gave hope to millions of Indians (including many who did not particularly care for the BJP) that India might see the emergence of a two-party system, which is essential for a democracy.

Alas, it was too good to last. The 2002 Gujarat riots and the BJP’s inaction meant that trusting it was no longer an option. It also meant that the Leftists and quite a few opposition parties would no longer join hands with the BJP. The BJP itself became a rump party, losing some of its key leaders, and failing to grow in its non-core areas. Hindered by geography and ideology, it lost in 2004 and did worse in 2009.

The Congress-led victory in 2009, in hindsight, clearly was not so much a party that Indians rooted for; they simply had no other choice. TINA had returned, and how. In December 2010, at a Congress convention, P Chidambaram taunted the BJP that no matter what it did, “aap ka number nahi aayega” (your turn not come). The frightening part is that Chidambaram is right: no matter how corrupt, how brazenly dishonest, how poor the quality of governance, we have no choice besides the Congress/UPA.

No wonder then that millions turned up to support Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev (though the latter has done more harm than good). But for Hazare to do a JP, he needs to do more; he needs to press on the opposition parties to unite to put aside their personal agendas and ideology and give India her much needed opposition party/alliance.

Or else, come 2014, and we’ll have a UPA 3.