Date: January 13th 2007

From: Yashwini1@aol.com Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007

Let the political parties come together on macro issues

http://www.indiareacts.com/archivedebates/nat2.asp?recno=1559

8 January 2007: How do you make sense of this? In Congress-ruled Assam, the ULFA walks in and murders nearly fifty Hindi-speaking Bihari migrant labour. Naturally, Laloo Prasad Yadav gets enraged. It's not gone so far as to make discord in the UPA. But it will. In Marxist West Bengal, who do you think is agitating with Mamata Bannerjee and the BJP against land acquisition for industry? The Congress. And the Marxists are the outside supporters of the Congress-led UPA government in the Centre. UP and the Noida incident have been too played out in news television for the details to be repeated. But Sonia Gandhi and the Congress are pivoting their entire campaign against another UPA ally, Mulayam Singh Yadav, on the Noida outrage.



Yes, we all know these are various manifestations of competitive politics. We also know, as we have known for the past two-and-a-half years, that the UPA is so much an alliance of opportunism, it shames one to speechlessness. But there is more than all this to the examples of violence and civic unrest that have engulfed a sizeable part of North and East India. The UP ferment you could partly root to the assembly elections this year, which has tremendous national political significance. But West Bengal and Assam have just formed new governments. The Marxists in West Bengal won a thumping majority. So what gives? How do you make real sense of all this turmoil?

The obvious explanation, perhaps, is that party politics is unable to keep pace with fast changing and often cataclysmic events. The failure of party politics, competitive politics, is so comprehensive, violence or unrest is unable to be predicted or intuited, let alone forestalled. Since violence or unrest benefits one party or alliance while damaging another political entity, it keeps the fire of competitive politics stoked. But more competitive politics adds to the flames that are steadily consuming India. Unless there is a unified, thought-through pull back from unchecked competitive politics, there will be little left to compete for politically. And this retreat from competitive politics must be endorsed by all major players. India's resilient unity is fraying.

Take the ULFA killings. Not just Laloo is upset, and why not? Nitish Kumar has taken a stand in favour of Biharis, and again, why not? The BJP has already slammed the ineffective Tarun Gogoi government. If the Congress party wants to get on top of the situation, it would be well advised to show Gogoi the door. But that is not the point. The earlier NDA government had worn down Bhutan to pursue ULFA. Burma was also beginning to cooperate. Why did Bhutan ultimately consent? Because the Indian military was bearing down hard to clean out ULFA. If Bhutan didn't do it, the Indian Army would. Burma also knew the score.

This military lever eroded when the Congress did a deal with the ULFA before the state elections. In return, peace had to be offered to ULFA. The terms were to be negotiated. The army pleaded against winding down operations. The Centre under pressure from ULFA representatives put curbs on the army's anti-terror campaign. When the talks failed, as they had to, the ULFA hit back. ULFA is committed to terrorize the Hindi-speaking migrants to make way for more Bangladeshi infiltrators. Given the violent unpredictability of talks with ULFA, why did the UPA government reverse the military campaign against the terrorist organization? Why wasn't the NDA policy taken to finish?

The UP situation we have previous commented upon ("Noida & after," 4 January 2007). But the West Bengal land unrest needs a repeat mention. The CPI-M is getting a taste of its own medicine. But this is not the time to gloat over its distress. This distress could spread to NDA Orissa or BJP Chattisgarh. Or Congress Haryana or Punjab could become flashpoints. Land unrest in Punjab, which has had huge recent land sales, could sink the Congress in the elections. Every political party, so to speak, is living in a glass house. If that is the case, is it wise to throw stones?


What are we saying? This is an old theme with this magazine. But it bears repetition. We wrote week after week for a consensus on foreign policy. It's finally borne fruit. Or nearly so. The PM met the BJP leadership, followed by two-hour discussions with the CPI-M. Others are in line. To the credit of the government and its dialogue partners, discretion has been maintained on all sides. It appears understanding has been reached so the executive branch can do what it is cleared to do. It is too early to be hopeful. But there are good signs.

That same consensus must now extend to domestic policies. Straightaway it must be agreed/ pledged that there cannot/ won't be electoral understanding with terrorists. Will that close the door to peaceful negotiations? Only notionally. Rather, it will increase the pressure on the terrorists to surrender. Because they know there is no advantage to be derived playing on the insecurities produced by competitive politics. Second, there must be a national land-use policy. Such a policy should reconcile conflicting imperatives of food security, landowner interests, industrialization, housing, and so forth. The CPI-M is doing atrocious things in West Bengal. But in the same position, don't expect the Congress to be benign. And we go with mainstream media opinion on UP. The system that condoned if not encouraged the Noida outrage must be overhauled. Merely seeking the change of the chief minister is a cop-out.

Is this domestic political consensus possible? If there's consensus on everything, what's left for political competition? Plenty. India is bogged down by major internal differences. To our eternal shame, they survive sixty years after Independence. The only way to overcome them is to prevent their political capitalization. Unless we sort our macros, the micros will never get our attention.



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