Lurching from government to government

 

With the recent change in government in West Bengal, I’ve been thinking a lot about political parties. Are they all really bad and/or objects of ridicule? Why do we have them then? Why do we vote for them? 

Some of us do vote for one party or the other because we just don’t have a choice. NOTA (None Of The Above) option has no meaning in the Indian context – it doesn’t change the outcome or cancel the poll. However, many of us do vote hoping for a change for the better, only to be disappointed.

 

Speaking from my 33 years of experience in the government and having closely observed the political parties and the politicians from close quarters, I feel, all of them individually and collectively actually do some good.

 

First of all, despite the greed and venality surrounding them, they haven’t bartered away India’s sovereignty. Look at our neighbourhood and any country which came out of the colonialist yoke. All of them either saw military coups or dictatorships or close alignment with one of the superpowers. India has been a glorious exception, with a fairly credible independence, civilian-military separation and stability.

 

Individually, each Party has done some good. Much of India’s post-Independence history has been dominated by Congress governments, both at the Centre and in many of the states. It gave us stability, an independent judiciary, an independent election commission, a disciplined army, high economic growth, educational and institutional excellence (IIMs, IITs, ISRO and so on) and some very progressive legislation like the 73^rd and 74^th Constitutional amendments to take democracy to the grassroots, the Right to Information Act, NREGA Act, and so on.

 

The BJP, currently the dominant party in the country’s political landscape, by a mile, has changed a lot of things for the better – elimination of Left Wing Extremism, taking the asymmetric warfare to Pakistan, amendment of article 370, abolition of triple talaq, and so on. The attempts at a uniform civil code are also a step in the right direction.

 

For much of my field policing career, I worked under the CPM government in West Bengal. Their big achievement was to give the destitute and the dispossessed a voice and to bring in ideological principles to politics. They also bridged the gap between communism and democracy and managed to keep Left Wing Extremism at bay. Under them, West Bengal saw landmark land reforms and cooperatives movements and also relative communal peace.

 

Mamata Banerjee is being vilified a lot today and much of the criticism is justified. However, she was actually a damned good administrator. She galvanized the creaking, status quoist bureaucratic machinery of West Bengal, made the babus work and enforced accountability. Her administrative review meetings were legendary, with everyone on her/his toes. She also started a lot of welfare schemes affecting the disadvantaged at various stages of their lives – Kanyashri, Laxmi Bhandar, Swasthya Sathi, Student Credit Card Scheme, Sabooj Sathi, Khadya Sathi, Taruner Swapno, Yuvashree and Samabyathi.

 

I have been working at the grassroots in Odisha. I am pleasantly surprised by the number, variety and depth of government schemes of Biju Janata Dal there.

 

When the parties do so much of good, why do we feel so disenchanted with politics and politicians? We vote for them with so much hope but after a few days get disgusted. The problem is, political parties and politicians come with bundled packages. When we vote for them, we look at only the good things they’re likely to do and have only a diluted awareness of the intolerable things that come in the package.

 

We vote Congress for sense of inclusivity but along with that come dynastic politics, rampant reservation, appeasement and industrial scale venality. We vote BJP for a muscular government but we also get attempts to change the Constitution and disturbance of the social fabric of the country and communal amity because of "other"ing the minorities. We vote CPM for upliftment of the poor and it comes with trade union militancy and resultant extortion, disrespect for our Constitution, ruthless bloodiness justified in the name of revolution and so on.

 

Regardless of party, all politicians also combine in that bundle enormous pettiness, a myopic 5-year horizon, winning elections at any cost, means be damned and, above all, corruption – grand corruption.

 

Given the foregoing, I no longer approach or vote in any election with any hope for substantive change. What I look for is frequent change of government so that these guys have a fear of consequences when the dispensation changes. Else, they run amok.