[Reader-list] What the election results say about us

[Taha Mehmood]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Columnists/Santosh-Desai/What-the-election-results-say-about-us/articleshow/4601221.cms

What the election results say about us

31 May 2009, 2236 hrs IST, Santosh Desai

 As I argued last week in this column, making sense of the intent
behind the election results is a tricky exercise. For elections in
India are the
only occasion when we understand the full import of what it means to
be a country with over a billion people, for here everyone above 18
gets to participate.

In almost no other instance when we draw generalized conclusions are
we compressing so much diversity into singularity. In this election,
over 400 million people exercised their franchise; in effect we are
trying to find something common across such a staggering number of
data points. Attempts to find simple unifying explanations are thus
fraught with danger; perhaps a more useful way of looking at a complex
phenomenon like elections in India is to identify some broad themes
which emerge from the outcome without necessarily explaining exactly
why we saw the outcome we did. Even these are open to challenge in
some cases and nuance in most.

In some senses, what we are seeing is a ripening of identity politics
into a more complex, fractured and mature phenomenon. There are signs
that while identity politics continues to flourish, there seems to be
an evolution in how it comes into play. The success of regional
players who have carved out constituencies based on identity
affiliations and have so far practised a patronage-based system and
direct rewards has led to the gradual increase in the number of such
players. Regionalization has bred more regionalization, and this
fracturing of the electoral base has cut into the vote share of the
historically stronger regional parties.

We have seen this factor at play in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh &
Tamil Nadu, where the Shiv Sena, TDP and AIADMK have respectively lost
seats on this account. The fragmentation of the vote base also means
that the national parties seem to look more attractive, in relative
terms. As vote share of regional parties gets distributed among a
larger number of claimants, national parties stand to gain even if
their vote share remains static.

The other emerging dimension of the evolution of identity politics is
the recognition of the role played by governance. The delivery of some
governance creates a demand for more and leads to an acknowledgement
of the need for development to be broad-based and inclusive rather
than focused on specific communities and groups.

Sops to identity clusters do not necessarily create widespread
development and it appears that there might be some recognition of
this. Nitish Kumar’s remarkable success points to the limits of Lalu
Yadav’s stated belief that development does not win elections.
However, this is by no means a negation of the power of identity;
Mayawati may have lost seats but her vote share has increased. Writing
her brand of politics off would be an act of wilful short-sightedness.

It would appear that continuity, more than stability, might have been
the more important consideration in these elections. This is linked to
the fact that all of India has begun to see some signs, however small,
of progress. In the absence of a clear alternative, continuing with
the existing regime becomes a default option. This is clearly by no
means a defining theme but does contribute to the overall trend. Given
this, parties need to communicate the appearance of an ability to
govern, something the Congress might have done better this time thanks
to the slant of their campaign and the collective personae of their
leaders.

There is no reason to believe that national parties have regained
favour with the voters, but it does seem that the Congress has been
more successful in regaining its Centrist space to a certain extent
this time around. This was probably due to the combined effect of
being seen as relatively stronger as against the regional parties for
reasons outlined above as well as its attempts to deliver on its
promise of inclusive growth. The focus on rural India in its last five
years created an aura of intention even if effect was not fully
delivered.

Eventually, election campaigns get decoded as residues of stories;
most of us, especially the uncommitted voters, don’t remember precise
details or choose on the basis of specific issues as much as on a
general sense of appropriateness. The Congress story seemed to have
its heart in the right place, with the combination of actions, people,
sounds it emitted with the structural forces on the ground multiplying
the impact of this slant towards the party.

The return of any Centrist force is a significant development; it
remains to be seen if this is indeed a trend or merely a local
aberration. But it does seem as if the growing fragmentation of the
polity and the attendant issues of the lack of a national perspective
might not be quite the inexorable forces they seemed. That might well
be the best news we have heard from these elections.