When President Abdul Kalam was speaking, perhaps for the last time in the Central Hall of Parliament, he was not thinking through the implications of what he was saying.

He was speaking on the occasion of commemorating the 150th anniversary of the great revolt of 1857. Outlining the challenges facing the people of the nation, he exhorted the need for evolving a stable two party system away from the present coalition phase of the Indian polity. Little did he realise that within 24 hours, as soon as the results of the UP elections should be out, his exhortation would lie in tatters. Given his lack of participation in the political process, President Kalam was also perhaps clueless that his observation was a repeat of L K Advani’s earlier assertion.

The difficulty of the arguments of the advocates of the two party system in India, lies in their complete lack of comprehension about the economic, social, political and cultural processes, which has led to the making of India. When it comes to the sustaining of the very concept of India, the ignorance appears to be far more glaring.
True, in the first four and half decades after Independence, India went through a process of almost uninterrupted single party governance. At times, trying to comprehend the present phase of coalition, people find it difficult to explain this initial four and half decades.

A little avid reading of the history of this phase would definitely make these people understand the specificities of our freedom struggle and the historical role played by the Indian National Congress. It is clear that the INC itself largely acted as a coalition. And the broad political framework of that coalition was based on federalism, social justice, secularism and anti-imperialism. It is these founding principles, which formed the bedrock of the Constitution, which we gave to ourselves. The one-party hegemony collapsed with the breakdown of these principles in influencing the functions of the Congress party, as well as, the government led by it.

The coalition process had started emerging in the states in the late 60s itself. At the national level, in spite of two brief interludes of 1977 and 1989, the coalition process appears to have really come to stay from 1996. This development has resulted from the nature of economic trajectory pursued by the nation. It is inherent in the nature of capitalist development that there will be growth of advanced centres and hinterlands resulting in acute regional imbalances.

The thousands of years of a  social iniquitous hierarchical structure and the consequent inequalities also got intertwined with and intensified in the wake of such a trajectory. It is obvious that those who are at the receiving end of such social discrimination and injustice would also refuse to accept this order. Secularism, in the Indian context, would also require the complete elimination of economic and social discriminations based on religious denomination. Unfortunately, rather than applying this criteria linked with access to development, secularism has often, in practice, meant pandering to religious sentiments.

This major policy failure has now come a full circle. Those who are at the receiving end of economic marginalisation, regional imbalance and social persecution are now speaking out with force. The present phase of coalition and emergence of new political outfits are manifest expressions of this reality. The extent to which the national political parties have been unable to accommodate and articulate these concerns, has fuelled the erosion of their political support base. It is in such a situation, the coalition process has gained momentum.
To talk of a two party system, divorced of this reality, is to undermine these processes, which have resulted from the single party unipolar hegemony in the Indian polity. To take such a position would also imply belittling the existence of the economic and social inequalities. The two party system, naturally, is an artificially transplanted concept from the developed world, which has little relevance in the Indian situation.

The Uttar Pradesh election result is yet another vindication of these new times. The two major national parties have ended up third and fourth in terms of securing seats. Not only  the BJP, which was widely projected by the mainstream media and the ever failing psephologists, did not secure a close second position but it was the only party which, among the four major players, lost three per cent of its votes as compared to the last assembly polls.

At another level the Uttar Pradesh results signal a strong anti-incumbency message; not in the traditional sense, because, the Samajwadi Party has retained the same percentage share of votes. But what has happened is that the majority of anti-government votes have gravitated to the Bahujan Samaj Party. The caste question has definitely played a role, but the disproportionate emphasis on social engineering seems to be of an overestimate and in effect glosses over the anti-incumbency nature of the mandate. However, the anti-government opinion has squarely rejected the vicious communal propaganda by the Hindutva forces.

Notwithstanding the subjective desire for the evolution of a two party system, the fundamental processes, which shape Indian polity today, will naturally sustain the coalition system for quite some time in the conceivable future. The two party system is an anachronism, alien to the Indian reality. And, more importantly, it tends to stifle the voice of the dispossessed. Obviously, that cannot be sustained in the long run.

(The writer is a politburo member, CPM)