Regional parties' stakes in deepening democracy

The rise of regional parties at the state level and their ability to retain hold over the electoral outcome suggest a peculiar paradox that an electoral democracy is prone to suffer from.

In one sense, the victory of regional parties offer an opportunity to articulate the regional aspirations of the people, but in another sense regional parties may not show the same egalitarian urge to ensure the substantive participation of different social groups in its very functioning. The election results seem to have given a special handle to some powerful leaders who wittingly or unwittingly seem to be enjoying the support of families which in turn are sustained by the larger community power within these states.

Power dynamics which revolves around certain families seems to have confirmed the ‘law of incumbency’. Such law suggests the retention of political power through aristocratic ties sustained by community structures. This, however, fundamentally militates against the very idea of democracy whose fondest hope is to deepen itself through the process of genuine rotation of groups within the dynamics of opportunity structures.

Rotation principle propels leaders from the bottom to the top and in turn pushes down those who are at the top. Democracy based on the dynamics of rotation, thus, revolves around the following moral maxim, “I will rule and will be ruled in turn”. Will this maxim be followed in terms of UP and Punjab? Well the election results and the way political situation is unfolding in both these states, do not offer any bright chance for this maxim.

In both Punjab and UP, the percentage of dalit population is critically important for the electoral outcome for any party. Yet we do not see regional parties putting up dalit candidates outside the reserved constituency. One can see the ghettoization rather than liberating rotation at work in the political sensibilities of both the parties. Of course, the flip side of the story is that BSP leaders also lost the historical opportunity to take this rotational principle seriously and deepen the democratic processes within the party.

The assembly election results show that there is discrepancy between demography and democracy. In democratic demographic character would also have bearing over the election results. But this would be a rather mechanical view that one might take. According to this, it is understood that there is automatic conversion of population percentage into voting percentage.

For example, in Punjab, the dalit demographic preponderance over other sections has not resulted either in floating a separate dalit party or autonomous political movement working from outside. Instead, they seem to have voted for some party or the other. It simply means there are other factors that mediate the electoral choice. For example, there could be several kinds of pressures that influence the voter’s choice. Thus, there is no one to one relationship between demography and democracy.

These election results have also shown that national parties adopt an ad hoc approach for mobilising electoral support among the lower castes. As a part of this move, some of them imported leaders from outside the state  while others sought to rhetorically identify themselves with dalits. This was more prominently visible in case of UP elections. But this identification with dalits did not impress dalits, who seem to have voted for their leaders.

These non-dalit leaders often forget that occasional identification with dalits at the social, cultural and emotional level is an everyday need of the former. Those who are genuinely interested in the social wellbeing of dalits and other marginalised groups, need to know that for attending to these everyday forms of human treatment, it is necessary to alter the social relations that are rife with tensions generated by the socially dominant.

Hence, these occasional or one time gestures would not convince the lower caste to invest in these leaders even in electoral terms.

Ad hoc approach

These leaders need to focus their attention on the need to alter the tense social relations between the dalits and the non-dalit castes, particularly in Punjab and UP. The change in government, particularly in UP, would force dalits to bother more about their own social security and would prevent them from acquiring a larger role to interrogate the state on larger issues that involve human development. As the voting pattern in UP shows, dalits have chosen to throw their lot with BSP leaders who are out of power rather than non-dalits who are in power.

It is in this sense there is a bigger challenge before the ruling party in UP to persuade dalits that the state belongs to them as well. Dalits need not buy security from the dalit leaders but they, as a matter of constitutional right, are entitled to state protection that is supposed to be provided by respective parties that have come to power in these states.

(The writer is Professor, Centre for
Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi.)

Related Stories :

...Another scion faulters leaving mission 2014 in jeopardy

A son rises as the youngest CM of the most populous state

UPA's troubles begin