Pawar play reflects the politics of clichés

Politics has always been in search of metaphors to explain its dynamics as a public performance. One endearing solution as narrative has been film. Saadat Hasan Manto said that it was Bombay Talkies that captured the political pluralism of India, projecting both a hybridity and a pluralism. Bollywood, in fact, embodied the imaginaries of democracy playing out its contradictions as a myth.

But of late, Bollywood has lost its power as myth and Lutyens’ Delhi looks more filmy, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi playing the blockbuster hero. Meanwhile, regional politics has degenerated to a bad film. One senses the sheer lack of charismatic dialogue, of struggles which make epics. What one confronts is the logic of clichés.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar’s attempt to break away from the party and join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) illustrates this. As an observer put it, it is like watching Chinese checkers. The game might be colourful, but it lacks the power and depth of chess. Opposition politics has acquired the smell and depth of cliché.

The drama is more backstage, brooding, and full of silences. The background characters fascinate functioning as icons and idols. It’s almost a struggle between two genres of politics. At one end, stands Sharad Pawar, the legend of sugar politics, a household name playing patriot and icon; but this patriarch, true to character, is immovable. At the other end, stands a nephew waiting diligently to succeed. One is a leader and a legend, the other is an organiser who feels his time has come.

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It is a classic case of family politics. Ajit Pawar has attempted to rebel thrice but with little success. He senses the third time can be lucky with the BJP backing him up. Yet one senses family politics is still here to stay. Power seems an intrinsic part of family legacy. This, the Gandhis, the Lalus, the Mulayams, and the Rama Raos have already established.

Waiting is a ritual that marks family politics. It’s a literal art form, a narrative of sacrifice, and duty. In fact, those who wait suffer from the ‘Prince Charles effect’. They become puppets and non-entities while waiting. The disgruntled then aborts succession into secession. A family that holds together stays together. This is politics at its patriarchal best.

Sharad Pawar at 82 plays the patriarchal don. Ajit Pawar at 63 is tired of playing the submissive nephew. He has a hunch that politics is now different. He argues that the NCP has been out of power for too long. He almost offers a critique as a question. He asks, “How come that even with stalwarts like his uncle, NCP has been out of power for a decade”. Like the more subtle Praful Patel, he senses a time for change. The game of musical chairs begins. Sharad Pawar plays the dignified don. He says he will go to the people. An organisational project confronts a populist one. Sharad Pawar wants to begin a yatra through Maharashtra. Politics sounds like two signature tunes, replete with nostalgia and cliché.

Family politics needs more comment. It warps ordinary politics and ambition. Gaining seniority, demands a long wait and submissiveness is often equated with loyalty. Waiting creates a secondariness which hurts one sense of masculinity. In fact, watching Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Ajit Pawar, and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, one senses what I call ‘the deputy effect’. They have been secondary for so long, that they can never play leaders convincingly. Leadership as charisma is distant from them. They lack the charisma of unilateral power but have the skills of continuous accommodation. One senses that family politics can grow into oppositional politics, only when one outgrows the politics of the family. Even now, politics seems to be patriarchy’s last stronghold.

The BJP sounds piously modern when it claims to be beyond the family, mouthing the clichés of the nation-state. Yet one senses that there is no idealism here; just the politics of pure calculation. It attempts to strangle oppositional politics by playing into dissent in the family. Between family and faction, the BJP feels it can survive. It plays to the greed for power. It has little that is normative about it.

Watching the politics of both sides, one senses the politics of clichés, a shallowness which lacks even the melodrama of ideology. Ajit Pawar looks hardly convincing when he claims that he is joining Modi because he wants to work for development. The public is paraded as the new signature tune challenging the family as script. One senses that every narrative of succession now reads like a sociological fable.

Unfortunately, the narratives in the press do not capture the fate of the Opposition politics; they are more engrossed in the hysteria of a musical chairs, the spectacle called the show of strength. It is as if both systems lack conviction. It is like watching a bad movie. There is no hope beyond the interval as both the normative and the ideological disappear.

At least Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray will not feel alone. Indian democracy still seems to be stuck but in family and populist politics. As a political scientist once said, a visual study of Indian politicians still reads like a family album. The BJP becomes a collection of prodigal sons, a refuge for disgruntled families. Democracy seems to be the biggest casualty of political life. Yet one senses an indifference to this as scandals and struggles cure the boredom of everyday life. Every faction is like the promise of the new serial as the BJP attempts to milk it dry. Meanwhile life moves from cliché to cliché.

(Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist and professor, OP Jindal Global University.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.