November-December 1999

The Millennium Verdict
Further Deepens the Instability

— Nishant

The ‘tamasha’ of the 13th Lok Sabha election is over. But no sooner had the curtain dropped over this farcical drama, when a new and more farcical ‘tamasha’ began to unfold : unending dog-fights for power. But more of this later.

The hotch-potch coalition of 24 parties calling itself the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has succeeded in manipulating the ‘people’s mandate’ in its favour. It has secured the ‘legitimacy’ to rule for another five years provided, of course, it could hold itself together. The opposition Congress(I) and its allies led by Sonia Gandhi, failed to stage a come-back, despite its own style of manipulative schemes that has over a century-old tradition. The so-called left, particularly the biggest "left" party, the CPI(M), a master in the dialectics of manipulation, has found its base further eroded after it left its much-publicised Third Front and fastened itself to the apron-strings of the Congress(I) in the name of defeating the communal BJP. All these manipulators — corrupt, unscrupulous, scheming politicians most of whom are tainted with scandals and scams and have a record of criminal and communal acts; traitors who have no principles in selling out the country’s interests to the imperialist vultures for a few kickbacks and commissions have joined together to thrust upon the Indian people the millennium fraud called the 13th General Election.

What relevance do these elections have for the people of India ? What are the issues that had dominated these elections ? Does the verdict reflect people’s aspirations ? What are the prospects for the much-sought-after stability of the centre ? Let us analyse these one by one.

Of no Relevance to People

Elections in general have no relevance to the people’s daily lives. They do not solve the problems faced by the people — poverty, hunger, unemployment, disease — and they cannot fulfill people’s aspirations on any front. They are only thrust upon the people by the exploiting ruling classes to gain a stamp of legitimacy to rule and continue their exploitation unhindered. But the propaganda is so ingeniously and subtly done that atleast a gullible section of the people is made to think that people can "democratically" elect the government of their choice and throw out the one that does not fulfill the promises made. The experience of the last 12 General Elections and several more to the state legislatures have exposed the true nature — the actual essence behind the democratic appearance of the elections: the people have no choice at all but to vote for one of the representative parties of the exploiting classes; that all the parties and candidates are birds of the same feather and that if one party is thrown out, an equally rapacious oppressor, if not more, takes its place; that even the "election" of these exploiting parties involves money-power, muscle power, rigging, caste, communal and several other factors.

The 13th Lok Sabha election has proved itself to be even more irrelevant to the people with hardly any issues to speak of. While the BJP-led alliance tried to play on the "success" of Kargil, the "Charisma" of Vajpayee (whatever that may mean since most people get bored by his speeches), the foreign origin of Sonia Gandhi, the Congress-instigated toppling of the BJP-led government. The only one issue that was common to all parties without exception and that had a top place in their electioneering agenda was a vilification campaign and mud-slinging of each other. The statements made by George Fernandes and Hegde of the JD(U); Pramod Mahajan, Advani, Uma Bharathi and even Vajpayee himself of the BJP; Sonia Gandhi and other lesser leaders of the Congress(I); Rabri Devi and Laloo of the RJD; and Jyothi Basu of the CPI(M), among others are classic examples of this campaign of personal vilification against each other.

The electioneering had thus brought out the stark facts regarding our rulers before the people :facts regarding the power-hunger, the unscrupulousness, the scandals and corruption indulged in by the politicians of every hue; their criminal and communal record, and so on and so forth. It had shown that no political party had any concrete constructive programme to be placed before the people and each was a dirty manipulator out to acquire power at any cost.

BJP’s Kargil Card – A real Fiasco

The BJP expected that the tremendous euphoria that was built by the media over its "success" in the Kargil operation, the anti-Pakistan war hysteria and the national chauvinist frenzy raked up in the wake of Kargil, would fetch it a majority. In fact, with this high expectation of Kargil becoming translated into votes, it sought to play up the national chauvinist frenzy, by organising rallies for the dead soldiers and victory rallies; shot down a Pakistani fighter plane on the pretext that it had violated Indian Air space; unleashed a big propaganda campaign that ISI agents were arrested in the North East, that Pakistan was enflaming the situation in Kashmir and the North East; and so on. The BJP thought that it would be rewarded by getting an absolute majority for the tough approach and measures that it had adopted towards the traditional foe. But neither the euphoria over the Pokhran-II nuclear explosion in May last year nor over Kargil this July could be converted into votes in a big way. It was routed on its own home turf of UP where it lost 28 seats out of the 57 that it held in the 12th Lok Sabha. This has great political significance as UP, a state where the Mandir-Masjid issue had played a dominant role in electoral politics giving the much-needed numbers to the BJP had been providing almost a third of the Lok Sabha seats won by BJP in the past decade — 51 out of 120 in 1991, 52 out of 161 in 1996, and 57 out of 182 in 1998; In Punjab too, it suffered serious reverses along with its partner, the Akali Dal, securing one and two seats respectively losing 8 seats that they earlier held combinedly.

The Prime Minister Vajpayee himself won with a depleted margin from Lucknow losing almost one lakh votes compared to the last election. The BJP’s vote-share in the country as a whole has actually gone down from 25.59 per cent in 1998 to 23.07 per cent this time. It lost 6 out of 13 seats it held in Karnataka.

It is only due to the gains made by its allies that the BJP was saved from total disgrace. The Alliance of two dozen parties forged long before the election, helped it prevent the division of votes. Thus the BJP’s capacity to win seats has actually decreased when compared to the last election: while it secured 182 seats by allying with a dozen others last time, it could not get even an extra seat despite the doubling of its allies to two dozen in the election this year. And even of these 182, the BJP won only 108 in direct contests while the rest came via the allies such as the TDP in AP, where it won 7 seats; DMK in Tamil Nadu, where it won 4 seats; Shiv Sena in Maharashtra where it secured 13 seats; BJD in Orissa, where it got 9 seats; Janata Dal (U) in Bihar where it won 23 seats; INLD in Haryana, where it secured 5 seats; Trinamul Congress in West Bengal, where it won 2 seats; and so on.

Yet another factor that was very favourable to the BJP this time was the serious division among the opposition parties which contested against each other. Particularly in UP, the Congress, the Samajwadi party and the BSP, by contesting against each other, provided a good opportunity for the BJP. Yet, the popularity of the BJP was on such a low ebb that it lost half the seats it won in the last election. Even in Maharashtra, the split in the Congress helped the saffron alliance but they fell 20 short of the 145 needed to form a government in the state. And for the Lok Sabha, the BJP got only 13 and Shiv Sena 15.

But for Kargil, it is doubtful whether the BJP would have maintained even the seats that it had won in the 1998 election; the national chauvinist frenzy paid off in terms of votes in some states as in Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, MP, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh where the BJP’s gains were quite significant; but in the rest of the country Kargil created few ripples and it was the regional issues which became dominant.

The BJP’s gains were in fact in these very states that routed it in the Assembly elections earlier : in MP, the BJP and its allies won 29 out of 40 seats just 9 months after being almost wiped out in the Assembly polls; Delhi, which saw the Congress sweeping to power in the Assembly polls, returned BJP candidates in all the 7 constituencies. However, there was little enthusiasm among the voters as the voter turn-out was less than 44 per cent, down by 5 per cent over 1996. In Rajasthan, the BJP gained 16 out of 28. Here too, it was replaced by the Congress(I) government in the last Assembly elections in November 1998. The sea-change which occurred in these states in a matter of a few months can be attributed to the Kargil factor. Securing less than a quarter of the total votes polled in the entire country, the BJP’s weak mass base becomes conspicuous contrary to the projections of a massive victory by the media.

Sonia – the Congress(I)’s lone candidate

Wherever the Congress(I) contested, it was made into a Sonia show; the candidates had no importance, in every constituency it was for seeing Sonia as PM that people were asked to exercise their vote. The main theme of the Congress was stability; it tried to drive home the point that it alone had provided stable governments in the past and it alone could provide one at present, while all coalitions would only end up in instability as proved by the recent BJP experiment and that of the UF governments earlier. Sonia relied more on negative propaganda against the BJP and its leader Vajpayee, holding the latter responsible for the Pak ‘intruders’ in Kargil and depicting his role in the Kargil issue as one of "national betrayal" as it continued to import sugar from Pakistan well until June when the Kargil operation was going on.

Though it gained considerably in Karnataka and UP, it failed to retain its ’98 tally of 140 seats. It secured 112 seats while along with the allies this comes to a total of 135 seats. But the total votes for the Congress(I) had increased going up from 25.82 per cent in the last Lok Sabha election to 28.42 per cent this year. This is despite the fact that the party contested only in 453 seats in 1999 against 477 seats in the last election.

In AP, the Congress(I)’s fortunes were even more amusing : in 1998, it bagged 22 seats in AP by polling 38.46 per cent votes, but in 1999, it won only five Lok Sabha seats despite increasing its vote-share to 42.81 per cent.

The Congress(I) too thus had no issues of relevance to the people in these elections. It banked on the Sonia "charisma" as its counterpart did on Vajpayee’s; it tried to play on the stability card — there was nothing concerning the vast masses of people, even the populist schemes and promises of the Congress(I) were exhausted. In the Assembly elections in five states that were held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress(I) was swept to power in Karnataka where it won 133 out of 224 seats and Arunachal Pradesh where it secured 53 out of the 60 seats. In Maharashtra, it emerged as the single largest party with 75 seats which, however, constituted just over a quarter of the 288-seat Assembly. It succeeded in cooking up a majority by aligning with its recently split away group and arch-rival, Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and six others thereby replacing the BJP-Shiv Sena rule in Maharashtra. The Congress(I)’s greatest loss in the Assembly elections was in AP where the TDP managed to come back to power. However, it increased its strength in the Assembly from a mere 26 that it had won in the December 1994 elections to 90 this time.

The “Left” dumps the Third Front in favour of the Congress(I)

The so-called left parties like the CPI and the CPI(M), which have been shouting from the roof-tops about the Third Front as an alternative to the Congress(I) and the BJP for over a decade, dumped the slogan and campaigned for the Congress(I) on the pretext of defeating the communal BJP.

In fact, between 1989 and 1999, the Left’s relation vis-a-vis the Congress(I) turned a full circle. In 1989, its sole agenda was to ensure the defeat of the Congress and it supported the JD’s VP Singh government from outside along with the BJP. Thus BJP became an ally of the "Left" in isolating the Congress. In less than a year, however, the BJP pulled down the JD government and took up an aggressive campaign against the Babri Masjid and vowed to construct the Ram temple in its place. In the 1991 elections to the parliament, the "left" took the stand of "equi-distance" from both the BJP and the Congress(I) describing them as two sides of the same coin. The equi-distance theory remained in operation until the 1996 elections when the BJP emerged as the single largest party and even formed a government for 13 days. The United Front government which was formed in ’96 with the "Left"s support and even the participation of some "left" parties in the government, relied heavily on the Congress(I) for its very survival. The "Left" thus took the Congress support to keep the BJP out but did not yet have an understanding with it. After the collapse of the UF government in ’98 and the formation of the BJP-led government, it came up with the formulation that the BJP was the bigger enemy and that to defeat the BJP, it was willing to have a tactical alliance with the Congress(I). At first, it bargained for a Congress without Sonia but later it completely compromised and campaigned for Sonia’s Prime Ministership too in the event of a Congress victory. The CPI and CPI(M) declared the Third Front dead after the announcement of the elections to the 13th Lok Sabha and claimed that going with the Congress(I) is the only way to defeat the BJP. Thus the past decade has seen the "Left" completely immersed in the job of making and de-making the governments at the centre playing the role of a broker and a manipulator. The CPI(M) emerged as the chief broker among the "Left" parties. The result of this is a further erosion of its mass base and organisational weakening. There were hardly any mass movements in the past decade even if they be of the reformist kind. The ’99 election had brought out the weakness of the "Left" as never before in terms of votes polled. The percentage of votes polled by the CPI came down from 1.75 in 1998 to 1.48 in the current election. It had narrowly escaped the humiliation of being de-recognised as a ‘national party’ as it had failed to secure the required 6 per cent votes in more than four states/union territories. But it managed to get just enough seats that helped save it from disgrace.

In West Bengal itself, considered to be their traditional fortress, the Left Front lost ground to the Trinamul and the BJP and was completely routed in the urban areas. The CPI(M) tally was down to 21 from the previous 24. In the rural areas too, the "Left" candidates had narrow leads over their rivals that has led to speculation that their present term of office in West Bengal could be the last one. In AP, the CPI and CPI(M) were virtually wiped out losing in even their traditional strongholds like Khammam and Nalgonda. The "Left" parties had a combined strength of 33 seats in the dissolved AP Assembly and were reduced to just two. While the CPI drew a blank, the CPI(M) got the two seats. They lost the three Lok Sabha seats that they held earlier.

The call for an alliance with the Congress, has created a rift within the so-called left with RSP and Forward Bloc refusing to endorse the pro-Congress strategy of the CPI and the CPI(M). It has also created a crisis within the CPI and CPI(M). If the NF became defunct with the results of the 1998 election when several of its leaders and constituents like the TDP began to sail with the BJP, the Third Front became irrelevant even before the ’99 election itself. The CPI and the CPI(M), on the one hand, dumped the decade-old slogan and queued up behind Sonia’s Congress, most of the veteran leaders of the various Janata Dals — champions of the Third Front till yesterday who posed as staunch anti-BJP spokesmen, the Sharad Yadavs, Ramvilas Paswans and so on — joined the BJP-led coalition at the centre.

The "Liberation" group, which calls itself CPI(ML) although at present it has nothing in common with the original CPI(ML), was washed out totally in Bihar and elsewhere. Its lone winner is from Karbi Anglong in Assam that has been its traditional stronghold for nearly two decades. It decried its fate by blaming the pro-Congress(I) stand of the CPI and CPI(M) and is now taking up the slogan of the Third Front and calling for the unity of all the "Left" forces in their "heroic" parliamentary struggle against the communal and fascist forces. These followers of the modern revisionism of Deng, have hardly any difference with the CPI and CPI(M) but for the tactical slogan of supporting the Congress(I) to defeat the BJP.

The rise of the other parties

Taken by themselves, the two largest parties, the BJP and the Congress(I), together secured a mere 51.5 per cent of the total votes polled in the 13th Lok Sabha election. The rest of the votes were shared among scores of smaller parties and independents, though a large number of them are in one alliance or another. It shows that the two major parties in the country have hardly any relevance for a considerable chunk of the country’s population. It also shows that these other parties will continue to play a crucial role in the formation or pulling down of governments in the future. The stability of any government at the centre thus depends on the support of these smaller parties some of which have just one or two seats, but wield considerable bargaining power. The significance of this can be realised from the fact that the last BJP-led government fell as it fell short of a single vote to defeat the no-confidence motion in the parliament.

The gains made by the Samajwadi Party and the BSP in UP (26 and 14 respectively), the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra, the Sikkim Democratic Front in Sikkim, apart from the various allies in the two coalitions led by the BJP and the Congress(I), point to the polarisation that is likely to emerge in future more and more along caste, religious and regional lines.

In UP, out of 85 seats, parties other than the Congress, BJP and their respective allies, got over half the seats— forty three. Mulayam Singh’s SP gained six more seats than it held in the dissolved Lok Sabha. Besides, it came a close second in 23 other seats. The BSP gained 10 more seats against its earlier four, came second in 14 other seats and lost by a very narrow margin in 3 seats. That these smaller parties could give the BJP a drubbing in its own Janmabhoomi notwithstanding the Kargil factor, the Ayodhya issue, the division among the opposition themselves and the broader alliance of the BJP-led forces, points to the polarisation that is likely to occur in future even in other states along caste, religious and regional identities. They demonstrate the limits of BJP’s expansion in future and how its base can be eaten away by smaller parties based on local issues. The smaller players will continue to hold the key to the "stability" of the government at the centre (stability in the sense of holding on for the five-year-term).

Is Naidu’s TDP an exception ?

From day one when the election results in AP began to pour in, the media began building up the myth that Naidu is an exception among Indian politicians; that he got the mandate from the people for his ground performance through his various schemes that benefited a large section of the people in AP; and that was why the TDP won with a thumping majority (29 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats with an additional seven seats for its ally the BJP and 180 out of 293 Assembly seats) in spite of Naidu lacking the charismatic traits of the founder of TDP, NT Rama Rao. The vote to Naidu’s TDP is being interpreted as a positive vote for "good governance and development" while in most states the voting pattern has been negative. As it is the first time since 1978 that an incumbent government in AP has been reelected, Naidu’s victory is sought to be made to look like a legend.

What is the ground reality ? The fact is that Naidu is a wily politician, perhaps the shrewdest of the manipulators. Backed firmly by the comprador big bourgeois-imperialist combine, he made AP a hunting ground for every type of foreign investor and the Indian comprador houses. In his four-year-old rule, he had sold off the interests of the state to the multinationals. He became the darling of the World Bank and IMF; was proclaimed the Business Man of the year, received continuous coverage in ‘The Economist’ and other mouthpieces of international capital, and has intimate links with the sharks from Wall Street to Dalal Street. He had proved himself to be the most reliable dalal among the Indian state governments and was described by the Wall Street Journal as "Prime Minister Material" the very day the results were declared. The fact that he was able to secure a $550 million Economic Restructuring Loan from the World Bank at a time when US sanctions were in force in the wake of the Pokhran nuclear explosions in May 1998, shows the extent of his comprador servility to foreign capital. He served as a vehicle for the World Bank’s experiments of dealing directly with the states bypassing the centre in its new strategy — "sub-national’ approach — of lending to the states within a Third World country. He allowed AP to become an experimental station for the imperialists in all spheres — from infrastructure to information technology to terminator seeds. And for this, vast sums were pumped into the state by the imperialists. No wonder, the media describes him as the CEO of AP Inc. — a CEO in the service of the imperialists and the comprador bureaucrat bourgeoisie. The foreign loans helped increase the support base for the TDP in the initial phase by providing him funds to launch various populist schemes while pushing AP into a debt trap.

There are two important reasons for the imperialists to choose AP as their model state for implementing their liberalisation and other economic ‘reforms’ : one, it is a state as big as unified Germany possessing vast fertile land with rich water and mineral resources; moreover, it has a relatively better infrastructure of roads, railways, ports and communications as is the case of much of South India. (It is to be noted that among the hundred most backward districts of India at present there is not a single one from AP which shows its relatively better position vis-a-vis other larger states such as UP and Bihar) All these favourable conditions placed it among the foremost states for the imperialists to choose from to implement their neo-liberal policies. Just as they had selected Punjab in the late 1960s for implementing the ‘green revolution’ strategy. But what finally prompted the imperialists to select AP is the need to tackle the threat posed by the revolutionary movement. The imperialists are scared to the hilt at the prospects of the new spectre haunting AP — the spectre of the ever-growing revolutionary movement that is bound to engulf the entire country. They have aided Naidu in every possible manner to crush the movement : provided funds for the various schemes, and for the construction of roads and other development projects in rural Telangana in a big way. They tried to divert and wean away a section through schemes such as Janmabhoomi, Mahila Janmabhoomi, Adarana, Roshni, CMEY, Deepam, DWCRA, Water Users Associations, Rytu Bazaars and so on. A section that benefited directly from the schemes, no doubt, was drawn towards the TDP.

The World Bank and the imperialists thus played a major role in boosting up the image of their trusted agent, Chandrababu Naidu, by pumping in vast sums of money for the latter’s schemes in order to create a social base for the ruling TDP and to isolate the revolutionaries. These populist schemes were combined with a massive crackdown on the CPI (ML) [PW] and the revolutionary movement led by it.

In the four years that Naidu was in power, he turned AP into a police state and gave a blank check to the police and administration; hence the officialdom was fully on his side. This single most important factor ensured that his party had a greater edge in rigging the elections. The bomb culture which his goondas unleashed, wiped out a considerable number of opponents in the past few years. From country-made bombs to remote control-car bombs — all were used freely. The TDP goondas roamed freely after the car-bomb explosion in Hyderabad two years ago. Even land-mines were used in Rayalaseema by the TDP goondas. During the election itself bombs that were stored in a minister’s house went off on August 28 in the town of Narasaraopet in the coastal region killing four persons. The Panchayatraj Minister ‘Doctor’ Kodela Prasad Rao, was not even arrested after such a blast at his residence. Thus while jungle raj prevailed in Rayalaseema and the coastal districts, where, with the backing of the state, the TDP ensured an upperhand in rigging, in the Telangana region, on the other hand, it indulged in massive rigging with the aid of the state machinery.

The fear of rigging by the TDP was so much that the rival Congress(I) filed a writ petition in the AP High Court challenging the posting of two senior police officials during the election. They charged that the officers — Umesh Kumar, IG, Grey Hounds (Special anti-Naxal armed police unit), and SR Tiwari, DIG, anti-Naxal investigating bureau — were being sent to these districts in the name of curbing naxalite activity but actually to facilitate rigging by the TDP. In the North Telangana region neither the TDP nor the Congress nor any other parties for that matter, ventured out into the rural areas for campaigning. However, on the polling day, by deploying a large police force, both the Congress and TDP indulged in massive rigging, but it was the latter that had an edge. The only complaint of the Congress(I) was that the rigging was not "free and fair" !

Thus the swing that was said to have taken place and the failure of the anti-incumbency factor with respect to the TDP is a myth. Even with the rigging, "cycling" (see box), etc., the fact is that the TDP lost a considerable number of seats that it had won in the December ’94 Assembly election. The Congress(I) increased its tally from 26 to 90 though it lost heavily the parliamentary seats that it held earlier. And in 10 assembly seats, the margin was less than 1000 while in 52 others the Congress(I) trailed behind with a margin of less than 6000. Even a one per cent swing of votes against the TDP would have seen its strength in the Assembly drastically depleted.

The ruling classes, through their all-pervasive media, are trying to project the TDP’s victory as an example of positive performance, of uplifting the poor by implementing the World Bank-sponsored schemes, as an example to be emulated by other chief ministers, and so on. Thereby they want to pave the way for a greater inflow of foreign capital, justify their policies of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation, and implement them at an even faster pace. This is a big myth deliberately floated by the reactionary media to sell the neo-liberal policies of the World Bank-IMF-WTO combine.

First of all, one should not read too much into the whole verdicts in a semi-feudal, semi-colonial country like India. Otherwise, one would only land up in insolvable riddles and contradictions. For instance, if the victory of Naidu’s TDP is to be interpreted as an approval of the World Bank-dictated reforms that it had been implementing most loyally, then would one interpret the defeat of trusted stooges of the World Bank like ex-finance minister Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram as a defeat of the policies of liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation which they pursued vigorously during their tenure ? Moreover, how does one explain the serious losses suffered by the same TDP in the 1998 parliamentary election when it got just 12 out of 42 seats ? Why was his performance of the earlier three years not rewarded by the people then ?

It is actually money power, muscle power, caste, regional, religious etc., factors along with populist and attractive promises and schemes just before the elections that actually decide the poll outcome. And in all this, Naidu’s TDP scored a point over its chief rival, the Congress(I).

After the 1998 election, the TDP launched a series of populist schemes with an eye on the assembly election. A few weeks prior to the elections, it even promised to provide a million subsidised LPG connections in order to attract the rural women-folk. During the election campaign, the TDP’s focus was not on the Vision 2020, information technology and other elitist jargon but was more on the welfare programmes that it had undertaken and is planning to undertake for the supposed benefit of the poor.

But it is clear that the polices being pursued by Naidu’s TDP in AP will land the state’s economy into a deeper crisis. As it is, the state’s finances are in a bad shape. Naidu’s rule had seen a manifold increase in the state’s debts. He had come to an understanding with the World Bank on a Rs. 10,000 crore loan for the various projects. This will lead it deeper into debt and increase the burden of debt service obligations. AP is now treading a path traversed long before by several Latin American countries — Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico etc. The IMF and the World Bank, quite naturally, care little for the harmful effects of their prescription that would only aggravate rather than cure the disease. Though the results may look alluring temporarily, the drain of wealth and capital flight from the state that would follow with the implementation of these imperialist-sponsored schemes— unemployment, poverty, disease, drought and famine — will increase further. Already, vast rural tracts in the state, particularly the four districts of Chittoor, Anantapur, Cuddapah and Mahaboobnagar, are reeling under severe famine conditions. 10.26 lakh hectares of land suffered crop failure in 436 famine-afflicted Mandals with the loss to the peasantry estimated to be Rs. 2,560 crores. Naidu’s high-tech rule is bound to create a vast ocean of poverty with a few islands of plenty.

Instability will deepen further

The newly-formed NDA government led by the BJP with its 296 members in the parliament is even more unstable than its predecessor. The BJP with the same number of seats, had to depend on two dozen allies in the new Lok Sabha in place of the dozen allies in the dissolved parliament. With about 40 per cent of the seats in their control, the allies now have a greater bargaining power — a fact that is already being witnessed in the ministry-formation after the announcement of the results.

The wrangling for posts began even as the election results began pouring in. Mamata’s Trinamul, with just 8 seats, had its eyes set upon the coveted Railway Ministry which it ultimately got much to the chagrin of other veterans like JD (U)’s Ram Vilas Paswan and Nitish Kumar. The JD(U), a party which secured 20 seats but is filled with power-hungry veterans, had begun to bargain for more posts to accommodate the representatives from all its three constituents — Janata Dal (Sharad Yadav faction, Samata Party of Fernandes and Hegde’s Lok Shakti) — which had come together to fight under a common symbol and name.

Vajpayee, who first declared that his cabinet would be of optimum size, had to give in to the pressures of his allies and rest himself content with a 70-member jumbo-sized cabinet. Despite this, he had to face the wrath of senior leaders like Ramakrishna Hegde who was not accommodated in the new cabinet and the three ministers of the Shiv Sena returned to Mumbai without taking charge as they were dissatisfied with the portfolios entrusted to them. The pressure for more ministerial berths and central funds for their respective states will continue to rock the government in future. While the allies would want to expand their base in their respective states, the BJP, on the other hand, will try to contain the influence of its allies as continual dependence on them is fraught with danger to its own survival in future. It will also strive to buy up the MPs belonging to its allies emulating the successful experiment of PVN Rao’s government in 1991 which was transformed from a minority government to a majority one by buying up the MPs belonging to the JMM. This will be a constant source of conflict among the NDA partners apart from conflicts on the socio-political agenda. Though there is a consensus among all the NDA constituents on the economic agenda with each trying to outbeat the other in implementing the World Bank-dictated policies, the BJP’s own agenda of construction of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya (which, the VHP declared, would begin shortly), Article 370, Uniform Civil Code etc., is bound to give rise to severe conflicts in the ruling alliance.

The instability of the government is such that even a cross over of just 8 per cent of the total (26 seats) could lead it to collapse. Withdrawal of support by the TDP alone, or by the combination of any two bigger allies such as the JD(U) and Trinamul, or the JD(U) and the DMK, could prove to be fatal to the government. The TDP has decided to support the BJP-led government from outside so that it can retain more bargaining power and also exonerate itself from the harsh anti-people policies that are on the government’s immediate agenda. Such is the "stability" achieved by the grand alliance of twenty four! From the very day the elections are over, another election continues to loom large over the political horizon.

There is now almost a consensus among the political parties that a full five-year term for the Lok Sabha should be made mandatory through an amendment to the constitution. Some are arguing for a German model in which a no-confidence motion against a ruling party could be introduced only when the opposition is in a position to form an alternative government. Needless to say, none of this can solve the inherent instability of the government and save it from collapse.

Now for the Millennium Sell-out !

The BJP-led caretaker government, certain that it would be swept to power again, prepared a 100-day economic agenda even before the election results had come out. Proclaiming that it is now inaugurating the second generation or reforms, the Vajpayee government spelt out the details of its blueprint to sell-out the country to the imperialists thereby securing the patronage of their foreign mentors and the comprador bureaucrat bourgeoisie prior to the elections itself. These include : (i) adoption of the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) Bill, Money Laundering Bill, Amendment to the Companies Act, Securities Contracts Regulation Act, the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), and other legislative Bills; (ii) boost to FDI by allowing 74 per cent foreign equity in automobiles, auto components, petroleum, bulk grain-handling, tourism etc., through the automatic route, and 100 per cent FDI in non-conventional energy and films, besides 51 per cent in the telecom sector and 40 per cent in banking — all through the RBI window; (iii) bulk sale of some profit-making PSUs for resource mobilisation to keep the fiscal deficit under check. The PSUs selected for immediate disinvestment to mobilise Rs. 7000 crore this fiscal year are : Modern Foods, IPCL, GAIL, ITDC and BALCO; (iv) Agreement on matters related to external trade such as Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), service sector and the farm sector at the WTO Talks at Seattle from November 30 to December 3 this year.

The other Bills that are also in the new government’s immediate agenda are : the Coal Mines Bill, 1998; the Coal India Bill, the information technology Bill. The first two permit mining of coal and lignite not only for captive purpose but also for sale. The Coal India Bill empowers the central government to direct the transfer of land or mining rights in Coal India Ltd or its subsidiary to any subsidiary company. These two Bills are part of the conditionalities of the World Bank’s modernisation loan to Coal India Ltd and would have to be passed in order to avail this loan (The ET October, 1999).

The state governments too will be actively involved in this millennium sell-out by the newly-elected traitors. The role of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) will be drastically reduced giving way to a more aggressive Foreign Investment Implementation Authority (FIIA) where states’ representatives will also sit, playing a more crucial role in state government clearances. All these changes are sought to be achieved at a pace unheard of under the earlier governments.

The statements by the Prime Minister Vajpayee, Finance Minister Yaswant Sinha, the Commerce and Industries Minister Murasoli Maran of the DMK, Telecommunication minister Ram Vilas Paswan of the JD(U) and others soon after their assumption of power show their anxiety and haste in pushing through the "reforms."

While Vajpayee, in his very first speech after becoming the Prime Minister, spoke of some "hard decisions" to be taken for reining in the country’s economy and the need for "tightening our belts" to ward off the impending crisis, Yaswanth Sinha, in an interview with The Economic Times, which was published on October 15, talked of passing the various Bills in the coming session of the parliament and the urgent need for deepening the financial sector reforms as per the recommendations of Narasimhan Committee II which includes the government giving up its majority stake in banks. His target was to raise Rs. 10,000 crore in the next 100 days through improvement in tax collection and disinvestment of the PSUs. Instructions were also issued to cut about 10 per cent in non-plan, non-salary expenditure.

DMK’s Murasoli Maran, the Commerce and Industry Minister, indicated on the very first day he assumed office that he was an even more loyal imperialist stooge than BJP’s finance minister. According to him, all sectors should be opened up to 100 per cent FDI and the handful of exceptions should be put on the negative list. His millennium mission is to remove all stumbling blocs in the way of foreign investors to generate as much as 10 per cent of the GDP i.e., about $50 billion a year. The foreign investors and Indian Big Business are elated by these pronouncements that make the Manmohan Singhs and Chidambarams hang their heads in shame for their poor show as Finance Ministers. The Economic Times, in its editorial on 16 October, hailed Maran for his "absolutely correct priorities". Indeed, to speak of $50 billion foreign investment a year at a time when the inflows are just around $3 billion needs lots of guts. Who else but a millennium traitor could do that to one’s motherland, inviting foreign capital to come and plunder our people and resources without any fear ?

Then Ramvilas Paswan, the Communication Minister announced soon after assuming charge that he would take Internet to rural areas and provide a telephone to every village by 2002. When almost half the villages do not have clean drinking water and lakhs of people die of water-borne diseases every year, talking of Internet and telephone are a cruel joke played on the poverty-stricken rural masses. It is actually a clever ploy to create a demand for the telephone industry of the MNCs and their Indian compradors. While the Textile minister Kashiram Rana declared that the New Textile Policy would be announced soon, Power Minister Kumaramangalam announced reforms in the State Electricity Boards and reduction of subsidies. Thus all the patrons of the BJP-led NDA government are vying with each other in selling out the country to the imperialists and to shift the burden of the crisis on to the backs of the vast masses. The TDP, which has chosen to support the government from outside, is already a hot favourite of the World Bank and the various MNCs.

Attacks on people will intensify to an unprecedented scale

It is clear that the new government will step up its attacks against the people in all spheres in order to push through the "second generation reforms" that aim at selling out the country’s interests lock, stock and barrel to the imperialists and their compradors. The Prime Minister’s warning to the people to "tighten their belts" and that the time has come to take "hard decisions" means that people should be ready to bear additional taxation, bear cuts in subsidies, boldly face the rising prices and the cuts in jobs due to reduction in government expenditure on the one hand and privatisation of the PSUs on the other, prepare themselves to face diseases and natural calamities like floods and famines as the government is giving up its responsibility towards public welfare due to the constraint of resources and so on.

The fresh attack on the people had actually begun even before the new government had assumed office, barely within 48 hours after the counting of votes had started, through the steepest ever hike in diesel prices — 40 per cent at a stroke. There was no hint of it until the completion of the last phase of elections on October 3. Such is the hypocrisy and double standards of the parliamentary parties. If the hike in prices was announced prior to the election, the BJP-led alliance would have faced the wrath of the people. The bitter memory of the Assembly elections in last November when the BJP was routed in its strongholds of Delhi, MP and Rajasthan mainly on account of the steep rise in prices of essential commodities is still fresh in their minds to risk taking such a measure prior to the election Now that they are safely in power, these hypocrites began riding rough-shod on the people’s backs.

But this is precisely the fertile soil for the instability of the government — more than the machinations of any cunning, power-hungry partner to destabilise the government. The source of instability is inherently rooted in the very policies pursued by the government — in the unfulfilled aspirations of the people and the unbearable economic burden and the burning problems that would drive them into the streets demanding a solution.

The deepening economic crisis and the further sell-out of the country’s interests is bound to push the vast masses into further misery and destitution. As it is, the country is headed towards an internal debt trap due to the sharp rise in government debt in the last few years. Today India’s internal debt to GDP ratio stands at a staggering 55 per cent. According to a statement made by the Finance Minister, the government has to borrow Rs. 90,000 crore to 1,20,000 crore per year just to finance its interest payment obligations. The crisis has further deepened in the current financial year with elections and the Kargil operation eating up almost Rs. 15,000 crores. The central government’s fiscal deficit has risen from Rs. 36,325 crore to Rs. 1,03,737 crore over the same period. For the current year, the actual deficit is likely to be higher than 6 per cent of GDP against the budgeted figure of 4 per cent (The Economic Times, 16 October, 1999).

Reduction of the fiscal deficit has been the aim of every government at the centre since 1991. Towards this end, subsidies were slashed, social welfare programmes were curtailed or scrapped altogether, public expenditure was cut down resulting in further unemployment, shares of PSUs were sold off to foreign investors and to the big business houses, FDI was permitted in a big way and yet the fiscal crisis and the underlying economic crisis only deepened further. The very same prescription that had aggravated the disease is now being administered with greater vigour by the new government. This will lead to even deeper crisis in the Indian economy thereby aggravating the social and political crisis.

As the ‘second generation reforms’ bring in their wake a new round of militant struggles by the working class, peasantry, students, government employees, women, dalits, adivasis, the religious minorities and the various nationalities, the ruling classes will further step up their fascist repression. They will more and more fascise the state structure, curtail even the existing rights of the various sections of the people; enact draconian, black laws and ordinances to deal with militant dissent; and strive to crush all democratic movements through fascist measures.

In a way, today’s situation is similar to that of the early 70s. In the mid-term polls of 1972, Indira Gandhi rode to power in the wake of the Bangla Desh war of 1971. Within one year after she won a two-thirds majority in the parliament (single-handedly without any allies), people began to come out into the streets protesting against the rising prices, unemployment and corruption. The agitation became particularly severe in Bihar and Gujarat by 1974. The railway workers went on a 20-day All India Railway strike; there were agitations even by the Provincial Armed Constabulary in UP. To contain the people’s movements, the crisis-ridden Indira government, inspite of its massive majority in the parliament, was driven to the extreme measure of declaring Emergency in June 1975 after it failed to curb the growing tide of people’s struggles through its Black Acts.

Today, the situation is even more serious and the economic crisis deeper. Although the ruling alliance has a wafer-thin majority and is highly unstable, it is more likely that the alliance partners will take a consensus approach in coming down heavily on people’s movements. To carry out the agenda of further selling out the country’s interests to imperialism, the ruling classes have no other recourse but to crush all opposition to their traitorous policies with an iron hand. And in this, the various state governments are hand in glove with the centre. And in AP, the fascist fangs of Naidu will dig still deeper, ‘aided’ by a captive government at the centre that is dependent totally on the TDP’s support, and by the imperialists who wish to project AP as the model state that has vindicated their neo-liberal policies and contained the revolutionary movement.

Yes, the country is passing through the gravest crisis and the people have to ‘tighten their belts’ for the impending battle. The revolutionary and democratic forces are in a stronger position and better organised today than during the mid-70s. The nationality movements have emerged as a great challenge to the ruling classes along with the movements led by the revolutionary forces. Various sections of the people are coming into struggles on their sectional demands either spontaneously or under petty-bourgeois leaderships. Directly affected by the policies of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation, the Indian working class, which has been rendered passive by the pro-establishment Left, is all set to revive its age-old glorious tradition of militant, heroic struggles, and to play its historic role as the leader of the revolution. The near-famine conditions that are becoming a bane of the Indian countryside that is being transformed into a vast desert due to the neglect of irrigation by successive governments, the incessant crop failures and pauperisation of the peasantry, the sell-out of the interests of the peasantry at the dictates of the WTO — all these are galvonising the hitherto dormant sections of the peasantry into a mighty, elemental force that has the potential to sweep away the monsters from power. Women and dalits, persecuted religious minorities such as the muslims, christians and Sikhs — all of whom have been oppressed and suppressed for long — are bracing themselves to face the "hard decisions" being taken by the government.

It is the urgent need of the hour to unify all these oppressed sections of the population, build powerful class and mass organisations from the grass-roots to the All India level and wage a relentless struggle against the traitors that are selling away the country under the respectable guise of a "democratically-elected" government. This struggle must go on side by side with the intensification of the armed agrarian revolution in the vast countryside, the deepening of people’s war and the establishment of alternative organs of people’s democratic power in place of the putrified, outdated and irrelevant parliamentary institutions.

1-11-99

<Top>