Lack of ideology Bane of democracy

If there is one single cause for the malfunctioning of democracies across the world today, and more particularly in India, it is the lack of ideology that is reflected in the functioning of political parties.

When India became an independent nation, the parties then were fighting their battles based on ideology. The birth of a party and its existence all depended on their particular ideology. Communists were a strong force in those days.

A number of people gave up their fortunes to join the Communist Party and it was able to build up a strong ideological base right up to the grassroots level. Same was the case with Swatantra Party whose philosophy was set by the great visionary, Rajaji.

He could at that time itself visualise the disastrous consequences of licence permit quota Raj as an offshoot of Nehruvian blueprint of “commanding heights” and socialistic pattern of society for the development of Nation. Jana Sangh which is the predecessor to the present BJP also had a strong ideological base.

Jayaprakash Narain, Acharya Narendra Deo, Ram Manohar Lohia set the ideological philosophy of the socialist parties. In Congress party, stalwarts who have sacrificed their fortunes during the freedom struggle were still at the helm of affairs and Pandit Nehru Ji who was given the responsibility to steer the party and the country by Congress was strongly influenced by the Communist ideology and was instrumental in shaping the then Congress party, philosophy of socialistic pattern of society and the concept of “commanding heights” for public sector.

In spite of his influence and the presence of great leaders from pre-independence time, if there was one party in those days whose ideological base was weak, it was Congress. Since it was in power, people not particularly strongly committed to the ideology but seeing a great opportunity of sharing of power by being part of Congress joined the Congress party at grassroots level.

Hence you have landlords within the party supporting land reforms but sabotaging the same from within. This was true of most of the programmes which were well-designed at the policy-level but failed in their implementation. This is what made Gunnar Myrdal remark India as a “soft State” perfect at law making but poor at implementation. Still to a reasonable extent, even Congress those days was driven by an ideology.

This ideological base allowed leaders to grow within the parties, depending on the contribution they made to the party, not so much in terms of their relationship to the top leadership within the party. Though, to some extent Indira Gandhi was groomed as his successor by Nehru, her subsequent elevation and establishment as leader had to do more with the internal politics within the Congress rather than to the conscious projection of her by Nehru as his successor.

From 60s, the scene of Indian democracy started changing with strong differences emerging within the Communists based on the differences between Russia and China, which weakened them as a force. Slowly they started becoming irrelevant for the Indian politics.

The biggest blow to ideological base to politics was given by Indira Gandhi when she was able to get across to the Indian electorate, based on her individual charisma and promise to deliver. Hence, people started to look towards individual charisma in political leadership rather than to the parties based on ideology. Slowly along with Communists, Swatantra Party became irrelevant and died a natural death.

Socialists became splinter groups. This change in the perception gave opportunity for film personalities to get into the Indian political system since they had already established a strong charisma through the medium of films. This started in 1967 when DMK owed its electoral success in Tamil Nadu to the strong support and campaigning by MG Ramachandran (MGR) who subsequently floated a party and won the elections.

The same was replicated in Andhra Pradesh by Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao. From then on, the ideology of parties has taken a back seat and the individual charisma, popularity and promise of freebies alone are considered as main ingredients for winning in the elections.

The deterioration after 70s and 80s was very sharp, and today practically there is no party with a strong ideological base. This lack of ideological base to political parties has led to emergence of “dynastic politics” and “political legacy” in political arena.

Now that electioneering is an attempt to capture power “to play politics of patronage,” a coalition to capture power can be built on promises of patronage. This loosely knit coalition of interests needs a reference to a charismatic personality to keep it together. Hence the importance of political legacy.

Since political power promises enormous patronage, simultaneously dynastic heir apparents are groomed so that the political power stays within the family. Consequences of politics without ideology and the damage they are doing to the democratic institutions is there everywhere to be seen.

Today, politics is a coalition of vested interests coming together to capture power since capturing power opens up an enormous amount of privileges, benefits and patronage. Simultaneous deterioration in other institutions, total surrender of bureaucracy and manipulation of other institutions have led to total concentration of power in the regimes that are ruling the country and States at any given point of time.

Hence, the desperate no-holds-barred efforts to capture the political power by hook or crook. For some time as long as the Naxalite movement was very strong, the threat of Naxalites was acting as a check on the people’s representatives in their area. With the successful elimination of Naxalite Movement by the enforcing authorities, now the path is wide open for the local representatives to appropriate all the resources the way they want.

Hence the arrogance and power that is being displayed by local leaders whether in terms of abusing the MRO, threatening the Commissioner, Transport, etc. Bureaucracy also has not helped its own cause. Corruption is rampant in the bureaucracy making them highly vulnerable to any action of the government. Hence, they are threatened and blackmailed to do the biddings of the public representative.

This is the sorry state of affairs of the political scenario across the country and the division within the society based on caste, community and religion has made the things much worse.

The ideological base of political thinking as was available in the first half of 20th century may not come back. It would be worthwhile to build a new platform by the thinking individuals in the country beyond party considerations based on fair play, transparency and a commitment to the poor irrespective of caste, creed and religion.

Unless such a leadership is able to emerge and assert itself, the unthinking, desperate and selfish elements are going to take full control of the political spectrum, based on vote-bank politics damaging the interests of the country forever. (Writer is former Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh)

By Krishna Rao Iyr