The rise of Narendra Modi & BJP through a historic win
in May 2014 General Elections has in a way marked the end of Centre of left
forces on the political land scape. But it is generally perceived that this has
got nothing to do with ideological affinity between voters and forces of political
right, but about economics. Hence the dichotomy of political right versus
economic right must be discerned with in the Indian context.
While the imagination of communists could not go beyond the
narrower theory of economic exploitation of human condition by capitalist
forces, the admirers of Communism did not want to accept this political
ideology as it is, hence they have customized this to their local conditions and called it as socialism. That is why you could see in
the name of communism/Socialism people could do horrible things across the
world. Be it the polpot in Cambodia, Stalin & Lenin in USSR and on the other
extreme Cuba and Venezuela.
When it comes to economic right the debate was always
between Free trade v/s state controlled economic systems. If we have to go by results
of the past 50 years then free trade has won the game, notwithstanding the 2008
crisis. India has always been at cross roads. Even though the congress leaders
were entrenched in Communist ideology and their visceral hatred towards Political-Hindu
right, they were confused as to which path they should take. As they were
already aware of the violence that was being committed in the name of communism
throughout the world during their time, though they could not have acknowledged
this publicly. Hence this confused approach of mixed method of economic policies.
The intention of such an approach was to use the best of both
the worlds. The other way of looking at it is as indecisiveness of Congress
leaders who ruled right immediately after India’s independence for a
considerably longer period of time. The other phenomenon that the left could
not explain was why until economy was liberalized there was no change in human
condition in India? We should pursue some answers for such questions.
The primary problem was that the communist (Congress &
allied) forces clubbed the economic & political ideologies in to one.
Though an effective articulation of their political ideologies could have kept
them in power for decades, but since there is no impact in the lives of ordinary people because
of leftwing economics, people started rejecting Communists as a whole, the
defeat of Congress in general elections is a compounded result of such an
effect in addition to other reasons.
Indian political right is normally associated with BJP &
RSS, in other words Hindu right. The Muslim & Christian right is hushed up
as minority rights etc, which is not only incorrect but dangerous. First of all
Muslim & Christian right has got nothing in common with Hindutva i.e.,
Hindu right. While the former talks about a theocratic state they later emphasizes
decentralized polity. The Ramrajya which Mahatma Gandhi desired is an example
of polity which Hindutva aspires to achieve, after all nobody can call Gandhi a
communal.
But the economic right is totally different from political
right. We can loosely call the economic right as the lobby group of free
market, but it does not end just there. Additionally there is no political
party in India that supports blanket capitalism; the problem has always been
that of an effective regulation & implementation of rules and role of the
state as an impartial facilitator.
For decades Congress and Communists have managed to morph two
different strains of thought in to one calling it as political ideology and
churning out political explanations for the economic condition of peoples without
actually improving their lives. They instead chose to feed citizens with subsidies
and other free sops with out empowering them by generating
employment and other opportunities.
Political stability is possible only through economic
stability. We have had examples of an ordinary citizen trying to assassinate American
president due to frustration out of economic insecurity, read Charles J.
Guiteau.
At the moment the media stirred up controversies are used to
feed the prime time watchers with some propaganda that Political Hindu-right
messing it up. We should understand that this in in line with a larger game
plan i.e., to restrict the chances of coming back. This might create an
impression that political left (Non-BJP) is having an edge over the govt. we
should see that when the time is up to pass the bridge.
The economic right has given the government a long rope and
is still with the govt. People are fine with this as long as there is an
improvement in their lives economically speaking in a time bound manner and BJP
might not want to wait for all the five years. The Govt. should expect more
distraction from political left further for the next four years, this will continue
until they are defeated more decisively in 2019 elections. Along with
addressing challenges of Political left, the govt. should simultaneously deliver
on the economic prosperity. We all know Modi is just good at that. We have seen
it in Gujarat. India wants to feel it.
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