The Hindu : This anti-incumbency humbug

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Wednesday, Mar 05, 2003

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This anti-incumbency humbug

By Harish Khare

The anti-incumbency thesis is essentially an anti-democratic proposition... It betrays a disrespect for the voters and their capacity to appreciate a good administrator or reject a non-performer.

LED BY Lal Krishna Advani, the BJP establishment is busy offering an explanation for its party's comprehensive defeat in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections: anti-incumbency factor. In short, the argument boils down to a formulation that irrespective of the nature of governance — good, bad or indifferent — the voters would vote a Government out after five years; and, that irrespective of the nature of leadership of a Chief Minister — credible, popular or charismatic — the electorate would turn its back on him. Mr. Advani offers a consolation that the same anti-incumbency curse would be the undoing of the Congress Governments in Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh later this year. And, though Mr. Advani would not admit it, but the logic of this anti-incumbency argument is that the ouster of the Vajpayee regime/NDA Government should be a foregone conclusion.

For a party that had long been schooled in the RSS culture of disinformation and falsehood, this "anti-incumbency factor" argument has curative effects, almost self-hypnotic. The BJP crowd is quite welcome to this escape from reality. It is another matter that the anti-incumbency thesis stands refuted in Tripura at the same time it was deemed to be operating in Himachal Pradesh. Nor does the anti-incumbency thesis explain the BJP's own victory in Gujarat, or Laloo Yadav's continued rule in Bihar or that of the Left Front in West Bengal or the re-election of the TDP under Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh.

The historical incorrectness apart, the anti-incumbency thesis is essentially an anti-democratic proposition. It is anchored in less than the requisite faith in the ability of the masses to sit in judgment over the rulers and their performance; it emanates from a belief that the voters do not have the capacity to decide as to who has been a sensitive, hard-working, and sincere administrator and who has turned out to be a callous, inefficient or errant ruler. The anti-incumbency thesis betrays a disrespect for the voters and their capacity to appreciate a good administrator or reject a non-performer.

This elitist perspective further carries with it an unhealthy indifference to the requirement of good governance. The polity has paid a price of this indifference in Jammu and Kashmir; for long, the Abdullah dynasty behaved as if it was obliged only to rule, without any commensurate requirement of performance. Anyone who questioned the waywardness of a fun-loving Chief Minister was immediately dubbed as anti-Indian and was pushed into joining the separatist ranks. The Abdullahs were encouraged to believe and act in this manner because they knew that the masses did not have a say in the matter; the first genuine opportunity the people got to vote freely, the Abdullahs were out.

Now the BJP appears to be going the National Conference way. A party that once captured the imagination of the middle classes by its promise of "ram rajya" has succumbed to the view that "governance does not matter". Carried away as the BJP leaders are by the ineffectual challenge the Congress-led Opposition offers, they are unwilling to appreciate the unchanging requirement that the ruler must be deemed to be a sensitive king, mindful of his `raj dharma'.

There is a sub-text to this elitist perspective: a cultivated tolerance of corrupt ways of corrupt men, as long as they happen to the favourite of this or that faction of the BJP "high command". The Dhumal regime in Himachal Pradesh was reeking of corruption; the Chief Minister's own colleagues had gone public with a litany of corrupt practices. In the course of the elections, the BJP leadership pooh-poohed the evidence of "corruption" offered by the Punjab Chief Minister against his Himachal Pradesh counterpart; in fact, some clever BJP leaders were arguing that the Punjab Chief Minister had done the party a favour as his "campaign" had produced a backlash to the BJP's advantage.

This cultivated tolerance for corrupt men and their amoral ways was very much underlined in the manner in which the Tehelka revelations were treated at the highest level of the NDA Government. Party partisanship takes precedence over demands of honesty, efficiency or morality in public life. It is this partisan approach that forced the BJP leadership to go along with the corrupt as well as non-performing Badal dynasty in Punjab. And it is the same stance of studied indifference that is making the BJP leadership, from Mr. Advani downward, to redefine the meaning of "suraaj" in Uttar Pradesh.

This mental comfort with corruption has instigated a new ruling elite culture of bonding of the most decadent kind. Every evening the wheelers and dealers of the current regime can be seen wining and dinning in a fashion that is perhaps reminiscent of Ahmed Shah Rangila's hedonistic reign. The political "leaders" are now part of "people like us" and the Page Three Crowd frivolity. From RSS pracharaks to the corporate crooks, from the corrupt to the criminal, they all uninhibitedly observes the rites of modern equivalent of the feudal "mehafils". Most of the chief ministers on their all too frequent visits to the capital are eager and enthusiastic members of this "mehafil" syndrome; and, then, they take back with them to their States this new culture of indulgence and parasitism. Inevitably this jugalbandhi among the crooks takes a toll of the morals and manners of the ruling classes, invariably at the expense of the public good and national welfare.

There is a dangerous side effect of this anti-incumbency thesis. Once in a while the incumbent is tempted to get the better of the anti-incumbency factor by cranking up emotionalism of the kind witnessed in Gujarat last year. The most extreme manifestation of this temptation at the national level can be instigation of xenophobia against the enemy; as it is the BJP is experimenting with a liturgy of "national security", creating a fear psychosis among the majority community. It is in this ambience of indifference to good governance and creditable performance that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad arguments and slogans appear attractive to the non-performers.

The all too eager willingness to abide by the anti-incumbency thesis only shows the BJP's retarded growth as a natural right-wing alternative to the Congress. Earlier the BJP establishment had behaved as if believed that as long as it wore its deshbhakti on its saffron sleeves, the citizens would not make any demands on them in terms of delivering. Now the new excuse is anti-incumbency. Though the BJP's retardation is a matter between the party and its bosses in the RSS, its infatuation with the anti-incumbency thesis is not only contagious to the other parties but is also harmful to the wider polity. A political system renews its democratic legitimacy only when it provides a setting for a clash of ideas and a clash of men and women of ideas and visions. The anti-incumbency thesis is a wilful distraction from this core democratic requirement.

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