YPOST

Divided, We Rule?

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. - Plato

Democracy is more than a form of Government. It is a special condition of society. It seeks to preserve the dignity of man and to build itself on it. It represents a state of society in which the rights of people are equal, and their thoughts and sentiments are similar. It exists where rival claims of individual and society are equitably adjusted, where every citizen is free and has a right to order its life to his best advantage, where, the opportunities for all are equal, where the citizens choose their government by the exercise of free votes, and also control its policy by their opinions freely exercised, where dignity of man and rule of law are to be found.

Is this what we see in India today? Is this ideology reflected in the politics that permeates throughout the nation?

 “For all the flaws and vices of many of contemporary India's regional political figures, the regionalisation of India's politics is a democratic outcome that has emerged through the dynamic evolution of India's democracy over six decades," says London School of Economics (LSE) professor, Sumantra Bose.

According to me, the face of democracy has undergone a not-so-desirable change because of the upsurge of regional political parties. The regionalisation of India's political landscape has decentralised power and has deepened the cracks of the country's democracy. The local parties which are part of the coalition government at the centre use their power to stall the development activities of the Centre that are genuinely intended for the growth of the country. For instance, TMC’s opposition to FDI in retail, aviation and insurance sector. The local parties for their political benefits divide the people of different states on the lines of language, culture and tradition. This affects the overall unity and integrity of the country. It affects India’s credibility in the global front and portrays India as unreliable in terms of sticking to its long-held policies. For example, by voting against Sri Lanka in UN resolution on war crimes against Tamils owing to pressure from DMK, India broke away from a long held tradition of not voting for country-specific resolutions. This has significantly affected Indo-Srilanka relations.

Disputes between the states that are ruled by the local parties becomes difficult to settle since they raise the dispute from administrative and governance level to political and personal level by exploiting the sentiments of the people of the individual states. This often culminates in violence through strikes, bandhs and in the worst case, attack on the other state people.   For instance, Cauvery dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu; Maharashtra political group’s intolerance towards people from other states. The state governments that get more funds can use these funds for subsidising more and more basic necessities thereby making the people lethargic and killing the motivation to work hard. Subsidising the scant resources in particular state can impact the prices in other states.

A particularly ripe outcome of the emergence of regional parties is the demand for bifurcation of states. For example, Telangana and Gorkhaland. Politicians have lost the sense of the bigger picture and have devoted all their energies to demand a separate land for their ‘own’ people. The case of the upcoming 29th state, Telangana, is very different from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh or Uttarakhand. Its birth would eclipse the parent state itself, reducing it to nothing but a small block (Rayalaseema) and a coastal strip (Coastal Andhra) on the map of the country.

The Centre too has taken the stance of appeasement. They do not want to rub any of the regional parties the wrong way, so that they can secure an electorate in their territory. It is slowly and steadily turning into a business with stress on profit and loss. For the Congress, Telangana was their trump card. Telangana has 17 Lok Sabha seats and 119 Assembly seats (AP has a total of 294 Assembly seats). If there is a Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS)-Congress coalition/merger, it can aspire to the magic figure of 60 Assembly seats and 12-14 LS seats here. It is believed that since the national parties have failed to represent the particular needs and aspirations of the people of the region, regional political parties have been formed with ethnic considerations. Ethnic dimension, therefore, has been one of the most important components of regionalism in India.

During last two decades, the rise of regional parties has influenced not only state politics; but also the national parties and national politics. With sizeable electoral support, the regional parties have not only managed to win elections and form state governments, they have also influenced the national politics.

Thus one can safely conclude that regional politics have led to fractured mandates which undoubtedly are the future of Indian democracy.

Sramana Chakraborty

M.sc Media, P.G 1

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