The setback that the BJP received in the last general election raises an interesting question. What kind of governance matrix has emerged in the wake of the election results? It was widely expected that the government would have to take the coalition partners on board. This, in and of itself, would not necessarily be a bad thing if it makes for more consensual governance and provides checks and balances. The coalition partners would extract their pound of flesh on a narrow range of issues that mattered to them. But the business of governing can go on. What has emerged, however, is a much deeper crisis. A government barely a few weeks into a new term is acting and behaving as if it is a lame duck government on its last legs. This does not mean that the government will fall. Quite the contrary. But what it does mean is that India will face a protracted governance vacuum.
So what are the elements of the new governance matrix? The most important element is the collapsing authority of the prime minister. The election results have dented his authority seriously. The crescendo of acclaim, the aura of invincibility that he was used to, was punctured. But the graph of his authority is descending even faster than the election results would lead one to believe.
This, in part, is because, at least domestically, the prime minister is giving a sense of being in a total funk — unable to diagnose the reasons for his defeat, and unable to chart a new course. He is on the back-foot in Parliament, not just because the Opposition is stronger and Parliament is more representative. The ability to control has gone. By all accounts, for the first time in his political career, the ability to intuit popular sentiment has disappeared and he seems like a broken record, living on the power of his past slogans that have outlived their freshness and usefulness. The imprimatur of conviction has gone.
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There is more internal dissension within the party. The BJP has made u-turns in the past. But now the sense that they are not doing minimal political homework before bringing proposals is growing. In short, the challenge is not just coalition partners. It is the increasing weakness of the PM. He may well bounce back. But for the moment, despite appearances to the contrary, there is a sense of vacuum at the top. He is saddled with his own weaknesses and inner demons, not the constraints of coalition partners or any potential challengers.
The second element of the governance matrix is that the government will increasingly take recourse to a grammar of anarchy. The BJP’s diagnosis of its own defeat is still conspiratorial, as if, despite having the full might of the state machinery behind it, it was cheated by, amongst other things, foreign powers. When even as talented an administrator as Shivraj Singh Chouhan says “Hamare virodhi — jis mein yeh sach hai ki videshi taakatein bhi shamil hain — yeh hamare desh mein kaisey bhi BJP ki sarkaar na rahe…” In BJP circles, this crescendo has increased after Sheikh Hasina’s downfall in Bangladesh. The point is not the plausibility of this diagnosis, but what it reveals about how the BJP continues to regard the opposition to it.
The BJP’s record on respecting institutions is abysmal. But it is increasingly going to stay on course to use its institutional power to precipitate conflict. There are two signs of this. First, in the states where the BJP is not in power, it will continue to have an investment in using its institutional power to precipitate confrontation. Given the long history of the BJP’s dealings with Delhi government, it is no surprise, but it is still shocking to a sense of propriety that a sitting Lieutenant Governor should write an op-ed against his own elected government. It suggests that the BJP has institutionally learnt nothing, and is still determined to deny the Opposition its due place in governance.
In West Bengal, the R G Kar case has given the pretext not just for legitimate protest — it can potentially be used to lay the groundwork for making Bengal less governable. More damagingly, the one thing the election results have not dented is the BJP’s appetite for communalism. The use of bulldozers and vigilante justice in a communally charged manner continues apace. The setback in the elections has, ironically, led to a greater investment in the Hindutva project. For one thing, the RSS wants to rescue the Hindutva project from its identification with Modi. For another thing, the BJP is at a dead-end. Its record on governance was dented by the last election.
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What India needs most is what might be called the radicalism of routine governance. Its besetting weakness is not the absence of big ideas or reforms. In many ways, the Indian state is now more capable. But the basic humdrum, almost invisible, task of governing like reforming police, improving schools, fixing sewage, managing the environment, changing bureaucratic cultures, regulatory clarity, is something that eludes most governments. Even the brightest and most promising schemes revert to a mean after a while.
The absence hinders India’s growth potential, and mission mode schemes cannot compensate for its absence. But routine governance does not provide a basis for mass mobilisation or electoral coalitions. So, you are left with just two instruments — welfare populism and ethnic mobilisation. The BJP will opt for both. But again, the compulsion will not come from the coalition partners. It will come from the BJP’s own weaknesses.
The main driver of the new governance matrix is not the presence of coalition partners. It is that the BJP is now characterised by a combination of a prime minister who seems increasingly out of sorts, a governing style that is deepening institutional confrontation, and a civil society rhetoric that is still invested in political communalism. These three elements make the BJP weaker as a governing force even more than the numbers imply. But these three elements are operating in an environment that is offering more resistance.
A more competitive electoral arena was likely to open up some space for independent institutions. On constitutional values, the judiciary is still doing its unprincipled stance of what one lawyer described as “one step forward, two steps sideways and three steps backward jurisprudence.” It is still not a reliable friend of liberty. But at least on matters of bail, the sense of government’s control over the judiciary has abated somewhat. With an emboldened Opposition now also itching for social confrontation, India’s governance matrix is going to enter uncharted territory.
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The writer is a contributing editor, of The Indian Express
