“The UPA is dead and it lies buried in a kabristan in Bharuch.” This pithy observation was made by a senior Congressman, though he dare not publicly claim its authorship. The reference was to the last resting place of Ahmed Patel who was generally acknowledged to be the informal ‘convenor’ of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) that ruled India from May 2004 to May 2014. Sooner or later, the polity will need to address the central issue: Is the United Progressive Alliance truly dead and has the time come to put in place a different understanding and arrangement to take on the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
UPA, blunted and a target
As a tender of political currency, the UPA is worth as much as a pre-demonetisation two thousand rupee note. Its only notional value is to provide a false sense of exalted importance to Mrs. Sonia Gandhi who remains its titular head. As a working political arrangement, the UPA is a blunted and useless instrument.
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Yet, the “UPA” remains a convenient shorthand for the amorphous political groups and parties arrayed in opposition to the NDA, even though the grouping has no common theme or purpose. Past loyalties and solidarities are not remembered among the erstwhile UPA partners, but it remains a handy object of abuse and ridicule for the Prime Minister, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its designated abusers. The UPA is dubbed the enemy, an unholy congregation of unprincipled leaders and parties.
The BJP gets some purchase because of the Congress’s insistence on preening itself as the centre of the UPA as it happens to be the largest party, even though its paltry kitty of 50 odd seats is not enough for it to demand the Leader of the Opposition status in the Lok Sabha. This claim, in effect, boils down to an expectation on the Congress’s part that its leader, Rahul Gandhi, be acknowledged as the potential ‘shadow’ prime minister, the only national alternative to Narendra Modi.
And that remains the rub because all potential partners are painfully aware that the Congress’s feebleness and infirmities have much to do with the whole unresolved question of a Rahul Gandhi leadership. These possible allies concede that the BJP has laughed its way to bigger and bigger Lok Sabha tallies by mocking and ridiculing the Rahul Gandhi pretensions.
Also read | Sena, anti-BJP parties should unite under UPA banner: Saamana
Nonetheless it is pertinent to keep in mind that, on its part, the NDA, as per the 2019 results, still does not command the majority of popular vote; its combined vote share was nearly 45%, of which the BJP’s contribution was 37.4%; but, now with the departure of the Shiv Sena and the Shiromani Akali Dal, the NDA figure stands reduced. The majority can be said to remain firmly immune to the Modi charm.
A credible alternative
The task before the non-BJP forces and groups will remain about how to cohere in a manner as to present a credible alternative to Mr. Modi’s BJP. But before it can convert itself into an electoral entity, it will need to graft for itself a collective political persona.
It should be taken as axiomatic that these last seven years of the Modi raj have, inevitably, produced a new political economy of satisfaction and anger, a new matrix of anxieties and resentments, and a new calculus of fear and triumphalism. The political challenge is how to mobilise the emerging aspirations and unaddressed discontents; how to provide hope and encouragement to those who have been made to feel helpless, powerless, even disenfranchised.
These frustrations manifest themselves in a million mutinies, big and small, all over India. Meaningful terms such as “struggles,” “resistance” and “movements” may have disappeared from the mainstream media’s lexicon, but these continue to have a meaning and relevance as unjustness and inequities continue to define our society.
The Congress cannot be an honest partner in this venture. Both the Congress and the BJP are parties of status quo and both are unsympathetic to the masses’ yearning for a gentler India. Except for a pro forma different take on the Hindu-Muslim divide, the Congress and the BJP represent the same coin.
Platform not Congress-centric
A Congress-centric alternative to the BJP no longer works. A new national front is needed: an umbrella platform under which very many forces and individuals may get incentivised to take shelter. The Indian political class is remarkably expedient; a new consortium should enable a Naveen Patnaik to firmly de-wean away from the BJP or offer a way out to Nitish Kumar or, as also to accommodate and tame an Asaduddin Owaisi. Just as there are no permanent enemies, there can be no permanent disenchantment. Maharashtra has shown the extent to which partners and allies can be remulched.
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A new national ‘front’ will have to anchor itself in a common political purpose and a shared sense of national destiny. A minimum understanding can be forged around four imperatives: first, restoring a balance between the Centre and the States — the Centre has made a mockery of the federal spirit and arrangement; restoring a sense of partnership and participation to the minorities—it is entirely unhealthy that a ruling party of 303 MPs cannot boast of a single Muslim member; restoring the constitutional institutions to their original vitality as a much needed check on arbitrary and absolute power; and, restoring a semblance to sensitivity and civility to our political life — there is too much violence and ugliness against citizens.
As a serious endeavour
All this is predicated on a premise that the non-Congress, non-BJP platform will not just be a feast of vultures but a serious endeavour in national responsibility and moral seriousness. And such a congregation should be able to hold out an assurance that these leaders are cognisant of the fault lines gnawing the polity; they will need to project a confidence that not only do they have a good idea how these breaches can be plugged but they also have what it will take to ensure that new fault lines do not ensnare the polity. That it can deliver governability and coherence, unity and stability — and, that, it would not push India into uncertainty and anarchy.
Too much of strong leadership has robbed India of its democratic exuberance and constitutional dynamism. Come to think of it, there is nothing inevitable about an extravagantly flamboyant Virat Kohli; a quiet, effective Ajinkya Rahane can also deliver.
Harish Khare is a senior journalist based in Delhi
