[Marxism] The political landscape in India today is truly depressing, but all is not lost.

[Politicus E.]

After comrade Proyect posted this N.Y.T. article, I was prompted to
realize that there will no doubt be an increase in the output of the
U.S. commentariat upon the announcement of the outcome of the present
Indian election.  (The results should be announced on May 16th.)  It
is probable that most of these articles will amount to nothing but
propaganda in the negative sense, although others will have the veneer
of "balance" despite their pro-capitalist political agenda.  In
anticipation of this state of affairs, I forward the following E.P.W.
editorial (from the 18 April 2009 issue), which may be of interest to
those comrades who are not acquainted with the vagaries of electoral
politics in India.
epoliticus

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The political landscape in India today is truly depressing, but all is
not lost. Outwardly they exude confidence – the Congress Party’s
campaign tune Jai Ho from the Oscar winning movie
Slumdog Millionaire boldly asserts, almost biblically in translation,
“Let there be victory”, while the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP)
self-assured Kushal Neta, Nirnayak Sarkaar (Able
leader, Decisive government) projects L K Advani’s presumed image of
aplomb. But beneath this veneer, there is a sense of unease bordering
on nervousness among the main political
parties in the run-up to the general elections, which perhaps stems
from the unpredictable and shifting character of coalition politics in
this fissured land. The global economic and financial
crisis has severely jolted the Indian economy, adding to the
prevailing gloom on the political landscape. But more importantly,
slowly but steadily, the pervasive political opportunism and the
sordid state of affairs in the political realm seem to have brought on
popular disaffection and public cynicism of an order not witnessed
before. Given that the electoral outcome is highly uncertain, the
Congress Party, the BJP, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
[CPI(M)]-led left parties, have been or will be (postelections) vying
to draw in the various regional and caste-based parties into their
respective coalitions, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Third Front, respectively.

The Congress has been, it seems, caught between two stools in Uttar
Pradesh (UP) and Bihar. On the one hand, there is the imperative of
retaining power at the centre, and on the other, it
wants to (and, out of touch with reality, thinks it can) rebuild its
moribund organisation in these two important states. Chasing this
mirage, it has refused to be relegated to a minor player by its
prospective electoral allies, the Samajwadi Party in UP, and the
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in Bihar.

The BJP, despite charging the Congress with being “soft” on terrorism
in order to preserve its “Muslim vote bank”, has a lot in common with
its principal adversary. Going by its manifesto, the
party wants to “strengthen the India-US strategic partnership” and
“pursue enhanced cooperation with Israel”. Indeed, in seeking to brush
aside the fact that the accused in the Malegaon blasts case are
Hindutva extremists, the BJP and Congress are one, for the
Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government in Maharashtra does not
seem interested in vigorously pursuing investigation and prosecution
in that case any longer. Of course, unlike the
BJP, the Congress does not extol the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s
vision of a Hindu rashtra or pass off Hindu communalism as
“nationalism”. But like the BJP, it is hoping that the electoral
outcome will make it conducive for it to pursue the agenda of big
business. After all, there is little difference between the two
parties in how much their policies are influenced by corporate India.

The BJP-led NDA, however, has been weakened by a series of defections
– the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the Telugu
Desam Party (TDP), the National Conference, and the Biju Janata Dal
(BJD) have over the years changed sides.

The formation of the Third Front began to engage the serious attention
of the left parties after they withdrew support to the Congress-led
UPA government in July 2008. The left, it seems, has
no qualms about allying with the AIADMK, the TDP, the Bahujan Samaj
Party (BSP), the Janata Dal (Secular) [JD(S)] or the BJD, or indeed,
any of the constituents of the UPA or the NDA who might defect, like
the Nationalist Congress Party or the Janata Dal (United) [JD(U)]. It
is amusing to find left leaders giving a puff to the “progressive”
credentials of J Jayalalithaa, hobnobbing with Chandrababu Naidu
(earlier the poster boy of the World Bank group) and H D Deve Gowda,
all former partners of the BJP, and wooing Mayawati who has repeatedly
allied with the Hindutva party. The left has also been in touch with
the JD(U), which has
been a loyal member of the NDA from 1999. Its latest alliance with the
BJD, which had partnered the BJP for 11 years, has now bestowed on
that party a “secular” tag, despite the BJD’s culpability for the
anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal. The BJD has allotted the CPI and
the CPI(M) one seat each for the Lok Sabha elections and four and
five, respectively, in the assembly polls, for they helped prop up the
former’s government in the confidence vote on 11 March.

As the country goes into the first phase of voting for elections to
the 15th Lok Sabha, the political landscape is truly depressing. The
post-election spectacle is of course yet to unfold when the various
small parties reassess their options; perhaps the calculus may shift
in favour of their striking a good bargain with the Congress or the
BJP; the left may also find reason enough to re-ally with the
Congress, or the possibility of a Third Front government may unfold,
and this coalition may then seek the support of the Congress to get a
majority vote. But why get so despondent about all this? Does not
democracy, in the real sense, require freedom
and equality? Can it really thrive amidst widespread poverty and deep
inequality? As we go to press, the first phase of voting is underway;
to speak the truth, the electorate has gone out to
choose which members of the political establishment, financed and
co-opted by the dominant classes, will be governing the country on
behalf of those very classes. No wonder we have governments for the
markets, by the markets and of the markets. Rosa Luxemburg is often
remembered for her quote: “there is no socialism without democracy”,
but she also added that there can be “no democracy without socialism”.