Post-Poll Prognosis: National Parties That Don’t Federate Will Fail

Many political observers, some with the motive of proving that the BJP has not made progress in the recent assembly elections to five states, have pointed out that the dominant theme is the growing clout of regional parties.

But while this seems obvious, given the wins of J Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu and Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, the problem lies in two areas: one is definitional, the other is about how sub-national and sub-regional politics are structured.

Before we sink our teeth into analysis, here’s my prediction upfront: in future assembly elections, sub-regional forces will start doing to so-called strong regional parties what regional parties have done to national parties.

We tend to define a party as regional purely because its electoral footprint is in one state, or occasionally in two of them (Left in Kerala and West Bengal). But should a national party be defined by national thinking and agenda or just by the results achieved? Is the Left a regional party, even though its thinking is national in practice? Can BSP be called a regional party just because it has found success in only one state so far, when its agenda is actually broader and national (empowerment of Dalits, which is not a purely regional issue)? Can definitions change just because a party loses a few elections (as in the case of the Congress)? Parties such as BJP, Congress, the Left and BSP are surely national in thinking.

The second issue is that we have made the word “regional” coterminous with the linguistic state. But this assumption was never true, and is changing even more in the new political map of India. There always were many Hindi-speaking states (is the Hindi belt a region, or Uttar Pradesh?) Now we even have two Telugu-speaking states. One should not rule out future divisions of state even within the same language groups (Vidarbha in Maharashtra), or states where ethnicities vary (will Gorkhaland become a reality at some point?)

Language may not remain a uniting factor when sub-regional factors come to the fore. The logic of parties developing an economic and development agenda means pressures may come from ethnic, religious, caste, class and rural-urban factors. Is Jammu & Kashmir a region or a federation of three sub-regions, Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh? Is Delhi a state/region, or a national mini-state, whose heart is urban? Is Mumbai really Maharashtra, or a potential future urban state whose heart is business? Is Bengaluru really regional or international in focus?

The mistake commentators make is to think regionalism is rising, when what is really rising is aspiration. In future, political parties have to begin narrow-casting their messages to the electorate, and this applies as much to parties we currently think of as regional, as to the national parties.

The political future of India is likely to be a mix of three trends – national, regional and sub-regional.

Contrary to what we have assumed, Arvind Kejriwal’s success in Delhi is not due to his anti-corruption focus, but his ability to think about Delhi as an urban polity. The BJP as a national party simply could not grasp this, and the same could be the case with the Congress. While Kejriwal talked of schools, hospitals and law and order, the BJP talked of Modi. An urban city-state cannot be run on national lines.

If you look at the recent assembly results, at levels below the surface, we see several pointers to sub-regionalism and mini results that we cannot ignore. Sample a few:

In Tamil Nadu, despite the close contest where wins were often decided by a few hundred votes, the DMK won more in the north-east and southern districts. The DMK appears to be more of an urban party than the AIADMK, and the minority vote (especially in the south, where the Church is a large influence) went to the DMK-Congress alliance.

In West Bengal, in the Muslim-dominated border districts sandwiched between Bihar and Bangladesh, the Muslim vote largely went against the Trinamool. The Congress made big gains, and 18 of its 44 MLAs were Muslims – a proportion much larger than the state’s Muslim share (27 percent). Despite the overwhelming nature of its overall verdict, Trinamool’s Muslim candidates won only half the seats they contested. Something is cooking here.

A whole host of Muslim-only parties are rising. While we always had the IUML in Kerala, similar things are happening in Hyderabad, Assam, and Maharashtra. It is only a matter of time Muslim-only parties gain strength in many states the way caste-based parties have proliferated. Kerala set the trend, and it is foolish to pretend that Muslims can’t have parties of their own when Yadavs, Marathas or Dalits can. It is best to think of Muslims as the biggest caste-group in India.

In Kerala, the rise of the BJP-led Hindu coalition along with BDJS with 15 percent of the vote means that the majority Hindus have realised that they have been effectively marginalised in minority-biased coalitions. It is only a matter of time before this crystallises into electoral arithmetic and vote gains.

In Assam, the vote was clearly Hindu versus Muslim this time. As this CSDS analysis in The Indian Express shows, there was a major Hindu consolidation around the BJP-led front, which sealed victory. Assam’s elections may thus become more influenced by religious and existential considerations in future. Despite the BJP sweep, Assam effectively gave two mandates; a Hindu mandate to the BJP alliance, and a non-Hindu minority mandate to the AIUDF and Congress.

Even in earlier elections, we tend to notice the overall vote rather than the sub-regional vote. In Gujarat in 2012, Modi won, but his was largely an urban Gujarat mandate. The Congress continues to be strong in rural Gujarat.

Another way to deduce this phenomenon at the regional and sub-regional levels is to look at which states have never had a coalition government – assuming a coalition represents the coming together of two or more parties with different electoral bases.

Barring just five or six major states - Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Madhya Pradesh and the pre-split Andhra Pradesh -  the rest of India either is ruled by a coalition, or had one in the last 25 years after liberalisation.

States currently being run by a coalition, starting from the top are: J&K, Punjab, Maharashtra, Kerala, Bihar, and Assam (ie, a third of the country by population weight). States which saw coalitions or minority governments in the recent past include West Bengal, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka.

In three-quarters of India, it is only the first-past-the-post system that gives us majority governments, and not coalitions. The only conclusion to draw is that in future sub-regionalism may matter as much as regionalism. This is evident in voting patterns already. We will see a rise in sub-regional demands, including the formation of new political parties that will see voters differently.

India’s polity is not just federating, but super-federating, where the sub-regions are becoming as important as regions.

India is also urbanising at a rapid rate. Some 32 percent of India is already urban, and another 15-20 percent is developing urban features. India thus needs more urban parties like AAP.

The implications of this changing dynamic are the following:

One, “national” parties need to federate and super-federate, which means the leadership must be determined from below, not above. Top-down leadership will not work. This was one of the reasons for the BJP’s defeat in Delhi and Bihar, and for the Congress everywhere. The BJP cannot rely on Modi’s charisma to work at regional and sub-regional levels.

Two, “national” parties must have three agendas – a national one, a regional one, and a local one. The BJP in Mumbai need not have the same agenda as the BJP in Vidarbha or even in the whole state. An Arvind Kejriwal cannot have the same agenda for Delhi and Punjab. And it’s not about local aspirations alone. It is about having a local leadership that is not subservient to national leadership except on broad principles. National parties must talk defence, foreign policy, macroeconomics, monetary policy, and devolution. State parties must talk agriculture, jobs, land, industry, labour laws. Local and urban parties must talk infrastructure, local taxation, etc.

Three, even regional parties must federate further. The one-cap-fits-all policies developed at the state level make sense only for very small states like Himachal or Uttarakhand or Pondicherry or Delhi, but not for Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, etc. The needs of Purvanchal, Bundelkhand, Western UP and central UP are not the same. The state needs bifurcation, but even more than that it needs sub-regional leaders and development plans.

The politics of sub-regionalism is only now developing, and we will see not only “national” parties emasculated, but also regional ones. The only way out for them is to “super-federate”.

As the country’s largest party, the BJP’s road to Congress-mukt Bharat will be by super-federating. A Congress stuck with the dynasty at the top cannot even federate, and if the BJP changes faster than the Congress on this front, the latter will automatically decline.

AAP has a future if it redefines itself as an urban party, when it will seriously threaten the BJP’s dominance.

The regional parties have a future if they coalesce into a broad federal party, which will rewrite the constitution to shift all powers to the state barring defence, foreign policy, inter-state commerce and internal security, communications, and macro- and monetary policy.

India can grow fast only if it devolves power downwards. It cannot be ruled from Delhi or even the state capitals.