Election Commission of India 1

NAME OF THE NEWSPAPER THE HINDU " DATE: 2 2 AUG 2012/

Imagining a ~ew-- --

national politicsYogendra Yadav

There is at last some clarity on thepolitics of the anti-corruptionmovements. Baba Rarndev's dra-

"matlc call for Congress-hatao andthe 'political turn' of the Anna movementhave confirmed that a movement aim~d atrooting out corruption ca~~ot defer a directencounter with party politics for very long.The manner in which both decisions wereannounced left something to be desired. Theannouncement by 'Team Anna' invited seri-ous criticism that it was a hasty afterthought,a face-saving device or, worse, a sinister de-sign. Baba Ramdev's flip-flop and final dal-liance with the Bharatiya Janata Party andother non-Congress forces irrespective oftheir own record on corruption were hard~yexpected to add to his credibili.ty. Yet thisclarity is to be welcomed, f?r .It opens a,nunusual window of opportumty for people spolitics.

Three tendenciesRight from its beginnings last .year, the

anti-corruption movement comprised threetendencies. One section was staunchly op-posed to all parties, all politicians a~d allforms of politics. More pronou~ced ~n th.efirst .phase of the movement, this anti-poli-tics tendency had worrisome authoritarianovertones. The second tendency translatedanti-corruption as anti-Cong~es~ and ~id notca e if its actions ended up aligning With theopposition parties, especially the BJP. E~en-tually owned up by Baba Ramdev an~ brieflypreferred by Team Anna last year, this ~end-ency has evoked suspici0I?-about t~e hiddenhand ofthe sangh parivar In the anti-corrup-tion movement.

The third tendency, which has finally pre-vailed within the Anna movement, thoughnot without dissent, searched for its own,alternative form of politics. While this hasgenerally been understood as forming a newpolitical party, the impulse underlying thistendency awaits more careful elaboration. Aformal separation of this third tendencyfrom the politics of anti-politics and merenon-Congressism may appear to have weak-ened the popular upsurge and let the rulingclass off the hook. Seen in a wider context,however, this development has opened upthe possibility of new ideas, energies andallies for alternative politics of people'smovements.

A political vacuum marks the people'smovement sector. Ever since its emergencein the 1980s, the movement sector - com-prising farmers' movements, Dalit move-ments, women's movements, environmentalmovements and the movements for infor-mation and deepening of democracy - is oneof the most vibrant spaces in the democraticarena: These movements are inherently po-litical in that they seek to challenge the set-tled relations of power. They have quietlyshifted the terms of .political engagementand brought new issues to the foreground.Legislation and policies like the Right toInformation, the Mahatma Gandhi Rural

.,

Nirvachan Sadan, Ashoka Road, New Delhi - 110001

Election Commission of IndiaNAME OF THE NEWSPAPER DATE: 2 z AU G 2012THE HINDU

The Anna Hazare movement must measuresuccess not in terms of electoral gains but itsability to set the political agenda

Employment Guarantee Act, the Forest Actand the new Land Acquisition and Rehabil-itations Act are a tribute to the power andcreativity of these movements.

Yet these movements have not succeededin posing a direct challenge to mainstreampolitics. Attempts to establish political par-ties representing the movements failed tocross the high threshold of viability in ourelectoral system. These include the SamataSangathan and Karnataka Rajya RayyataSangha in the 1980s,. the Samajwadi Jan-parish ad and Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha inthe 1990s, and the Loksatta Party, Women'sPolitical Front, Uttarakhand Jan Vahini andSarvodaya Karnataka in the last decade. At-tempts at forming a grand coalition of thesemovements in electoral politics did not workin the last two Lok Sabha elections.

These effo have involved some of thefinest activists and thinkers of our time.There have been many creative organisa-tional experiments and ideological innova-tions. Yet, they remained largely invisible:most educated and politically informed In-dians may not have heard about these. Eventhe most powerful mass movements failed totranslate their support in electoral terms. Inorder to give effect to their political agenda,these movements remained dependent onthe very political establishment they cri-tiqued and struggled against.

During this period, mainstream politicsbecame more insulated from popular strug-gles and movements. Here's the paradoxthough. ever since the sudden decline of theCongress in 1989, the third space has ex-panded while the third force has shrunk. Thefailure of the Janata Dal in the early 1990sand the collapse of the United Front experi-ment in the mid-1990s meant that much ofthe expanding political energy of the thirdspace drifted towards the two poles repre-

sented by the United Progressive Allianceand the National Democratic Alliance. TheLeft used to be a natural home for popularstruggles and movements, but its ideologicaldominance, moral authority and politicalpresence have been severely eroded. The en-ergy of the third space is in search of a na-tional political vehicle of its own.

This is where the anti-corruption move-ment offers something of a breakthrough. Itis after more than three decades that a move-ment outside the organised party sector hasregistered a nationwide presence and visibil-ity. More than the number of people thatparticipated in highly visible protests in Del-hi, what matters is that the Anna Hazare-Iedmovement spawned smaller protests in alarge number of towns and even villages. Afairly large proportion of citizens who didnot participate in any protest heard about itand sympathised with it. The activists, sup-porters and sympathisers of-the anti-corrup-tion movement constitute a larger pool ofpotential support for alternative politicsthan generated by any other popular move-ment in recent times. After a very long time,a movement promises to cross the highthreshold of viability required for creating anational political alternative.

At the same time, this is no more than apromise of a breakthrough. The support wasnot based on any grassroots mobilisationand was almost entirely triggered by ex-traordinary media coverage in August lastyear. Therefore the support base is verymixed and variable and could well be ephem-eral. Besides, a good deal of the support forthe anti-corruption movement may nottranslate into support for alternativepolitics.

Ideological issuesThere are ideological issues here. A single

issue like corruption could serve as the focalpoint of mobilisation of otherwise contraryforces in a movement. This was a smartchoice: the more 'classical' radical issues donot permit crosS'-sectionai mobilisation, nordo they resonate in popular consciousness.At the same time, corruption understood in anarrow way cannot be the centre-piece of analternative politics. Minimally, an under-standing of corruption needs to go beyondbribery of individual politicians and bureau-crats; corruption embedded into policies andperpetuated by the system needs to be ad-dressed. There have been legitimate con-cerns about where this movement standsvis-a-vis bigger questions like communal-ism, caste-based injustice, crony capitalismand ecological destruction. Anna's move-ment was wise to distance itself from com-munal and anti-Dalit positions, but it is to beseen if it can expand its ideological band-width to include larger issues raised by peo-

pie's movements in the last couple of

decades. . orga-The movement also faces serious

nisational and leadership challenges. Thef the movement required a leader

success 0 " hall f quicklike Anna Hazare. The c enge 0in the face of sudden success also

response .. . b a small andrequired decision making. y akiflexible group. This is not SUIted.for.m ng a

iti to political organisation. Anytranst IOn . ld .form of political organisation wou. requirea clearly established and cons~tatlv~ p~oc~-dure for mature decision-makmg. T e ~a t -

hi f the movement would nee 0ers ip 0 . h t dreflect the social diversity of ~ e coun ry~_the rising aspirations of the hitherto margialised social groups.

The larger challengeFinally there is the challen~e of P?litical

and orga~isational vision. Wlul.e ending thefast, 'Team Anna' co~~itted Itself t~ cre-ating an alternative political forc~. ~ut It wassoon translated into a new .politlcal par~aiming at electoral success in 20~4. ~t remains to be seen if this new.ef!ort ISallV~ tothe larger challenge of imag~mng and build-ing alternative politics. Specifically, th.e c~al-lenge is to visualise a political organ~satlO~that does not replicate the structural aws 0mainstream political parties. The. movementalso faces the challenge of looking beY~i~~the next election and redefining what po 'tcal 'success' means. Instead of exposing I.-self to conventional measures of success I~terms of votes and seats, the moveme.nneeds to think of its success in terms of I~~im act on the political agenda and the estalis~ed political culture. Its success depe':ldsnot so much on whether it wins an.eleCtionbut on how much of positive energy It releas-es into the political system. .

In other words, the anti-corruption move-ment offers a possible bre~hrough .for

fere- _

atin an alternative politics,. but It acesseri~us mobilisational, ideological and orga-nisational challenges. Fortunately, the p~~~

le's movements can complement~nti-corruPtion moveme~t i':l this resp~ct. ~fusion of the tendency within the antl~~orru tion movement committed t~ a politlc:ual£ernative and the stream within peoP.1.esmovements wedded to the idea of alternat.lvepolitics is the need of the hour. Su.ch~lfuS~O~is historically possibl~ an~ desira e, ufor ing it in real life IS going to be a verydiJcult and delicate operation. Me~a patedkar and Aruna Roy, two of the leading an _most credible voices in the movemen\~ctor have cautioned against thi~ move. e.yare' not non-political and certainly not anti-

olitical, but they are not convmced ~f the~erit of turning a pOI?ular m~vement mto. a

olitical party. Keeping their concer':ls. m~ind and yet trying to forge a new pol~ticalinstrument is the challenge of our times.This is the challenge for all tho~~ who dare tothink beyond the limited. poh~lcai alterna-tives that we have had t.o.live WIth. as

(The author is a politicsl analyst and hbeen associated with various people's move-ments for the last three decades.)

Nirvachan Sadan, Ashoka Road, New Delhi 110001