Somebody in the Opposition party ought to stand up and tell Rahul Gandhi: “You have opted for politics, and politics is about power”. But the discredited palace retainers will not speak up
So the Bihari, Nitish Kumar, has joined hands with the Bahari, Narendra Modi, of whom he spoke so savagely less than two years ago while appealing to Bihar’s voters to keep outsiders out of the State. It could be argued that Modi was no less harsh in waging a war of words, questioning the very DNA of his political foe.
But last week’s breathtakingly stunning developments in Bihar only serve to demonstrate, not for the first time though, that politics does not follow a predetermined script, that there are no permanent foes and friends but only permanent interests. Or, to quote a cliche, there are no full-stops in politics and it is not a zero sum game.
Nitish Kumar believed that he was destined to emerge as the choice of the nation. When he saw that not happening, he broke with the BJP — he had no problems with the party but refused to accept the party’s choice of its prime ministerial candidate. Between that cancelled dinner in Patna which he was supposed to host for the BJP’s National Executive members to his ghar wapsi last week, much has happened that should not have brought together the JD(U) and the BJP.
The investigations into the bombings at Modi’s Gandhi Maidan rally were never taken to their logical conclusion. The most unnatural alliance that Nitish Kumar struck with lalu Prasad and his RJD was never convincingly explained. His dalliance with the Congress after spending a lifetime in anti-Congress activism remains an abiding mystery. ‘Secularism’, the snake oil that cures all political maladies, was cited as the reason but it would have convinced only Nitish Kumar and none else.
The Bihar Assembly election of 2015 stands out for the visible departure that Nitish Kumar made from his sushashan plank, turning it into a contest of nativist sentiments and caste identities. The BJP was destined to lose the election. Nitish Kumar was destined to win it.
But victory did not give him what he so yearned for: National recognition and the opportunity to showcase governance in Bihar as an alternative to the Modi Model. He found himself a captive to the caprices of lalu Prasad and his sons. Given his nature, and given the nature of the alliance based on numbers weighed against him, it was only natural for him to chafe at the leash that lalu Prasad had on him.
If there was nothing moral or ethical that prompted Nitish Kumar to walk out of an alliance that had endured close to two decades, dumping old friends and colleagues, there was nothing moral or ethical either about his breaking free from the Mahagathbandhan and getting back to where he once belonged. If we must look for reasons, they can be found in the twin realisations that Modi remains the taller leader and winning the 2019 election is mission impossible. Smart politicians prefer not to be in the company of losers.
But the tectonic shift in political alignments in Bihar is not only about Nitish Kumar. It is about Narendra Modi too. After the 2015 Bihar election, Narendra Modi made visible efforts to disarm Nitish Kumar, and if one were to re-visit photographs of the two together, the change in their body language would be missed only by the blind. His defeat in Bihar would have rankled with Narendra Modi. By getting Nitish Kumar back in the NDA fold, that defeat now has transmogrified into victory.
It is too early to say how the RJD will fare out of power. An abandoned and slighted lalu Prasad will no doubt connive and conspire against Nitish Kumar, and use every trick to create instability within and without. But the rapidly piling up corruption charges against his children and the Supreme Court concurring with the decision to try him separately for his role in the fodder scam will be big distractions. Out of power politicians are far more vulnerable than those in power.
lalu Prasad alone has not been abandoned. So have been Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi (others in the Congress do not matter). If the Mahagathbandhan in Bihar held out the promise of a grand alliance of opposition parties at the national level, notwithstanding the total wipeout faced by the Congress and the Samajwadi Party which had entered into a gathbandhan in Uttar Pradesh, its collapse means hopes of challenging Narendra Modi going up in smoke.
It could be argued that the collapse of the Mahagathbandhan could not have been stalled given the continuing collapse of the Congress. If the fulcrum of Opposition politics begins to crumble, a combined onslaught on Modi sarkar (and the BJP) can only be an imaginary battle. It is amazing that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s response to Nitish Kumar walking out on him should have been: “I knew about it four months ago... this is the problem with politics in Hindustan... people think of themselves, not the country”.
Nobody will, but somebody in the Congress should stand up and tell Rahul Gandhi: “Tough luck. You have opted for politics in Hindustan and that’s the way it is. Politics is about power, because, unless you have power there is nothing you can do for the country.” But none will tell him this. Instead, a gaggle of discredited and electorally worthless courtiers and palace retainers will rally round mother and son and hail the Queen and the Prince for being the best thing that could have ever happened to the Congress.
Which is a pity and a shame. The collapse of the Congress means the BJP will be the only national party. It will be left to battle regional parties with narrow chauvinistic agendas. It won’t be contesting an alternative vision for the new India that is emerging from the retreating shadows of the old India. That is not necessarily a positive for the country because, ideas, unless contested, turn static.
After the fall of the Mahagathbandhan in Bihar, some apologists of the Congress have rushed to prescribe a ‘new slogan’ for the resuscitation of the party in its death throes. That’s balderdash. Slogans do not revive a party’s fortunes; a leader does. With Rahul Gandhi at the helm, the most creative slogan would not be able to halt the slide of the Congress into oblivion. It shall continue to tread the path to unmitigated disaster from disaster.
(The writer is Commissioning Editor and commentator at ABP News)