In his autobiography which, unfortunately, has never received the importance it deserved, former British Prime Minister (a man who never lost an election) Tony Blair made a distinction between “activists” and “normal people”.
He was alluding to the tendency of committed political workers who take an active interest in the inner workings of a political party having agendas and priorities that are far removed from everyday concerns of ordinary voters who troop to the polling booth once every four or five years.
This Saturday, Times (london) headlined a remark attributed to one of Prime Minister David Cameron’s closest associates that was filled with vitriol against the Conservative Party activists. The activists were described as “mad, swivel-eyed, loons” who were preoccupied with Britain’s membership of the European Union at a time when the average voter’s focus was on bread-and-butter questions of jobs, pensions, education, the health service and immigration. The dissatisfaction of the frenzied Conservative activists with the Cameron Government’s detachment from activists’ concerns had led to one in five Conservative voters switching their allegiance to the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) at the local elections earlier this month. Predictably, the Conservative Party suffered heavy reverses in their traditional strongholds and UKIP even managed to edge out the liberal Democrats (one of Cameron’s coalition partners) as the third party of the UK.
The UKIP had fought the local elections on the single theme of Europe. It sought to pressure Cameron into committing himself to a referendum on the larger question of UK’s continued membership of the EU. An associated theme was immigration, particularly the fear of a large number of Romanians and Bulgarians descending on Britain. But that issue too was intimately linked to the EU debate since free movement of peoples from all the EU countries was a part of membership.
To the Indian reader, the turbulence in British politics may well seem of pure academic interest. Just as the saying “Gujarat isn’t India” has become a mantra of the chattering classes who dread the rise and rise of Narendra Modi, it is fashionable to believe that all politics is local. This is true if there is a mechanical application of every foreign trend to India. It is a no-brainer to argue that something resembling the Tea Party movement in the US will never enjoy a resonance in India where income tax payers are in a minusculity. The pathetic performance of the loksatta Party candidates in Bengaluru in the recent Assembly election also indicate that lofty attempts to make politics more wholesome does not necessarily enjoy voter confidence despite their enthusiastic backing by the media. In Pakistan, Imran Khan enjoyed considerable backing from the beautiful (and mostly US-educated) people of lahore and the foreign media. But the results clearly showed that Nawaz Sharif’s machine politics has the ability to secure the votes of the aam aadmi.
This is as much true of the Congress which, despite organisational flabbiness, still has the ability to connect to the grassroots through local networks. This electoral magic has baffled Rahul Gandhi who somehow imagines that ‘systems’ that replicate the ability of, say, Hindustan Unilever or ITC to penetrate the remote markets are worth emulating. The heir apparent’s starry-eyed corporate vision may enjoy the indulgence of his party colleagues but, as invariably happens during elections, the candidate selection process is singularly devoid of idealism. ‘Winnability’ in the Indian context means people who know how to manipulate existing caste, community and interest groups.
Ironically, Rahul’s inability to impose his Wharton-type model on the Congress has inspired those in the BJP who imagine that the pro-Narendra Modi groundswell from below can be checked at the time of candidate selection. The support for Modi assuming the leadership of the BJP comes mainly from those who are relative outsiders to the power structure in the localities; those who have a stake in the decrepit and venal networks of political influence are wary of a man who believes in the direct relationship between the citizen and the Government.
In the case of the BJP we are observing a strange phenomenon. Those who are inclined to vote for the BJP but have no direct relationship with the party organisation want a presidential style campaign centred on aspirational politics and purposeful nationalism. The BJP’s leadership on the other hand believe that the UPA-2 is a low hanging fruit that can easily be plucked with the force of traditional anti-incumbency. The party’s foot soldiers want Modi to lead the charge on the enemy but the party’s general staff still believes that organisation is more important than an inspirational personality.
It is impossible to ascertain as to which of these two groups is right. For all that we know, the next few months could well produce a pro-Modi tornado that will result in the victory of spontaneity over sangathan. Conversely, if elections are all about arithmetic and assembling little building blocks, the BJP high command may well be proved partially right.
The answer, however, also depends on the willingness of the party to make an informed choice about which approach to follow. But it is not as simple as all that. To my mind, what is going to be crucial is for any political party to get its messaging right. In short, the thrust has to be on identifying and highlighting issues that ordinary voters can connect with. What is guaranteed to fail is abstruse ideology packaged in a pre-modern idiom--something that is becoming a speciality with the pro-Modi brigade in the social media. The next few months must be devoted to getting the messaging right so that the energy and euphoria of the activists rubs off on the ordinary voter. The alternative is the self-defeating, schizoid politics that Blair referred to and which Cameron is haunted by.