Vijay Prashad
By Vijay Prashad
Of the votes in the Indian election, 69 percent went against the eventual winner, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This means that despite talk of a landslide, the electorate is open to an alternative.
As elected officials take their seats in the 16th Lok Sabha (parliament), it seems like folly to consider alternatives.
The BJP has an outright majority in parliament – it does not need its allies to govern. The Congress party is a shadow of its former self, the oppressed caste parties (such as the Bahujan Samaj party) will be absent and the Left Front (Communist) bloc miniscule. All these parties have called meetings to discuss their losses. More will be needed than licking wounds.
The Congress party’s main lesson will be to sit tight and wait for the BJP to stumble on its promises. Yet two main flaws – dynastic politics and a neoliberal policy agenda – cannot be addressed by the party’s high command. No senior leader wants to see the party distance itself from the Nehru-Gandhi family, whose head – Sonia Gandhi – remains its oracle. Over the past four decades, since Sonia’s husband, Rajiv, ran the party, it has fashioned itself as the spear of neoliberalism. It would take a party split to revoke that commitment.
During the past decade of rule, Congress’ policies have increased inequality and failed to address joblessness. Instead of any concrete improvement in people’s well-being, the party seemed to deliver one corruption scandal after another. The BJP ran as the anti-corruption crusader, and promised to lift growth rates and ameliorate joblessness. However, it’s policy slate is neoliberalism on steroids, which means it is unlikely to be able to meet expectations it has set for itself.
Over the past decade, the Communists have raised the issue of corruption ceaselessly. It was precisely on this issue that the populist Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) emerged last year to the win Delhi state elections. Its symbol is the broom, sweeping away corruption from public office. There is a significant divide between the Communist-AAP assessment of corruption and of the Congress-BJP. The latter see corruption as a surface problem – bribes here, special favour there.
“Good governance”, they argue, as if reading from a World Bank manual, will sort this out. The left and the AAP see corruption as a much broader problem – bribes and special favours certainly, but also the nepotism of the elite, the withering of public institutions and the attenuation of the political space.
This latter point is germane to this election, as political violence in West Bengal, for instance, intimidated sections of the electorate that had made its commitment to the left clear. The 16th Lok Sabha is an example of this corruption – it has a record number of multimillionaires and criminals.
Why were the Communists not able to capitalise on their critique of neoliberalism? Neoliberal policy not only drives inequality, it also produces aspirations. Malls, filled with shining new commodities, have been built in large cities and small towns. Television shows and films have produced a culture of goods – fancy houses, jobs that pour money into their employees’ banks, which hand out credit cards to buy anything in malls. These neoliberal desires have over the course of the past 20 years had a marked impact on the Indian imagination. It is no longer a society formed on values of the anti-colonial movement or of the Nehruvian period of national development. The core values of the present are personal consumption and career advancement. Such a cultural universe is detrimental to the kind of political project promoted by the Communists.
Prognoses that see this election as the “sunset for the left” are premature. Indian communism has taken its blows over the past 100 years and it will revive once again for several reasons.
India lacks a genuinely social democratic party, which means there will always be an appeal to the Communists to take up the issues of livelihood and well-being of a population that will continue to be battered by an agenda that produces inequality.
A very anaemic liberalism forces the Communists to lead the charge for civil liberties and the protection of minority rights, a pressing matter when the BJP – with no commitment to such rights – will be in power.
The weakness of Indian liberalism and the absence of a social democratic party have led many prominent Indian liberals to urge the Communists to become a party of reform rather than revolution.
The way the Communists see things, no amount of reform will be able to lift the hundreds of millions out of poverty. India requires an alternative policy path.
The left struggles to find a way to critique the inequality of neoliberalism and appeal to the public for an alternative future. This is the conundrum of the left around the world. The red flag has come to represent protest against the present. It does not yet indicate the pathway to the future. The Guardian
By Vijay Prashad
Of the votes in the Indian election, 69 percent went against the eventual winner, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This means that despite talk of a landslide, the electorate is open to an alternative.
As elected officials take their seats in the 16th Lok Sabha (parliament), it seems like folly to consider alternatives.
The BJP has an outright majority in parliament – it does not need its allies to govern. The Congress party is a shadow of its former self, the oppressed caste parties (such as the Bahujan Samaj party) will be absent and the Left Front (Communist) bloc miniscule. All these parties have called meetings to discuss their losses. More will be needed than licking wounds.
The Congress party’s main lesson will be to sit tight and wait for the BJP to stumble on its promises. Yet two main flaws – dynastic politics and a neoliberal policy agenda – cannot be addressed by the party’s high command. No senior leader wants to see the party distance itself from the Nehru-Gandhi family, whose head – Sonia Gandhi – remains its oracle. Over the past four decades, since Sonia’s husband, Rajiv, ran the party, it has fashioned itself as the spear of neoliberalism. It would take a party split to revoke that commitment.
During the past decade of rule, Congress’ policies have increased inequality and failed to address joblessness. Instead of any concrete improvement in people’s well-being, the party seemed to deliver one corruption scandal after another. The BJP ran as the anti-corruption crusader, and promised to lift growth rates and ameliorate joblessness. However, it’s policy slate is neoliberalism on steroids, which means it is unlikely to be able to meet expectations it has set for itself.
Over the past decade, the Communists have raised the issue of corruption ceaselessly. It was precisely on this issue that the populist Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) emerged last year to the win Delhi state elections. Its symbol is the broom, sweeping away corruption from public office. There is a significant divide between the Communist-AAP assessment of corruption and of the Congress-BJP. The latter see corruption as a surface problem – bribes here, special favour there.
“Good governance”, they argue, as if reading from a World Bank manual, will sort this out. The left and the AAP see corruption as a much broader problem – bribes and special favours certainly, but also the nepotism of the elite, the withering of public institutions and the attenuation of the political space.
This latter point is germane to this election, as political violence in West Bengal, for instance, intimidated sections of the electorate that had made its commitment to the left clear. The 16th Lok Sabha is an example of this corruption – it has a record number of multimillionaires and criminals.
Why were the Communists not able to capitalise on their critique of neoliberalism? Neoliberal policy not only drives inequality, it also produces aspirations. Malls, filled with shining new commodities, have been built in large cities and small towns. Television shows and films have produced a culture of goods – fancy houses, jobs that pour money into their employees’ banks, which hand out credit cards to buy anything in malls. These neoliberal desires have over the course of the past 20 years had a marked impact on the Indian imagination. It is no longer a society formed on values of the anti-colonial movement or of the Nehruvian period of national development. The core values of the present are personal consumption and career advancement. Such a cultural universe is detrimental to the kind of political project promoted by the Communists.
Prognoses that see this election as the “sunset for the left” are premature. Indian communism has taken its blows over the past 100 years and it will revive once again for several reasons.
India lacks a genuinely social democratic party, which means there will always be an appeal to the Communists to take up the issues of livelihood and well-being of a population that will continue to be battered by an agenda that produces inequality.
A very anaemic liberalism forces the Communists to lead the charge for civil liberties and the protection of minority rights, a pressing matter when the BJP – with no commitment to such rights – will be in power.
The weakness of Indian liberalism and the absence of a social democratic party have led many prominent Indian liberals to urge the Communists to become a party of reform rather than revolution.
The way the Communists see things, no amount of reform will be able to lift the hundreds of millions out of poverty. India requires an alternative policy path.
The left struggles to find a way to critique the inequality of neoliberalism and appeal to the public for an alternative future. This is the conundrum of the left around the world. The red flag has come to represent protest against the present. It does not yet indicate the pathway to the future. The Guardian
