HVK Archives: Countey at the crossroads - Part II of V (United colours of the Front)
Countey at the crossroads - Part II of V (United colours of the Front) - The Telegraph
Ashis Chakrabarti and Bishaka De Sarkar
()
13 April 1997
Title : Countery at the crossroads - Part II of V (United colours
of the Front)
Author : Ashis Chakrabarti and Bishaka De Sarkar
Publication : The Telegraph
Date : April 13, 1997
Political leaders and analysts have noted a totally new ,direction
in the politics of the United Front this time. Since the days of
the first Front governments in the states in 1967 (barring the
first communist government in Kerala in 1959) and at the Centre in
1977, the fragile coalition partners would panic at the first sign
of a threat to their survival. Horse trading would take
centrestage. Forward Bloc secretary of West Bengal Asok Ghosh
recalls the days of the two shortlived United Front governments in
the State in 1967 and 1969. "We came a long way from there in 1977
and the UF at the Centre today has also come a long way from the
first experiment in 1977 under Jayaprakash Narayan's tutelage."
Most other UF constituents gloat over the fact that they swam and
sank together . Even after the fall, they refused to surrender to
the Congress pressure to dump Deve Gowda. Even if there are some
among them who would not mind doing that and then join another
government with the Congress as partner, they have been remarkably
circumspect. "It is federalism, apart from secularism, that has
kept the constituents of the front together", says Janata Dal
ideologue Surendra Mohan.
It's just not the question of the next poll; UF leaders argue that
the front as a separate political force is here to stay, even if
the constituents change from time to time. In its present
incarnation, the UF has contrary pulls and pressures. It is being
pointed out that Mulayam Singh Yadav and G.K. Moopanar do not share
the anti-Congressism of the Janata Dal and the Communists, just as
Chandrababu Naidu and K.Karunanidhi do not view the BJP with as
jaundiced an eye as the Dal and the Left. Thus, despite
contradictions among themselves, they stay together, for federalism
and coalition governments have gained credibility and also
respectability
"We have entered a new era of politics," reasons senior CPI leader
M. Farooqi, "and there is a growing realisation that India is a
multi-religious, multi-lingual country".
Even the Congress, whose centralised policies and hamhanded
treatment of state governments in the past were a major factor for
the birth of regional movements, today concede the importance of
state parties. Besides, the compulsions of their state politics,
in which caste and communal factors have become so very important,
will make the UF partners think a hundred times before casting
their lot with either the BJP or the Congress.
The Telegraph-MODE survey brings out interesting facts about this
change in public mood and preferences. While an overwhehning
majority of the respondents wanted a single-party government at the
Centre, their other responses show a preference for the UF in other
ways. Fifty-eight per cent of them thought that Congress president
Sitaram Kesri had not done the right thing in withdrawing support
from the Deve Gowda government; 52 per cent considered it a good
trend that regional parties were getting more importance in the
Union Government; and, 39 per cent favoured the idea of a regional
leader as Prime Minister. The strongest argument against UF
governments since 1977 has been that these are by nature unstable.
The Congress has made stability one of its main poll planks since
1980 parliamentary elections; it didn't work. One could lament the
politics of fragmentation, but, as political scientist C.P. Bhambri
says, it is going to generate a host of coalitions voicing regional
and subregional aspirations . The UF therefore presents a scenario
in which it will play the first, and the second, fiddle.
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