2014 IS QUITE DIFFERENT FROM 1977

The losers have banded together again. Their perseverance is admirable considering that repeated failures of the so-called Third Front or Janata experiment of constituting a non-Congress, non-BJP outfit haven’t dissuaded them. Probably, the success of the first memorable effort in 1977 which saved democracy in India continues to motivate them.

As a result, whenever there is a low ebb in the political fortunes of the various units of the original Janata such as Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) or Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), they decide to come together with some of the others of the same ilk to breathe life into their moribund organizations.

It is no different this time when Narendra Modi has emerged as a dominant figure, putting virtually all others in the shade, including the Congress’s first family. For those at the receiving end of the Modi blitzkrieg, there is no alternative, therefore, but to put up a united front to face the challenge in their respective states and at the national level.

They may have been encouraged by the satisfactory showing which two former adversaries, the RJD and Janata Dal (United), together put up in the recent by-elections in Bihar. Since the latest Third Front endeavour is focussed on the Hindi heartland, a major role is being played by the Samajwadi Party (SP), whose leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, is expected to be the leader of the new party. The SP also did well in the by-elections although it fared miserably in the parliamentary polls

The former prime minister, H.D. Deve Gowda of the Janata Dal (Secular), is also among those who have expressed their interest to be included in the new venture. It is possible that the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), the party of another former prime minister, Charan Singh, will be requested to throw in its lot with the new party, which may be called the Samajwadi Janata Party.

Whatever the objective of these worthies, however, it is difficult to believe that Mulayam Singh and Co. will set the Yamuna on fire in the foreseeable future. For a start, 2014 is not 1977. As all the other efforts to revive the spirit of 1977 have shown, the formula of simply joining hands will not work. It is necessary to remember that it really didn’t work even in 1977. Instead, it ended up bolstering Indira Gandhi’s image and enabling her to stage a comeback in 1980.

Since then, all such attempts have failed, the last one being in 2008 when Mayawati was projected as a prime ministerial candidate in the expectation that the Manmohan Singh government would fall as a result of the no-confidence motion brought against it by the Left and the BJP. Interestingly, the Left is not in the picture this time although it nearly always played a important part in cobbling together the disparate groups. Evidently, the decline in the Left’s influence, which is evident in the drop in the number of its parliamentary seats and its defeats in Kerala and West Bengal have dissuaded the communists from playing too active role to undertake a “cut and paste” job of forming an alliance, as its 2008 endeavour was derisively described.

Mayawati, too, is absent, evidently because she is Mulayam Singh Yadav’s main opponent in U.P. Another splinter group of the original Janata Party, Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal has chosen to stay away, presumably because the Odisha chief minister’s economic vision based on industrialization and foreign capital is totally different from the Lohiate socialism of the other parties.

However, it isn’t only revisiting 1977 which is a dicey proposition. What is likely to be even more of a drawback is the character profile of the projected leaders. Virtually all of them are jaded warriors who carry the taint of malfeasance and misrule. Laloo Yadav, for instance, is not only known for his role in the fodder scam, which saw him being incarcerated, but also for having run Bihar to the ground between 1990 and 2005 when his party was in power.

Nitish Kumar may have come to power in Bihar in 2005 in the BJP’s company by taking advantage of the anger and disillusionment caused by Laloo Yadav’s dismal reign. But, by failing to anticipate Modi’s transformation from a “hate figure into an avatar of modernity and progress”, as Shashi Tharoor said, the Janata Dal (United) leader scripted his own downfall. From being someone who rescued Bihar, he has now become one among a group of tired leaders whose defining characteristics are casteism and economic ideas based on statism.

Apart from caste-based politics, Mulayam Singh Yadav was also known at one time for his opposition to computers and English although these aversions have lately been diluted by his Western-educated son, Akhilesh. But, the latter has failed to dilute the Samajwadi Party’s reputation for harbouring hooligans. The resultant lawlessness has not only tarnished U.P.’s image, but also helped the BJP to put up a spectacular show in the parliamentary polls in the state, winning 73 of the 80 seats. (IPA Service)