Will your party succeed? Can you people take on these giants, with all
their money and organizational power? How can a new party win elections
without a caste-based vote bank?
These days i am greeted with questions of this kind. Each time i feel happy and reassured, for someone bothers to ask these questions. For years i have been associated with peoples' movements and organizations that have tried to intervene in electoral politics. These movements comprise some of the finest persons in public life in this country - as idealist, brave and committed as you can imagine. Barring a few exceptions, all of them lost their deposits in elections. Yet their defeat did not make news. No one had asked me questions about whether they could succeed.
Finally, the new party can attract idealist youth to politics. The last
time this happened was with the Naxalites and the JP movement in the
1970s. A whole new generation of idealist youth has remained disengaged
with politics. This vacuum has allowed dynastic successors, film stars,
goons, contractors and property dealers to make politics
their business. Even if this party were to channelize a small
sub-stream of the idealist youth to politics, it would serve India's
public life in innumerable ways. Similarly a very large pool of talented
women cannot enter politics today. If this new party provides a decent
avenue for women and a mechanism for their fast-track mobility, it can
contribute to a momentous shift in our democracy.
Politics is not just about success as defined conventionally. Political success is not merely winning elections and making governments. And electoral success need not be instant. A deeper and enduring success in politics requires changing the definition and measures of success.
The writer is a political analyst, and is associated with the proposed party discussed in this article
-TOI
These days i am greeted with questions of this kind. Each time i feel happy and reassured, for someone bothers to ask these questions. For years i have been associated with peoples' movements and organizations that have tried to intervene in electoral politics. These movements comprise some of the finest persons in public life in this country - as idealist, brave and committed as you can imagine. Barring a few exceptions, all of them lost their deposits in elections. Yet their defeat did not make news. No one had asked me questions about whether they could succeed.
It is different this time. Six weeks before the birth of the party,
with just a declaration, a date and a draft vision statement, there is a
sense of anticipation. There is, of course, no escaping the hard work
of organization building from the national to the booth committee,
training of lakhs of volunteers, raising at least a minimum amount of
resources necessary to contest elections seriously and building public
opinion and awareness. Visibility is not a sufficient condition of
electoral success, but it is a necessary condition.
Are factors like money power and caste-based vote banks also a necessary condition for electoral success? Not quite. To be sure, the new party has to collect substantial funds, and that too in a transparent manner, that allow its candidates to stay in the race. It has to ensure that the social profile of its leadership, candidates and workers inspires confidence among people from different social groups. At the same time, it does not have to play money and caste games. These games work in a routine election, not in an unusual or wave election like 1977. A new entrant cannot hope to win through a regular election. It has to wait for a 'realigning' election, an election that upsets existing caste-community alignments and reshapes voters' enduring loyalties. In such an election money does not matter. In fact, lack of resources could well become a political asset.
There is much more to political success than electoral success. There are three less obvious ways in which the new initiative can succeed even when it has not succeeded electorally. First, a new party can shift the agenda of mainstream politics. It may or may not win, but its presence forces bigger parties to pick one or two key items from its agenda into their manifestos. We have already seen this in the case of how all parties want to be seen to be supporting a strong Lokpal. Green parties have had similar effect in Europe. Their electoral performance has not been spectacular, but their presence has forced mainstream parties to pay greater attention to environmental issues.
Second, a party that comes with a new political culture can alter the rules of the game in electoral politics. The mere presence of a party with anti-corruption plank can embarrass the bigger parties into dropping some of their most tainted candidates and looking for candidates with cleaner image. A party that leaves candidate selection to its local workers may not change the high command culture, but it can pressure the high command in other parties to pay a little more attention to the sentiments of their own workers. A new party that practices transparency in its funds can shame other parties into taking a few steps. After all, the presence of socialist and communist parties used to perform similar moral function in our politics.
Are factors like money power and caste-based vote banks also a necessary condition for electoral success? Not quite. To be sure, the new party has to collect substantial funds, and that too in a transparent manner, that allow its candidates to stay in the race. It has to ensure that the social profile of its leadership, candidates and workers inspires confidence among people from different social groups. At the same time, it does not have to play money and caste games. These games work in a routine election, not in an unusual or wave election like 1977. A new entrant cannot hope to win through a regular election. It has to wait for a 'realigning' election, an election that upsets existing caste-community alignments and reshapes voters' enduring loyalties. In such an election money does not matter. In fact, lack of resources could well become a political asset.
There is much more to political success than electoral success. There are three less obvious ways in which the new initiative can succeed even when it has not succeeded electorally. First, a new party can shift the agenda of mainstream politics. It may or may not win, but its presence forces bigger parties to pick one or two key items from its agenda into their manifestos. We have already seen this in the case of how all parties want to be seen to be supporting a strong Lokpal. Green parties have had similar effect in Europe. Their electoral performance has not been spectacular, but their presence has forced mainstream parties to pay greater attention to environmental issues.
Second, a party that comes with a new political culture can alter the rules of the game in electoral politics. The mere presence of a party with anti-corruption plank can embarrass the bigger parties into dropping some of their most tainted candidates and looking for candidates with cleaner image. A party that leaves candidate selection to its local workers may not change the high command culture, but it can pressure the high command in other parties to pay a little more attention to the sentiments of their own workers. A new party that practices transparency in its funds can shame other parties into taking a few steps. After all, the presence of socialist and communist parties used to perform similar moral function in our politics.
Politics is not just about success as defined conventionally. Political success is not merely winning elections and making governments. And electoral success need not be instant. A deeper and enduring success in politics requires changing the definition and measures of success.
The writer is a political analyst, and is associated with the proposed party discussed in this article
-TOI
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