Making sense of verdict 2009

Making sense of the intent behind the election results is a tricky exercise. In some senses, what we are seeing is a ripening of identity politics into a more complex, fractured and mature phenomenon. There are signs that while identity politics continues to flourish, there seems to be an evolution in how it comes into play, writes Santosh Desai in the Times of India.

As I argued last week in this column, making sense of the intent behind the election results is a tricky exercise. For elections in India are the only occasion when we understand the full import of what it means to be a country with over a billion people, for here everyone above 18 gets to participate.

In almost no other instance when we draw generalized conclusions are we compressing so much diversity into singularity. In this election, over 400 million people exercised their franchise; in effect we are trying to find something common across such a staggering number of data points. Attempts to find simple unifying explanations are thus fraught with danger; perhaps a more useful way of looking at a complex phenomenon like elections in India is to identify some broad themes which emerge from the outcome without necessarily explaining exactly why we saw the outcome we did. Even these are open to challenge in some cases and nuance in most.

In some senses, what we are seeing is a ripening of identity politics into a more complex, fractured and mature phenomenon. There are signs that while identity politics continues to flourish, there seems to be an evolution in how it comes into play. The success of regional players who have carved out constituencies based on identity affiliations and have so far practised a patronage-based system and direct rewards has led to the gradual increase in the number of such players. Regionalization has bred more regionalization, and this fracturing of the electoral base has cut into the vote share of the historically stronger regional parties.

We have seen this factor at play in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh & Tamil Nadu, where the Shiv Sena, TDP and AIADMK have respectively lost seats on this account. The fragmentation of the vote base also means that the national parties seem to look more attractive, in relative terms. As vote share of regional parties gets distributed among a larger number of claimants, national parties stand to gain even if their vote share remains static.

The other emerging dimension of the evolution of identity politics is the recognition of the role played by governance. The delivery of some governance creates a demand for more and leads to an acknowledgement of the need for development to be broad-based and inclusive rather than focused on specific communities and groups.

Sops to identity clusters do not necessarily create widespread development and it appears that there might be some recognition of this. Nitish Kumar’s remarkable success points to the limits of Lalu Yadav’s stated belief that development does not win elections. However, this is by no means a negation of the power of identity; Mayawati may have lost seats but her vote share has increased. Writing her brand of politics off would be an act of wilful short-sightedness.

It would appear that continuity, more than stability, might have been the more important consideration in these elections. This is linked to the fact that all of India has begun to see some signs, however small, of progress. In the absence of a clear alternative, continuing with the existing regime becomes a default option. This is clearly by no means a defining theme but does contribute to the overall trend. Given this, parties need to communicate the appearance of an ability to govern, something the Congress might have done better this time thanks to the slant of their campaign and the collective personae of their leaders.

There is no reason to believe that national parties have regained favour with the voters, but it does seem that the Congress has been more successful in regaining its Centrist space to a certain extent this time around. This was probably due to the combined effect of being seen as relatively stronger as against the regional parties for reasons outlined above as well as its attempts to deliver on its promise of inclusive growth. The focus on rural India in its last five years created an aura of intention even if effect was not fully delivered.

Eventually, election campaigns get decoded as residues of stories; most of us, especially the uncommitted voters, don’t remember precise details or choose on the basis of specific issues as much as on a general sense of appropriateness. The Congress story seemed to have its heart in the right place, with the combination of actions, people, sounds it emitted with the structural forces on the ground multiplying the impact of this slant towards the party.

The return of any Centrist force is a significant development; it remains to be seen if this is indeed a trend or merely a local aberration. But it does seem as if the growing fragmentation of the polity and the attendant issues of the lack of a national perspective might not be quite the inexorable forces they seemed. That might well be the best news we have heard from these elections.

Read the original article here.