Elections no threat to India's reforms
Elections no threat to India's reforms
By V. Anjaiah
JAKARTA (JP): The recent results of state elections in India may have caused some alarm for the ruling Congress (I) Party and even concern about the fate of India's embryonic economic reforms.
But the results are not likely to affect the longevity of the present government and its impressive economic reforms due to its hitherto sufficient majority in parliament.
For many poll pundits, the recent assembly election results in India, which routed the ruling party in three of the four states, were a great surprise.
Many predicted that Prime Minister Narasimha Rao with his bold economic reforms would easily lead his 109-year-old party to a victory stand in the "Southern test". Their prophecy was based on several factors.
Being a ruling party in the four states where the elections were held, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Goa, and Sikkim, and also being a power at the center, the Congress (I) Party was far ahead of its opponents in terms of publicity and visibility.
Second, Rao is a man who broke the tradition of Indian politics by becoming the first prime minister from the southern part of India (Andhra Pradesh). Rao and many firmly believed that the southern voters would extend their hand of support to the first premier from the South. In the elections the focus was on two southern states Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka states, whose electorate constitute more than 70 percent of 75 million voters from the four states.
Third, PM Rao's clean image and his government's impressive performance on the economic front should easily have won the support of urban people in these states. Moreover these states were traditionally known as Congress (I)'s strongholds.
Fourth, the opposition parties, which are more divided than united, were too occupied with internal squabbling and seemed to have no strength to take on mighty Rao in his homeland.
In addition Rao took these elections as a litmus test of his abilities and his government's policies.
He knew that a victory in two major southern bastions would certainly make his position strong in government as well as party in the run-up to the bigger battle of mid-1996 when the parliamentary elections will take place.
"We can't afford to lose any elections at this juncture", said Rao in an interview prior to the election with India Today, the country's most respectable news magazine.
To ensure a victory for his party, Rao didn't hesitate to claim himself a Telugu bidda (son of the Telugu people) during the election campaign. It was this plank that won him the support from even his party's opponents during his own election to the parliament in 1991.
But in a surprise move, the poor, illiterate and rural voters in these states used their biggest weapon of universal franchise mercilessly against the ruling party. They critically voted in almost unison with a slogan of: "Think nationally, act locally".
In Rao's home state of Andhra Pradesh, whose per capita income is Rs 2,184 (US$ 70), far below the national figure of $310, his party suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of a regional party called Telugu Desham Party (TDP). The TDP, under the leadership of a flamboyant movie star N.T. Rama Rao, opposed Rao's economic reforms and promised cheap rice and a ban on alcohol. The Congress (I), which had 182 seats in the 295-member assembly, bagged only 26 seats to TDP's 219.
Surprisingly, in neighboring Karnataka, the centrist Janata Dal Party, which was on the virtue of collapse following a series of splits and its leader V.P. Singh's resignation from the Parliament prior to the polls, clinched 116 seats in the 224 - member house. The Janata Dal pushed the Rao's party into third position behind Hindu-dominated Baratiya Janata Party (BJP).
The only sigh of relief came from the tiny state of Goa, a tourist paradise on the west coast of India. In Goa, Rao's Party won popular support, but with many humiliations at the hands of the combined opposition of a regional party and BJP. In Sikkim a newly formed regional party Sikkim Democratic Front emerged as an invincible power by winning 19 seats in a house of 32 members.
India has become a favorite destination for foreign investors since opening its huge economy with a 250 million middle class population. Thus, one may wonder why Indian voters rejected a party which saved the country from economic collapse in 1991 and made it so dear to the world market.
A post-mortem of Congress (I)'s defeat reveals that it was an anti-establishment vote which has become a trend in recent times. The Congress party was not alone as many other parties also experienced the wrath of voters disenchanted with corrupt and incompetent politicians.
"In the previous 20 state elections held over the past five years, only two incumbent governments were returned," said the country's leading poll pundit Prannoy Roy.
The much-publicized economic reforms might have brought in billions of dollars to the empty coffers of the government (presently India's foreign exchange reserves stand at an impressive US$20 billion) and reduced the inflation rate from 17 percent in 1991 to nine percent last year, but they don't appeal much to India's rural poor, who make up around 70 percent of the electorate.
Though some analysts cite corruption as one of the main causes, the results indicate differently. The minorities and backward sections, who formed the flesh and bones of the Congress (I) until recently, gradually distanced themselves from the party due to demolition of Babri Masjid, a 15th century mosque in Ayodhya in former's case and increasing caste polarization in the latter's case.
Another important factor in the routing of the ruling party in these four states was the "local factor". A look at past elections reveals that Indian voters have been increasingly favoring regional parties which concentrate more on local issues in state elections, than on national parties in parliament elections. Perhaps this may be India's best antidote to disastrous the poison of disintegration which is claiming thousands of lives in former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union.
"I don't disagree with the prime minister's argument about the country's development and stability. He seems sincere. But to me what the party is going to do for us in the state is more important," said Rameshwar Naik, a farmer in Mandya District, Karnataka.
Thanks to the Indian government's strong determination, and in spite of the ruling party's election debacle, economic reforms are rapidly moving to a point where they will not turn around. They are India's future. Without them it would be very difficult for Mother India to move into next millennium.
That's why what Man Mohan Singh, India's finance minister and an architect of India's economic reforms, said has become prominent. He said that economic reforms should not be linked to murky politics if India wants to join the other Asian Tigers.
Moreover, many people, especially from outside India generally underestimate the strength of India's democratic institutions. The present problems like separatism, terrorism, extremism, fundamentalism and caste-feuds may not have the strength to shake the strong central government.
Though the elections in four states might have opened a Pandora's box for Congress (I), they are not in any way going to affect economic reforms.
The election results opened the eyes of Rao''s party. It's time to watch Rao, who is an expert in the jungle of Indian politics, in the forthcoming February assembly polls in five states, and further the final battle (parliament elections) in next year.
All in all, there is no need to worry about the fate of reforms or the stability and secular credentials of India.
Indian democracy has more than 530 million voters with a sense of political discrimination far beyond that of those who are literate, urban, rich and addicted to satellite TV.
The writer is a graduate from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and is currently learning Indonesian language at the University of Indonesia.