8

Aug

Political Scenario : Why the leopard needs to know the spots

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N Sathiya Moorthy

Chennai | Thursday | 8 August 2024

If there is a certain uniformity in the political thinking in these weeks after the Lok Sabha polls and cutting across traditional party and ideological affiliations, it is that the ruling BJP leadership, starting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his chosen Home Minister Amit Shah are unable or unwilling to change tact and tactics, to take on a more united and re-energised Opposition, both inside and outside Parliament.

It is ironic that in the contemporary political diction in the country, what is good for the goose is not good enough for the gander. Translated, it means that Rahul Gandhi and the political Opposition, when they join a shouting match with the Treasury Benches in both Houses of Parliament, it is a reassurance that the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) would not ‘run away from responsibilities’, as he had ‘done’ after leading the Congress GoP to an utter rout in the previous Lok Sabha elections, back in 2019. From across the political spectrum, the 2014 polls were seen as a Rahul poll, and not a ruling Congress-UPA affair, not certainly that of outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. So, the party’s defeat was also that of Rahul’s on that occasion, too.

 

Article at a Glance
In the aftermath of the Lok Sabha polls, a uniformity has emerged in political thinking across party and ideological lines. The ruling BJP leadership, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, seems unwilling or unable to adapt to the changing political landscape. Despite the re-energized Opposition, both within and outside Parliament, the BJP continues to rely on tactics that have proven successful in the past.
 
This refusal to acknowledge the need for change is reminiscent of the adage "what is good for the goose is not good enough for the gander." While the Opposition is criticized for its aggressive behavior in Parliament, the ruling party's leaders are seen as boring and repetitive, relying on worn-out campaign slogans that no longer resonate with the people.
 
The BJP's inability to adapt is a classic case of "incumbency disadvantage," where a ruling party becomes complacent and fails to read the writing on the wall. This phenomenon has been observed in the past, with the UPA governments and even Mahatma Gandhi's Congress party suffering from it.
 
The BJP's strategy of targeting the youth and running down the Congress party has been successful in the past, but it may not work in the present. The party's leaders, including Modi, seem to be stuck in their old ways, refusing to acknowledge the need for change. This is a recipe for downfall, as the party's inability to adapt will ultimately lead to its demise.
 
The article concludes by highlighting the importance of change and adaptation in politics. Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, a political party cannot continue to rely on the same tactics and expect to remain successful. The BJP's refusal to adapt will ultimately lead to its downfall, making way for a new leader or party to emerge.

 

But then the ruling party leaders, starting with the Prime Minister, Home Minister, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, another party senior, and of course Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in this Budget session of Parliament, are seen and heard with absolute boredom. Ardent supporters of the BJP and PM Modi who are also ardent TV news watchers for the same reason, readily yet casually repeat the next word that is ready to spill out of the mouth of each one of these worthies. So worn out has been their campaign, which is still about what the two UPA governments before them that the people have all but forgotten, and Nehru and Gandhi – does the nation remember them? – that one should not be surprised that any or many of these TV viewers switch off their sets halfway through, yawning, or skipping to a popular or not-so-popular soap in any language that is not politics and present-day travails.

Giving up before beginning

It is often said of writers and artists, that once they develop a style, especially one that is celebrated by their patrons, then it becomes difficult for them to adopt change or adapt to change. In the case of an artist, it is about colours, strokes and the character of the painting or sculpture. For a writer, it is about the plot, characters and their characterisation. Looking back after a time, the artist or the writer or the sculptor concerned would see the unintended pattern in his or her works – and even wonder why he or she did not notice it when putting it through the works. Or, why even close friends and famous critics did not point it out to them? If they have the time and intention – the latter is more important than the two – they would read and review back to note that some critics had hinted, indicated or criticised such predictability and/or his or her inherent limitations, only that he or she did not take time off to acknowledge them, accept them.

It is the same with politics and politicians. Once they get used to doing it in a particular style or pattern, especially when it has proved useful and successful, they are unable or unwilling to change the course with the new generation of voters. This is again where the goose-and-gander adage comes into play. If they have succeeded for a third, fourth or fifth time/term, then they convince themselves that there was no need to change the course – that is even if there are a few in his or her camp to tell him the truth, though not necessarily the whole truth. If they have failed one time or one more time, then he or she (and the political party identified with him or her) goes into a cocoon. They remain moribund for so long that when they try to shake up the past to begin a new future, they do not have the time, energy and of course inclination, to do so. Suddenly, they become more aware of costs and budgets and give up even before they have begun. 

This happened to a younger Rahul Gandhi in 2014 and 2019. The difference between him, then and now, and also between him and others of his ilk, is that he did not give up. Like the crane that’s waiting on a tree branch for the fish to show up in the waters below him, Rahul grabbed the occasion when opportunity beckoned him – Elections-2024. Or, this is the new description being offered about him. It is anybody’s guess why Rahul Gandhi did not step in as a minister in the two UPA governments of chosen Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and learn the ropes and prepare for the task, which at least his party believes is the right and responsibility of the ‘first family’ in the Indian National Congress. Even today, he still lacks the kind of experience that his grandmother Indira Gandhi had acquired as the live-in aide of her great-father, Jawaharlal Nehru, and later in a short stint as Information & Broadcasting Minister under Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.

Incumbency disadvantage

What Modi 3.0 and the ruling BJP are going through is what is conventionally acknowledged as ‘incumbency disadvantage’ a step before ‘anti-incumbency’ in electoral terms. It is all about the writing on the wall, and the refusal to read it during stage one, when it slips irrecoverably to stage two, when it also becomes too late. It happened to UPA I & II, and before them, for Vajpayee I, II & III, when the ruling BJP’s ‘India Shining!’ campaign proved to be a dud. In their times, Nehru and Indira Gandhi too had suffered the consequences of both. Why, even Mahatma Gandhi was not spared. Some argue that his over-staying at the top (of the Congress workers’ minds) even while physically distancing himself from the top, proved to be the spoiler. Result? Second-line leaders like Nehru, Sardar Patel and the host of them all, embraced Independence with Partition, leaving Gandhiji as a loner fighting for a lost cause: Independence without Partition.

Why, as far back as 1939, his declaration that ‘Pattabhi’s defeat is my defeat’ did not go down well with the pro-Netaji group within the party that had given the Bengal leader a majority in the election for Congress president.  In a way, the downfall of the Congress had begun then. The euphoria of Independence, the absence of a credible Opposition, and Jawaharlal Nehru’s taller-than-life imagery, coupled with his seeming preference for inner-party democracy and industrialisation across the country carried the party’s flag forward until a new generation of voters with varied aspirations hit the street. The China debacle of 1962 was waiting to happen. Unconnected to domestic developments,  all of it contributed to the commencement of the downfall, which Nehru and his acolytes failed to see and see through at the time – or, even later.

It is this long tenancy at the top by Modi that seems to be the driver for the seeming downfall of the BJP after his leading it from the top, through and through, and single-handedly. Maybe, Modi was/is not fully aware of how his BJP strategists plotted the downfall of the UPA, especially years ahead of Elections 2024. They counted on the new generation youth, identified them as an untapped politico-electoral constituency, and targeted them with campaign material, that too on the social media with which they identified themselves. No, those campaigns were not in favour of the BJP, not certainly Modi, who was light-years away from distant Delhi, or even Lal Kishen Advani, who had been waiting on the wings to become PM for decades.

All that it was aimed at running down the Congress Party and rule, for right reasons and wrong – that too with the silent blessings of venerable Advani. Under Modi, it went as far back as Nehru and Gandhi and even tried to project Sardar Patel as an alternative from the past, but with mixed results at best.  Maybe, the Advani-Vajpayee era started it and Modi continued with it and sought to complete it. Remember the way the BJP Opposition blocked Parliament, session after session, through much of the nineties (whenever they were not in power). Once it was about demanding the resignation of Communications Minister Sukh Ram, who when he quit the Narasimha Rao government, quit the Congress and floated his outfit in native Himachal Pradesh, became good enough to be the BJP’s electoral ally. Then you had a session in which then Finance Minister P Chidambaram had to get the entire Budget passed through ‘guillotine’ (without debate) and by voice vote as the BJP Opposition would not let either House discuss and debate the document which they now say is holier-than-thou!

Modi Namavali

At the end of the day, it is all about habits, and how old habits die hard. There is also the problem of being lonely at the top but not feeling lonely at the top. It happened to Indira Gandhi ahead of Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha at the Allahabad High Court declaring her LS poll victory as null and void – leading up to her declaring Emergency after a massive Opposition rally in New Delhi’s Ramlila Ground, on 25 June 1975. Today, President Draupadi Murmu and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla speaking about it before the August House does not serve any purpose other than irritating even those non-Bhakt Sanghis and other honest supporters of the Prime Minister personally, not his party politically, nor its ideology gleaned from the RSS parent. Their muted whisper, ‘Come on, tell us something new, and about what you have done in the past ten years and what you hope to achieve in the coming five years’ does not seem to have reached his ears. Those noiseless noises have been drowned in the continuing crescendo of what has become the ‘Modi Namavali’ of the party and the leader.

Plain and simple, in the political forest that is India, the leopard is the king, but only as long as the lethargic elephant wakes up. Or, a tiger or a lion intervenes. Neither can the leopard change its spots, the tiger its stripes, nor the lion its mane. Each one of them rules the woods in their time, but it stops there. Why an elephant or a herd of them, keen YouTube watchers would have seen any number of video clips where even a lone African buffalo of wildebeest with a hide thicker than that of an elephant and horns stronger than the strongest of trees in the forest, tossing about lions and tigers, or groups of them, encircling what seemingly was the hapless animal until the previous moment – only because the other herd did not grant them that strength, fighting – and more so, staying – power!

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(The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator

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