APRIL 5, 2014

Explaining the Anger

What explains the erosion of support for the ruling combine at a time of rising human development indices?

en years is long enough for an elected government to lose public faith and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has done much, both in acts of omission and commission, to ensure a steady erosion of support among the electorate. Large-scale corruption, the incompetence of the government in handling many important issues like ination and letting other promises, like womens reservation in Parliament, go unfullled, have all contributed to this decline. On the other hand, the past decade has also seen some of the most signicant improvements in social and human development. The UPA has been trying, in its patentedly incompetent manner, to claim credit for these improvements, even though many of these trends are longer term and often have causations far beyond immediate government policy. Yet, it is also true that many UPA policies in the last decade have directly helped improve social and human development indicators of the Indian people. Given this context, what explains the intensity of the anger against the UPA that seems to be spreading, and deepening, across the country; an anger that is lling the sails of Narendra Modis armada? There are two classical explanations proffered as to why citizens vote out an incumbent government. One is because the policies, actions and inaction of a government adversely affect a large number of citizens who then nd the available political alternative(s) to be better or at least less iniquitous. This is what is often referred to as anti-incumbency by our television experts. The second explanation relies on rising or changing aspirations, where (typically) an emergent middle class with growing income, mobility, education and higher goals in life, is not satised with traditional politics, older political parties, and/or conventional policies, which, it feels, fail to deliver what it now aspires to. There is, here, a change in the terrain on which politics is conducted and those parties that manage to adapt themselves to these new contexts oust the incumbent in power. It will be evident that both these have some correlation with what we witness in India as it approaches the 16th general elections. But it will be even more evident that neither of these is satisfactory in explaining what is going on in India today. While ination and (educated) unemployment have been serious concerns, real incomes have indeed risen and traditional laggards like rural wage rates have seen a sharp increase,
EPW

in real terms, in the past decade. Literacy rates, school and higher education enrolment rates, child and maternal mortality rates, and life expectancy have all seen improvements much less than what should have been but more than what was seen in previous years. Even though the implementation of many of the UPAs progressive laws has been negligent, often callously so, they have had a positive impact to the extent they have been operationalised. How does this square with the traditional anti-incumbency explanation? Similarly, the aspirational explanation falls short since the same social classes, which are so vocal in their opposition to the UPA this time had largely voted in favour of continuing its agenda in 2009. Further, a look at the state assembly elections since 2009 shows no anti-UPA anger of the sort witnessed in the assembly election results of December 2013 and what the present-day media reports indicate. It is impossible to understand in terms of the aspirational explanation why Shivraj Singh Chouhan or Raman Singh won repeat terms but Sheila Dixit and Ashok Gehlot faced massive defeats, since the bread and butter policies of the latter were almost identical and they addressed the same combination of social classes. Is Narendra Modi merely riding an anti-UPA anger in his campaign for prime ministership, or is his campaign resourcerich, aggressive and single-minded actually igniting this anger from the cinders of tepid disaffection? Is this supposed wave against the UPA nothing but the shrill pitch of reaction by Indias priviledged castes and classes against the policies of the UPA, amplied by a compliant media, as some government defenders claim? None of these questions nd satisfying answers, particularly now when the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has burst on the electoral scene riding the same anger which seems to be carrying Modi. AAPs growing support base seems to be a combination of the middle and poor classes and its programme seems to mirror the Congress strategy of addressing business interests and building a social security net for the poor and disadvantaged. What is particularly interesting is that while AAP mirrors the Congress social democratic politics, it grows in opposition to it. While the meteoric rise of AAP seems to satisfy the criteria of the aspirational explanation, its agenda is not really very distinct from that of the Congress-led UPA. 7

Economic & Political Weekly

APRIL 5, 2014

vol xlix no 14

EDITORIALS

What one can say with some certainty at this moment is that the theories we have to explain democratic politics in a capitalist economy seem inadequate in the face of this social and political churn. The two alternatives to the UPA, the one that tries to tap into the desire for decentralisation and peoples power and the

other that taps into a strongly felt desire for authoritarian power which can override dissent gives us a clue as to how this churn will eventually play itself out. The Congress itself seems to have been politically unprepared to address the new conditions that its policies partly helped create and is paying the price for this failure.

APRIL 5, 2014

vol xlix no 14

EPW

Economic & Political Weekly