The anti-ism phase is over

The Bhartiya Janata Party, with an eye on the future, supported V P Singh to coalesce a non-Congress majority. This was India's first coalition at the centre. The BJP's primary motive was to keep the Congress out of power and make inroads into the polity while basking in the sunshine of reflected glory. The BJP made no demands and got no favours. "If VP Singh had not brought in Mandal, we would not have picked up kamandal (a vessel that the Sadhus carry)," said Atal Behari Vajpayee at that time.

Contradictions within V P Singh's own government brought him down. The BJP came into the picture when he implemented the Mandal Commission's recommendations to give the backward classes reservations in government jobs. That was the time when L K Advani led the rath yatra which polarised the society in northern India.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

The second phase started when the anti-BJP sentiment took over the political scene. This was after the demolition of the Babri masjid. The Congress took the place of the BJP as the propeller of governments and supported a combination of parties which had the anti-BJP bias as the only common factor. The Congress first made Chandra Shekhar as Prime Minister. Subsequently, Deve Gowda and Inder Gujral were catapulted to the same position. This was the time when a third front of sorts came into being.

Both phases, the first and the second, set a pattern where the major parties -- the BJP and the Congress -- would not join the government but give support from outside so that they could pull the rug from under the feet of the government in the gaddi at any time they considered politically appropriate. Sensing such a scenario, Gujral at least tried to induct the Congress into his cabinet but did not succeed. The Congress was itself plagued by the ambition to come to power. Then

party president Sitaram Kesri and its patron Sonia Gandhi brought down Deve Gowda first and then Gujral. In the process, the party not only lessened its credibility but also gave the BJP a clear road to move ahead.

By this time the anti-Congressism and the anti-BJPism had exhausted their possibilities in Indian politics. The coalition part remained important. But there was a crisscrossing of political parties. This was when the third phase, the current one, began. The BJP put together a coalition of 24 parties to constitute the National Democratic Alliance. Vajpayee had the knack of keeping the herd together. But he was also helped by the greed of all those bits of parties which, at one time, wore secularism on their sleeve. The kursi provided the glue to the communalists and the secularists or whatever their real credentials were.

Among them were the groups led by George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar, Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Yadav. They were the remnants of the Janata Party which had formed the government after the emergency. By joining the BJP-led alliance, they proved that their convictions, if any, were only skin-deep. And as the days went by, they became firm apologists for the Sangh parivar. Paswan was always in two minds. He was not fully reconciled to his association with the BJP. The party too was not happy with him because he did not have among the dalits as large a base as Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had. Paswan's exit from the government helped the BJP to join hands with Mayawati.

It is another story that the BJP damaged its image still further during her short stint as the UP chief minister. The third phase also brought to the fore the politicians' love for power, a trait which they had been able to hide behind slogans and shibboleths. They proved that they would do anything to stay in power.

The BJP enjoyed the spectacle and gave them unimportant portfolios. But it is as oblivious of

moral side of politics as most other parties are. All the three phases showed how quickly the small parties would cave in. It was also so easy to purchase them. Most regional parties stood their ground. The Telugu Desam Party, which extended support to the Vajapyee government, benefited the most. But it also learnt the lesson that the centre could always use its clout because of the control it enjoyed over financial institutions, the Reserve Bank and income tax and excise departments.

The Congress too learnt its lesson: It changed its position to go it alone. Had Sonia Gandhi realised this earlier, she would have probably secured the magic figure of 272 in the 543-member Lok Sabha. She got the opportunity when then President K R Narayanan asked her to prove her claim of having a majority.

Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party was willing to support her provided she appointed ministers from his party. By insisting on having a purely Congress government she lost the chance. Technically, Mulayam Singh was right but he unwittingly extended the life of the BJP government and gave it more time to saffronise the polity.

The fourth phase is already unfolding itself. All parties, big or small, are gearing up for capturing maximum seats. They have taken it for granted that the next government would be a coalition. Still the race is to capture the maximum seats in the Lok Sabha polls next year. Any one with a tally of 40 can be a king maker, if not the king. Both the BJP and the Congress would cross out each other. The dark horse might well be a regional party. Which will be the single-largest party in the hung parliament is difficult to say. The result of the two by-elections to the Lok Sabha is not much of a pointer. It only re-emphasises the point that the Congress, which has lost both the seats, is ridden with dissensions. This is nothing new. Bit what it emphasises is that Sonia Gandhi is not yet powerful enough to enforce discipline in the party ranks.

The BJP too is not devoid of dissensions. All have witnessed the shadow boxing between Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi over the Babri masjid demolition case at Rae Bareli. But the BJP has an arbiter in the RSS, if not in Vajpayee. Once the Sangh makes up its mind clear, the matter is over.

The assembly elections in November in five states -- Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram and Delhi -- may be a litmus test. The Congress rules in all the five states. The loss in any two major states can be a setback for the party. Still much will depend on the permutations and combinations before and after the general election. Who will join whom? One thing is sure: the phases of anti-BJPism and anti-Congressism are over. It is going to be the survival of the fittest, not of the idealist

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.