In the recently concluded assembly elections, BJP retained power in four states it had been ruling, and in fact improved upon its performance in terms of seats/vote share in Manipur, Goa and UP. While BJP’s victory in four states is more of a positive vote for its incumbency, performance, and electioneering, same may not be said of Punjab. In Punjab Aam Aadami Party got a massive mandate, a landslide victory that even AAP had not anticipated. Political parties are known for hyperbole and posturing in run-up to elections, and in his pre-election hyperbole Kejriwal spoke of 80 plus seats, in a house of 117. AAP got 92, with a 42% of the votes cast! No party since the 1957 Assembly elections has got such a mandate in the State, when Congress had won 120 of 154 seats in an opposition-less election as the SAD had boycotted.
The mandate has been read variously by poll–pundits as a mandate against the politics of identity, a mandate of optimism and aspiration, and even as a mandate for populism Delhi style for free electricity and rations and so on. Well, these seem to have various degrees of truth and opinion admixed. An analysis of exit poll interviews and personal interviews paint a picture that seems to have escaped the attention and scrutiny of the media. It was more of a vote against Congress, and Shiromani Akali Dal, in favour of the only viable option available on the block, the AAP, and to that limited extent only it could be called an aspirational mandate. Why and how it could be seen as a negative vote against Congress, the runner up and the dethroned one, seeks our attention the foremost. Congress was in a formidable position in the state, vis-a-vis other parties till as recently as six months to the elections as all opinion polls had unanimously predicted a hung assembly, with a slight advantage for AAP, and between 40-50 seats for the Congress. However Congress’s pole position itself got multi-polar at least between Captain Amrinder Singh, Sidhu, PCC Chief Sunil Jakhar, and others as the central leadership played matchmaker with a pied-piper, anointing Charanjeet Singh Channi, a Dalit, as the Chief Minister and later as the chief ministerial candidate. This is where Congress lost the plot conclusively. This was done purely on the basis of about 32% Dalit population in Punjab. Reliance on statistics rather than sociology cost Congress between 30-40 seats, beyond the Amrinder-Sidhu duel. An average voter is a common man too, living a social milieu. While Congress learnt a lesson or two from its statistician ideologue Mahalanobis, who Nehru employed to figure out five year plans, but the party did not take any notes from sociologist MN Srinivas and his concept of dominant castes, or from Italian philosopher-politician Antonio Gramsci, and his theory of cultural hegemony. The two talk and explicate centrality of dominant castes, and reference groups in the socio-political institutions, structures, behavior and decision making in a society, and more so in a setup and society like Punjab, torn between the traditional structures of its feudal/client- patron jajmani past, and the modern western reference-group aspirations dialed in by its diaspora spread over North America and western Europe and rest of the world. In the social world, plain information-statistics-based decisions not factoring in the social milieu and the social relationships is suicidal. Congress should have learnt it long time back. This is the common denominator of the bias, and malice Congress has been suffering from; forever appeasing groups and communities, rather than focusing on the larger picture of enlightened self-interest. Engaging a few of the bright historians and sociologists should be first on its priority, if it has heard of inductive/ deductive reasoning in logic and decision making. Harping on the 32% Dalit population, Congress baited out Channi as the Chief Minister to deliver the Dalit voters to Congress fold, losing out all— the Dalits, the voters, and the chief minister-ship. Text sans context has the same validity and relevance as bicycle has for a fish. Statistical-arithmetical calculations on the ground rarely turns into decisions in the head of voters, as a voter can never be just a homo-politicus or a homo-economicus; but would always remain a sum total of his social milieu, and the power dynamics operating in it, the homo-sociologicus. The 1/3 Dalit voter in Punjab or elsewhere does not, or rather cannot see himself in antithesis to the castes and communities (s)he lives the grind of daily and aspirational life with. (S)he occurs and sees her/himself in a syncretic relationship with another 2/3, the upper castes like jat Sikhs, Khatris and Brahmins, and other dominant castes like Rajputs, Gurjars and Sainis, in a functionalist or even in a conflicting but hegemonic relationship. Thus even on SC reserved seats, Congress could get only 4 of the 34, and APP bagged 29. Leadership by ascription and not achievement beleaguers the party, leasing to the issues of legitimacy and authority. Although, of course now perennial duel for positions rather than performance and entitlements, a lack of authoritativeness and poll preparedness of congress are also to blame, and that the Congress has always existed without any glue of ideology, and has thus often displayed a ‘principled’ vacuum is for another day to discuss. After all, for how long the inertia and momentum of freedom struggle and the ‘values’ so defining the Independence Movement can fuel Congress? In perception war too, Congress is getting increasingly perceived as a party of pseudo-secularists in a country with predominantly secular credentials and belief system that privileges tolerance and introspection as the civilisational kernel and core. Time is running out for the congress for a thorough and honest introspection to stay valid, and for the country to have an authentic opposition.
Why SAD was drubbed so badly at the hustings twice in a row is worth taking note of, for other parties like INLD and JJP in the neighbouring states like Haryana. SAD is still stuck in the politics of 1970s and 80s, of issues of Aurangzeb and Mughals, that of Akali pride, Kabaddi and Pehalwani tournaments when Punjabis as I said earlier see their brethren in UK, US, Canada, Copehagen and Canberra as the reference group. Since 1970s and 80s, people of Punjab have moved on. Patronising transfers, jobs, and panchayats alone would not deliver, especially when Punjabis are MPs, legislators, landlords, and entrepreneurs, as one of the largest Indian diaspora around the world. The common man in Punjab did not see the split of SAD from NDA as an ideological, principled, or values-based falling out as it was attempted to be projected by the party, but a selfish political gambit, a cunning. SAD and Majithias are also seen as the party that hooked the youth of Punjab on to the drugs and alcohol, and the previous Congress government was mandated to bring Punjab and Punjabis to the national glory it had hitherto enjoyed. BJP could never organise itself structurally or ideologically in the state having been over-indebted to its longest-standing NDA ally, the SAD. BJP was over-cautious not to be seen as an alliance breaker, wary of over-enthusiastic detractors keen on painting BJP as a monolith incapable of forging confidence and relationships. It saw itself as a junior and a late entrant this election, especially in the light of ‘anti-farmer’ narrative attempted against it in the background of the Farm Laws, now taken back.
That brings us back to AAP. The per capita GDP of Punjab now ranks 19th amongst Indian states, receding steadily and consistently from first amongst Indian states in 1981 and fourth in 2001. In recent years, Punjab has had the second-slowest GDP per capita growth rate of all Indian states and UTs between 2000 and 2010. Only Manipur was behind it. Between 1992 and 2014, Punjab’s life expectancy also grew slower than most Indian states rising to 71.4 years from 69.4. The contemporary social milieu of Punjab points towards frustration and aspiration of the common man in the mill of life limited by the options and opportunities he has had and chose out the viable option he had under the circumstances. Left of the centre economics, and right of the centre politics, AAP has been practising in Delhi, with a promise of 300 free electricity units for all households, on the back of free power for the tube-wells that the Punjab farmer already enjoys, may have been the sweetener, but is not likely to hold Punjabis in the long run. Punjab has actually tuned in to the call of health, education, employment, and more importantly an honest, accessible, just, and incorruptible administration that AAP had given beyond the identities of ascription like caste, or religion. NRI diaspora having interlinkages back home has been especially enthused and upbeat about it. Most of AAP ‘leaders’ are first-timer youngsters with no baggage, that the youth of Punjab, and their parents, have pinned their hopes and aspirations on, in the times when Punjab, and its administrative structure hasn’t been delivering, and the Agriculture and industry having plateaued. Their reference group is neither the Pahalwan, nor the Zamindar-jajman-patron deriving his strength from ascription; but the self-achieving egalitarian youth that is professional, and maybe now an MLA in Punjab, someone like them, and from them. Someone relatable with similarities of dreams, hopes and aspirations. AAP cannot afford to be frivolous or cunning with the mandate, given the intransigent nature of the common Punjabis, especially the farmers. A lesson or two from the recent farm laws agitation, or the militancy that had riven the state few decades ago, should be informing its operations and politics.
The Writer is a Ph.D. from JNU and reflects on socio-political issues. The views expressed are the writer’spersonal.