Bankruptcy of ‘Identity’ Politics

In a democratic republic an individual should be the unit for governance. His or her identification to a particular community should be of limited political relevance. However, India’s diverse social and unequal economic fabric has been prostituted to the advantage of political parties which claim to represent the cause or identity of one specific community as distinguishable from the other.

Irony of such representative politics is that it seeks to ameliorate the conditions of the very sect on whose social or economic backwardness it justifies its own existence. If the identifiable group is no longer deprived, the existence of a separate political outfit will be redundant. The political party who claims to work for the poor has every incentive to ensure that there should always be zillions of those. The need for continued political relevance compels them to work positively to ensure that anything that fuels the mobilization of the group is avoided at all cost.

Worthlessness of this brand of politics is empirically proven. It is this brand of politics that allows Bahujan Samaj Party in ensuring that the deprivation does not leave the marginalised scheduled tribes. It allows Rashtriya Janta Dal to be sole guardian the Muslim-Yadav community and the poorest of the poor and do nothing to benefit them.  It allowed the congress to permanently reverse the path towards uniform civil code by nullifying the landmark ruling of the Supreme Court and bending backwards repeatedly by sustaining regressive and archaic laws which would be despicable by any objective standard in a civilized society. So convenient and addictive was this trend that they had the audacity to subvert the constitution by introducing religious based reservation, prejudicing the interest the very muslim community which it claimed to represent.

Acceptability of this politics grants the party an immunity from any level of underperformance or corruption as ability to govern was never the basis for their claim for power. It is contagious as it almost forces other political rivals to adopt similar pattern. Consequently, what the country witnessed the creation and widening of social divide, invention of competitive and often conflicting identities and precedence of symbolism over substance. Meanwhile, the national interest is relegated leaving the identity of an individual as Indian largely irrelevant.

The last thing that a community would need to secure its identity is self-proclaimed political guardians. 

Political Brilliance has no Substitute.

‘Governance’ is considered to be anybody’s task and often understood as requiring little less than honest intentions and formal education. Even the most informed voter often casts his vote in favour of a presumably less corrupt candidate. Having an incorruptible image is often considered sufficient to be in the business. If it were true, one would not be hard put to identify leaders in India’s sixty year long political history with demonstrably effective governance record.

Unfortunately, politics is a discipline by itself and governance is rocket science. In India’s inherently complex and evolving socio-political dynamics, this is increasingly true. Honesty is both necessary and desirable but by no means sufficient. Political brilliance has no substitute. Incompetence, on the other hand has no virtue. The importance of it is required to be stressed as unfortunately politics is confused with romanticizing poverty and glamorizing false pride. 

Political brilliance is by its very nature less evident and difficult to trace. If history is any judge, we also know that it is rare. It is characterised by leadership quality, decision making ability, political will and the acumen in governance. Disdaining qualities or rendering them irrelevant will prove suicidal. What we have also witnessed very often is that a political discourse which ignores political brilliance generates sub-standard governments.

Lack of political acumen is capable of creating epic blunders. Nehru’s vision of Kashmir which lacked foresight and national interest led to an almost irreversible problem. Rajiv Gandhi’s addiction to irrational, anti-national and sectarian sentiments churning out one disaster after another is not unknown either, while political brilliance of Sardar post independence and Indira Gandhi during the Bangladesh War led to unification of India and consolidation of national security, respectively.

It is hard to imagine why a leader should be judged on extraneous grounds except for governing abilities.   

Demonstrable and relevant merit is indispensable for any employment. Being young may not be enough, being a dynast is totally irrelevant. Any departure from the norm will render the institution deficient. Politics is no different. 

The simple answer the question of who should be in the business is that it has to be the one who knows how to do the business.