Some of this debate obviously comes from disgruntled partymen, no doubt. When in the Opposition, it’s easy for politicians to tear at each other, go for the kill, and jostle for their own share of the cake. Those on the ruling side at least have the glue of the spoils of power to hold them together. Or the fear of punitive action.
Some controversies among Opposition parties are undeniably being fuelled by ruling party backers. That is obvious from online posts. No doubt, it makes good sense to ‘divide and rule’.
But, without going into the dispute over the Girish Chodankar versus Amit Patkar tussle, there is a lot we are missing out on here. The issue is not just one of who is the preferred choice. It goes much deeper. It is about how the party system works (or doesn’t) for us in Goa.
Regardless of the party in power (and we have seen this over decades), the political system in Goa, as in the rest of India, faces a number of severe and mostly undiscussed problems. These are not unique to one ideology or party, but cut across national and regional parties, those on the Right and Left, and the middle-of-the-road.
In the latest controversy, what we see is a reflection of weak inner-party democracy. Let’s acknowledge that the same affects not just the Congress, but the BJP too. Major decisions are controlled by a single leader. Sometimes, they are in the hands of a small coterie, a family, or an unelected ‘high command’.
Both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress, on paper, have organisational constitutions which provide for internal elections at various levels, both for state and national posts. But practice is very different. The process is always shaped by those in control of the central leadership, “consensus-building” (which means backroom manipulation), factional negotiations and organisational control. There’s little or no room for open competitive democracy.
But that is only the beginning.
We have dynastic politics and marital politics. Those who criticised the Gandhi family for long have also brought in their families to effectively control the game.
Defections and opportunism are another field where tiny Goa could emerge as a frontrunner for the national champions’ claim. Where does the history of this start? 2022? 2019? 2017? 2005? 2002? The 1990s and their especially notorious episodes? 1980, when Congress (U) became Congress (I) overnight? The 1960s, with that era’s ‘blood transfusions’ between the supposedly antagonistic MGP and the UGP?
All our ruling parties have gained from this, and have thus lost the moral right to criticise the trend. What is surprising, however, is how the voter looks on haplessly when such a mass influx happens. It changes the very basis of who controls the State and its resources.
Goa (and other instability-prone states like Haryana, UP and Bihar) saw repeated episodes of MLA defections. This built national pressure for constitutional reform. But the anti-defection law of the 52nd Constitutional Amendment of 1985, under Rajiv Gandhi, only formalised defections; it did not stop them.
Goa was a frontrunner in exposing many loopholes in the law. It taught the nation how to engineer “splits”, mergers and resignations. Goa has been a prominent laboratory of defection and coalition instability. It pays to be small?
Then, politics isn’t only about personalities. Money power and patronage politics need chapters to cover them, not a newspaper column.
Since the 1960s, we’ve fooled ourselves into believing that Goa is somehow “different”. Yet, identity-based mobilisation has been the name of the game.
Caste, religion, region and language have played an important role. One can understand that all sections need to be adequately represented, and all that. Yet, the issue here is the manipulation that goes on behind the scenes in fixing the desired results.
Weak ideological commitment is another fact that stands out in Goa’s politics. See how politicians have changed parties (like the rest of us change shirts), and amended their tune according to the seasons.
Centralisation of power is another issue which seldom gets even a stray mention. For the ‘national’ parties, state units become subordinate to the central leadership.
This might seem like a case for regional politics. But the issue is hardly so simple. Experience shows us that regional parties are easily manipulated by bigger forces; they often end up as the regional tail of a ‘national party’ dog. Their alliances of convenience are glibly justified as strategies to gain ‘development’.
In our times, politics has become a victim of media management and personality-based cult politics. Image management is more crucial than actual achievements. Social media can control the narrative.
Not that the voter is innocent in all this. One section of the ‘enlightened’ electorate is keen to get his (and even her, given the gender of the accused we see in recent rackets) undue share. For them, politics means gaining personal access and patronage. Which voter won’t accept quick favours or undeserved government jobs as payback?
Where are our political theoreticians at times when we need them the most? Especially those who won’t simply offer post-facto justifications, but will help the average voter make sense of what’s going on around them?
Christopher Jaffrelot, a French political scientist, historian and South Asia scholar, has analysed things exceedingly well in a must-watch video. Check it out here: https://tinyurl.com/Christophe-Jaffrelot
