(Deepish Mani’s essay is among the Top 10 of the My Report Debate. Participants were asked the question: Who do you think should lead India – a single-party or a coalition?)
Differences between coalition and single-party governments have generated much debate ahead of the upcoming elections. The ruling party has even made it an election issue, projecting a spectre of the consequences of coalition governments.
But look deeper and you will see contradictions emerging. The ruling party has been bending backwards to stitch up alliances in various states, while the Opposition party is not budging to calls for alliance and declares to be playing in the front foot.
The reason for this striking contradiction is that the massive upswell against the current dispensation in the past four years have astonishingly not resulted in support for the main Opposition party.
Looking back, tumultuous periods have occurred under single-party governments such the Indira Gandhi-led one in the 1970s and the Modi government in the past 5 years.
But that alone does not mean that majoritarian rule is cataclysmic, as India also saw smooth functioning under a majority led by Nehru. In fact in 1962, after the Chinese debacle, Nehru allowed a no-confidence motion against himself despite the fact that there was no principal Opposition party. It speaks a lot about how politics depend on the leaders at the helm.
As Sigmund Freud pithily remarked once, “Groups take on the personality of the leader.”
To understand a single-party government, it is not enough to only look at Modi’s rule, it is necessary to look at our democratic structure. Unlike Britain and the US, where elected representatives vote against the party when policies contradict their ideologies, the anti-defection law of our country prohibits such acts. Any vote in parliament is the vote of the leader at the top, others have to get in line or get kicked out.
This makes coalitions untenable as very often parties disregard the nation’s interests to safeguard respective vote banks. This timidity was revealed during the Indo-US nuclear deal. The BJP voted against it but as WikiLeaks revealed later, many leaders of BJP were strident supporters of it.
The UPA rule was itself marred by such vagaries of coalition partners. A classic example is how representation for women in Parliament was dumped as patriarchal Mandal parties SP and RJD opposed it.
Coalitions have eroded the democratic credentials of Indian polity. A case in point is 1977 when the Jana Sangh brushed shoulders with socialists and communists, to enter mainstream politics and gain acceptability for their erstwhile ‘untouchable’ Hindutva ideology.
Governments cannot be run on the whims and caprices of sectarian interests, which coalition politics offers aplenty. Hence, a country where wealth is vastly generated and disproportionately placed at the top should shun opportunistic coalitions. To lay fetters on another majoritarian government we need an independent, intrepid media rather than a coalition. An affable, listening, young leader with a resounding majority is the need of the hour. India needs another Nehru!
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