DIVISIVE POLITICS

SANJOG MAHESHWARI

                                                                                                                                                           THE ANATOMY & THE HISTORY OF THE DIVISIVE POLITICS

                                                                                                                  -SANJOG MAHESHWARI

 

              We started out on our journey as republic with divisive politics.  In fact, the malady is inextricably ingrained in the very system of our governance.  It was for  his successively leading the Congress Party to the winning post in all the general elections fought under his leadership on the strength of solid Muslim votes assiduously cultivated, fostered and nourished by him, that India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru earned the tag: “The First Muslim Prime Minister of India.”

             

              He  inherited the British policy of ‘Divide & Rule’ disguised it in “Quota & Reservation in jobs etc. for the selected sections of the society” on the basis of their ‘social’ as against ‘economic’ status, which has since reinvented itself, many times over, and in multiple forms, penetrating deep in the civic society and the polity, and has since come to be universally recognised, with loads of trepidation and frustration, as “Divisive Politics.”  Thus it is the same "Divide & Rule" policy of the Britishers in its new avatar.

 

              While the minority (read Muslim) vote-bank still continues to remain the mainstay of the Congress Party’s political culture, the divisive politics, over the years, has displayed the uncanny tendency to blossom forth into multiple strains as it hybridized into V.P.Singh’s “Muslim-S.C &S.T.-OBC” variety, several years ago,  but is still being fondly cultivated. fostered, and nurtured by  the likes of Mulayam Singh, Mayawati, Amar Singh- the list is long. Public memory is proverbially short, but not so short as to forget how this strain of divisive- identity politics once catapulted the one of the wiliest cats of the jungle of U.P. politics to the top post, and brought the other one dangerously close to grab it.

 

              However, in the sixties when it tried to spread its vicious tentacles in Maharashtra, the awakened and enlightened Marathi people could not resist but to counter it by breeding and developing its yet another strain. Their great leader- Bal Thackeray- founded Shiv Sena.  (It further branched out as Maharashtra Nav Nirman Sena under the leadership of his nephew Raj Thackeray).

        Shiv Sena went ahead to cultivate and  breed “ Regional-cultural-linguistic” variety of the divisive politics: “Maharashtra for Marathi  Manush.”  Nothing new about it except that in the case of Maharashtra the evil is perpetuated under the leadership of a non-Congress party political outfit , and the results and reactions are harsher and more cruel than those caused by the slow-poison, called ' Sons-of-the-Soil theory' invented right at the dawn of Independence, and  is surreptitiously being followed everywhere else in the country by every other ruling-class- irrespective of  its colour, shade and ideology.

    While Article 370 lends it legitimacy in Jammu &Kashmir, Article 371  make special provisions with respect to several other states. Not to be left behind, some other remaining states also follow the suit , enact similar laws in the guise of protecting the interests of the subjects of that particular state, and in the process the citizens' fundamental rights enshrined in the Article 19 of the Constitution of the country are compromised.  People belonging to other states of the union, are barred to purchase and own immovable assets in other states of their choice- even well-within the territory of the Union of India.

   

    As the poison kills poison, this culture is now drawing public attention towards the perils inherent in the divisive politics but also pointing the finger at those who have been reaping bumper harvest of political gains by gleefully perpetuating it for the furtherance of their own entrenched vested interests for several decades now. It looks extremely ridiculous on the part of the villains of the piece to now criticize Thackerays  for something- as vicious as identity politics of vote bank-  that they and their own leadership had earlier invented and used to the hilt to repeatedly gain political mileage over its rivals in the politics in all its spheres.  During the earlier seventies, the writer of these lines spent about 5 years in Nagpur where he, even then as a very  young school-going boy, could palpably perceive the all pervading influence of the Shiv Sena leaders over the people.

 

               Even now, the divisive politics of quota/Reservation in government jobs, seats in the educational institutions and other such matters selectively for certain targeted groups,draped and decked with the covering of social justice, is going full steam- doing what it invariably does i.e.Dividing the nation,. Such act of preference to selective groups or communities, by any name, certainly disadvantages other communities, and as a consequence, keeps the nation divided. Unfortunately, the politicians across the board, cutting across the party-lines, keep sitting pretty while the governments run by them perpetuate this worst form of racism albeit in disguise of social justice, caring two hoots for the results: Fragmentation of society, and the division of the nation on the lines of caste, community, region and religion. Divisive politics by any other name cannot get any less vile.  You cannot fool all the people all the time.

 

              Where this politics of exclusiveness, quota/reservation, identity and vote-bank, religious-cultural-linguistic chauvinism, the stuff by which the Divisive Politics is made, would lead us to?-  Balkanisation of the nation; where else?

 

              The interesting, though hugely disturbing,  aspect of the phenomenon is that the quick-fix-solutions, instead of containing the malady which is inextricably intertwined with our very system of governance, go only to fuel the growth of divisive politics, in different strains and forms, and prove counterproductive. Further, as under the present arrangement of the things, no political outfit or individual can gain any ascendency over its rivals without resorting to it, it would be futile and downright in the bad taste to blame any individual politician or political party for using it as a weapon for achieving their cherished political ambitions.

 

              The culture of identity and selective politics and the politics of vote bank is integral to our system of governance and we will have to live with the evil so long as this system lasts.  For winning the next election, all that a ruling political party needs to do is to distribute huge largesse from the Exchequer among the selected, targeted groups at the material time, during  the run up of general elections. Thanks to the system, such ad-hoc measures have paid rich political dividends all the time in every  election in the past, and can safely be relied upon for gaining political mileage over the rivals in the politics, in future as well.

 

              The divisive politics has its roots in our system and as such it will require overhauling the system itself, if we are interested in destroying it-lock, stock and barrel. Blaming the individual politicians or the political parties for the evil is tantamount to not seeing the wood for the trees, and will prove counterproductive.

 

                The remedy lies only in replacing this system with the American Presidential model, and sooner we replaced our Westminster type Parliamentary form of governance by the Presidential model, the better it would be for the health of our democracy.  

 

                                                                                                                   -SANJOG MAHESHWARI