After the Samajwadi Janata Dal, the National People’s Front. Opposition leaders are, indeed, active, perhaps hyper-active. They have not completed the first exercise in opposition unity and they are launched on the second. There is a “little” difficulty, though. The first exercise is threatening to come unstuck, with the former president of the Janata party, Mr Chandra Shekhar, staying away from the “unity” parleys, the dissident leader in Bangalore, Mr H.D. Deve Gowda, announcing that he would stay on in the “original Janata”, and the president of the Lok Dal, Mr H.N. Bahuguna, preparing quietly to avenge the humiliation the Haryana chief minister, Mr Devi Lal, has imposed on him. The second exercise could go the same way. For one thing, it cannot possibly escape the consequences of the troubles in the would-be (or would have been) SJD. For another, the two efforts are not compatible.
While the first move is intended to throw up a party which can not only overcome the Congress but also replicate it in the politically crucial Hindi-speaking belt and thereby dominate the political scene there and, through it, in the whole country, the second seeks to produce a loose arrangement whereby regional parties such as the Telugu Desam in Andhra, the DMK in Tamil Nadu and the Asom Gana Parishad in Assam can get a share in power in Delhi without having to share it with others in their respective states. In plain terms, while the SJD is an attempt to replace the Congress by replicating it, the NPF represents a repudiation of the essentially unitary system over which the Congress has presided for over four decades with the exception of the Janata interregnum between March 1977 and January 1980. Interestingly enough, four formations – the Janata, the Lok Dal, the Congress (S) and the Jan Morcha – and their leaders who are engaged in the first move are also party to the formation of the NPF. Apparently, either they are not aware of the contradiction between the two efforts or they are being cynical. On the face of it, the first appears to be the case. That should tell us something about the nature of Indian politics. Excessive ambition does cloud reason.
It is obviously too early to say whether or not the National People’s Front should be taken seriously. The rhetoric of the “unanimously” elected chairman, Mr N.T. Rama Rao, and convenor, Mr V.P. Singh, can, of course, be dismissed straightaway. Imagine Mr Rama Rao providing “purposeful administration to the country” when he has made a veritable mess of Andhra. And one may well ask when exactly did Mr V.P. Singh sketch even the outlines of a programme for a “complete socio-economic transformation” of India. But such rhetoric is the staple of democratic politics which the people take in their stride. The critical issue which cannot be answered at this stage is whether the Front can possibly take advantage of the anti-Congress sentiment and come to power in New Delhi. Two points are however clear. First, the Front represents an attempt to return to the twilight period of the Moghul empire when powerful satraps paid only nominal tribute to the emperor in the Red Fort in Delhi. Secondly, the formation of the Front amounts to an admission that despite all that has happened in it and to it in the last two decades, the Congress remains the only national party which can possibly hold the political order together in one piece in the country as a whole, regardless of the number of states in which it is in power. After all, the sole raison d’etre for the Front can be the desire to defeat the Congress in the electoral battle for power in New Delhi.
The situation in the country today is doubtless very different from what it was in the 18th century. One striking difference is that the British East India Company was then getting ready to capture power in the whole sub-continent. But that is not central to our present concern, though hostile powers on our borders are waiting for the opportunity a weak central authority in Delhi will provide them. In the 18th century, the sword was the arbiter of power. Today, the ballot box plays that role. But this difference is not as sharp as it might appear. The old warrior groups are on the move once again. These groups have never in Indian history thought in terms of a pan-Indian state. The Indian state is perhaps strong enough to withstand the shock that the attempted fragmentation of the political process will administer it. But the agency of the Indian state, the Union government, is a different proposition.