Mr. VP Singh must be disappointed over the decision of his colleagues in the Jan Morcha to retain their “identity” and not merge with the proposed Samajwadi Janata Dal which he is likely to head. His inability to carry his old allies from the Congress with him must embarrass him, cast doubt on his leadership qualities and indeed place him in an unenviable position in the new formation. Politics is a tough and cruel game; it involves struggle not only against the outside foe (Mr Rajiv Gandhi in Mr VP Singh’s case) but also against contenders for power within the organisation; in the latter struggle Mr VP Singh will not have the advantage of having his old friends with him; and he will be dealing with individuals with whom he has not worked and whose political culture he does not share. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that he wanted the Jan Morcha to merge with the SJD even if it involved loss of membership of Parliament and state legislatures for some of its members under the anti-defection act.
That is, however, only one aspect of this affair. The decision does not resolve the dilemma facing the other members either. Broadly, they have given three reasons for it. First, the Morcha is a movement and not a party; as such it has members who have no desire to join politics; Mr Sharad Joshi, Maharashtra’s peasant leader, for instance. Secondly, their resignation from Parliament will deny them a powerful platform to spotlight the failures of the Rajiv government. Thirdly, if they merge with the SJD they will not be able to attract Congressmen who are unhappy with Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s leadership and might wish to leave. While there is some merit in all these propositions, none of them is substantial enough to clinch the issue.
The Morcha is essentially a collection of former Congressmen who have fallen out with Mr Rajiv Gandhi; it is pretentious to describe it as a movement for clean public life or anything else; in any case if it attracts attention for its opposition to the Prime Minister on the question of corruption in high places, it is mainly because, rightly or wrongly, Mr VP Singh has come to be regarded as a leader of integrity; the association of men such as Mr Sharad Joshi is at best of marginal importance to the Morcha. The MPs in the Morcha have not been particularly eloquent and effective in Parliament; MPs belonging to the would-be Samajwadi Janata Dal have been in the forefront of the battle against the Congress government. Finally, if some Congress MPs and MLAs are in fact wanting to leave the party, they are more likely to do so if there exists an organisation truly capable of taking on Mr Rajiv Gandhi; for all the media attention it has received, the Jan Morcha is surely not such a formation; the SJD, with all its weaknesses, will certainly possess far stronger credentials in this regard.
There are, however, two other possible explanations for the Morcha’s decision which appear more plausible. First, the quarrel of the Morcha leaders is with Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s leadership and not with the Congress as such; in fact they cherish it and would wish, if they could, to “rescue” it from the present boss whom they see as inept and undependable; they are not moral crusaders; even if they were, they are not anxious to wage war on the Congress, especially since almost all of them believe that it may not be possible to build a viable alternative to it. Secondly, they belong to the “wrong” communities to feel comfortable in the proposed SJD. All the talk of a national alternative to the Congress and of clean politics notwithstanding, the SJD will essentially be a formation of the so-called “other backward castes” (peasant proprietors) who command substantial economic and muscle power and are thirsting for political power. Theirs is a search for a new political order over which they would preside. The Bofors and the other payoff scandals have provided a cover to this power bid. But it is not difficult to see through the cover.
This is not to condemn the effort; the intention is only to point out its central character; at the moment we are also not concerned with the viability or otherwise of this enterprise. The presence of men such as Mr Ramakrishna Hegde and Mr Madhu Dandavate cannot detract from the above argument. For one thing, no predominantly Hindu formation in India is ever a monopoly of allied castes; for another, the main battle will take place in north India where Mr Hegde and Mr Dandavate cannot matter. So leaders such as Mr Arun Nehru (a Brahmin), Mr VC Shukla (also a Brahmin), Mr Arif Mohammad (a Muslim) and Mr Ram Dhan (a Harijan) do not really belong there even if they do not see it that way. Mr HN Banuguna’s plight in the Lok Dal should settle the argument, Mr VP Singh is different. He can belong to the new formation of peasant communities (who were warriors up to the late 19th century) just as he could belong to the Congress dominated by the Brahmins in both his home state of UP as well as at the national level where he functioned as a Congressman for over two decades.