Modi and the art of next best

His first term in the Lok Sabha was spent in comfort. But the second could be a test for his charisma-driven politics

To Otto von Bismarck, the 19th century Prussian statesman, is attributed the lovely phrase: “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable: the art of the next best.”

The first line of the statement is familiar to most of us. But in the absence of the second part, the bits about attainability and the acceptance of the next best—the line “politics is the art of the possible”— remains vague and inconclusive. What Bismarck means of course is that politics is the arena of making the best of what is available after compromise: There will always be multiple, and often, conflicting interests in politics. His message is a warning against rigidity and inflexibility.

About half a dozen opinion polls have come in on India’s elections. Most of them share one finding — that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will win a plurality of seats in the Lok Sabha, with the Bharatiya Janata Party winning as many as 220. But the NDA may fall short of a majority. 

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) will likely come second or even third behind ‘Others’. Absent an upset, this means that the NDA will, as the single largest pre-poll alliance, be invited to form the government even if it lacks a full majority. Even if it is a bit short, this invitation to form will likely coalesce fringe and unattached interests around the NDA and it will be set for a second term.

If this is indeed the case, it will be the first time in his political career that Narendra Modi will hold office without a majority backing him. Recall that he was parachuted in as chief minister of Gujarat in an Assembly which the BJP controlled with around a two-thirds majority (117/182). After the dreadful events of 2002, Modi called an early election the same year and won a bigger majority (127/182) which he retained in the elections of 2007 (117/182) and 2012 (120/182). In his first general election in 2014, he again delivered a majority, and the NDA was close to 350 seats. A full BJP majority, meaning no dependence for crucial votes on partners, and a few dozen seats for partners, meaning that no BJP clique could obstruct him, ensured that Modi would spend the entire Lok Sabha term in comfort. He had no need to compromise and was under no pressure to dilute his agenda.

If the opinion polls this time are accurate, he will be on new ground. He has never before had the experience of having to negotiate within the party to retain his authority or with external partners, the BJP’s allies, who will want a greater say.

Another reason why this is new is that Modi has preferred not to deal with strong and forceful politicians inside the BJP his entire career. It would not be inaccurate to say that he has distrusted these individuals. He has deployed a formula for handling such people which has worked for him all these years, because he has controlled the majority. 

Every elections from the time I turned 18 in the late 1980s and able to vote till 2004, the MP representing Surat was Kashiram Rana. One of the founders of the BJP in Gujarat, Rana was a six-term undefeated Lok Sabha member, till Modi decided to discard him. After he became CM, Modi sidelined Rana along with other leaders like former CM Keshubhai Patel, by denying them tickets without giving a reason. He repeated the same thing nationally with people like LK Advani, Yashwant Sinha, MM Joshi and Jaswant Singh.

This mistrust or suspicion of senior, mass-based leaders has meant that Modi is mostly comfortable with bureaucrats or leaders with no popular support (like Arun Jaitley and Piyush Goel, both creatures of the Rajya Sabha, who have never won an election). Such people have been pliant and unable or unwilling to resist their leader even when they sense that he’s unreasonable (an individual in Modi’s office told me that even finance minister Jaitley was unaware of demonetisation till the day it was announced).

At around 200 seats, this would change comprehensively. Such a figure would put Modi in the same position as the second UPA government of Manmohan Singh (who had about 210 or so Congress MPs). It will mean that regional parties will need to be engaged, their concerns accommodated and their voices heard. This again will be new for Modi.

There has always been a tradition within the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that favours what the military calls unity of command. Meaning centralised authority without dissent and without even recognition that regions may have divergent interests. Both the RSS and the BJP/Jana Sangh have expressed discomfort with such a devolution of central authority.

Illustration: Binay Sinha

Deendayal Upadhyay of the Jana Sangh wrote: “According to the first para of the Constitution, ‘India that is Bharat will be a federation of States’, i.e. Bihar Mata, Banga Mata, Punjab Mata, Kannada Mata, Tamil Mata, all put together make Bharat Mata. This is ridiculous. We have thought of the provinces as limbs of Bharat Mata and not as individual mothers. Therefore, our Constitution should be unitary instead of federal.” (Upadhyay, Integral Humanism)

Madhav Golwalkar, second head of the RSS, expressed consternation at the path post independence India took and wrote: “Towards this end the most important and effective step will be to bury deep for good all talk of a federal structure of our country’s Constitution, to sweep away the existence of all ‘autonomous’ or semi-autonomous ‘states’ within the one State viz., Bharat and proclaim ‘One Country, One State, One Legislature, One Executive’ with no trace of fragmentational, regional, sectarian, linguistic or other types of pride being given a scope for playing havoc with our integrated harmony.” (Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts). He felt that legislative authority was the preserve of Parliament alone and the state assemblies shouldn’t even be authorised to write law.

It will be fascinating to see how PM Modi in his second innings deals with this new situation and whether he can shed his highly charismatic and individualistic persona to become more accommodating and open to compromise. It may seem like the art of the attainable and the next best is the domain of weak politicians, but of course it is not.

There was no harder nationalist than Bismarck, who was known as the Iron Chancellor.