Politics in the classroom: Politicians opt for 'schools' over grassroots

In a shift from grassroots to classrooms, today's politicians trade protest marches for 'schools', fusing ideology with social media finesse to navigate India's post-ideological electoral maze

If long years of working at the grassroots shaped generations of political cadres earlier, aspiring politicians now attend specially designed leadership courses offered by privately run ‘schools’ to equip themselves in navigating the labyrinth of India’s increasingly post-ideological electoral democracy.

While participating in protests, courting arrests, discussing threadbare their party’s ideological stands, organising corner meetings, and assisting party candidates in contesting elections were badges of political experience in the past, these ‘schools’ promise to impart skills to burnish the profile of potential election ticket seekers.

They offer guidance on using social media in their efforts and even assure them not only of lectures but also access to leading political personalities in the country.

The Indian Institute of Democratic Leadership (IIDL) in Mumbai, the Pune-based Maharashtra Institute of Technology School of Government (MIT-SOG), the Indian School of Democracy (ISD) headquartered in the national capital, the Rashtram School of Public Leadership at Sonipat’s Rishihood University, and the School of Politics (which currently offers online courses) are some outfits that promise to train political workers and consultants of the future.

Not that mainstream political parties have altogether stopped training their workers.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) conducts baudhik or brainstorming sessions for its cadres.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) runs its Central Party School at New Delhi’s HKS Surjeet Bhawan.

The Congress sends its workers to the Sevagram Ashram in Maharashtra’s Wardha.

“However, such training is based on ideological tenets when these lines are increasingly blurred. Politics has moved on, where acquiring skill sets, such as running professional campaigns, a better appreciation of how data is important, and using technology, is far more crucial,” Abhimanyu Bharti, founder of School of Politics, told Business Standard.

For example, he says, Facebook was the primary social media vehicle for campaigning in 2014, WhatsApp was in 2019, and Instagram Reels are the flavour of the 2023–24 election season.

While the quality of training that political outfits and organisations, such as the RSS, offer their cadres has not kept pace with the times, there are other reasons why parties are disinclined to invest their resources in such efforts.

“Priority is winning elections, which have become expensive. Parties tend to field winnable candidates but, crucially, those with access to resources, even if imported from rival parties. Moreover, defections and switching of loyalties are frequent,” a Congress leader, who has unsuccessfully pushed his party to institute regular training modules for party workers, said.

According to an Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) report, 443 Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and Members of Parliament (MPs) quit their respective parties and re-contested on their new party's ticket between 2016 and 2020. While ADR analysed the election affidavits of re-contesting MLAs, the number of defectors would be higher if one considered those their host party did not field.

Training has also become important since parties have tended to drop large numbers of sitting legislators to beat anti-incumbency. The 16th Lok Sabha had 314 first-term MPs, and the current 17th has 267. In Gujarat, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has ruled since 1995, 47 per cent of the MLAs elected in the December 2022 elections were first-term.

The School of Politics started in 2021 and has a 15-member team. It runs an introductory ‘Your First Step in Politics’ online 15-day course, followed by its more exhaustive four-month-long courses that cost up to Rs 50,000, primarily for political workers, future election campaign managers, and prospective ticket seekers.

However, Pune’s MIT-SOG offers a two-year Master’s programme for younger students, the first comprising campus-based learning through classroom lectures and the second promising internships “with offices of political leaders and political parties” at a course fee of Rs 3 lakh. Its website lists alums currently associated with ministers, MPs, and MLAs.

Sonipat’s Rashtram offers an 11-month residential postgraduate diploma in public leadership and charges Rs 6.8 lakh as tuition fees.

According to Bharti, nearly 5,500 have enrolled in his team’s courses and have involved a diverse set. At the top of the ladder are MPs, MLAs, state unit chiefs of political parties, or those serving as personal assistants or officers on special duty in the staff of ministers or the support staff of legislators.

Then, there is the second category of political workers currently at different levels of party hierarchies. They wish to contest elections in a five- to 10-year time frame, work on polishing their profiles, improve their public speaking, and understand cadre and media management.

A third emerging category is of mid-career bureaucrats, technology, and business professionals with no political pedigree or links to politics, but who nurse a passion for it. Mainly in the 40–50 age group, they hope to invest a few more years in their professions and also use that time to pick up skills that would be useful in their future political career before taking early retirement — voluntary retirement in the case of bureaucrats once they reach pensionable age — before taking the political plunge.
 

However, not all such ‘schools’ are ideologically agnostic.

ISD, founded in 2018 by Prakhar Bhartiya and Hemakshi Meghani, conducts a nine-month flagship programme, ‘The Good Politician’, to train future leaders and two week-long courses, ‘She Represents’ and ‘Democracy Express’. Its intake is primarily from those already involved with grassroots work, and the basic cost per participant for its longer course is Rs 2 lakh, but it promises substantial merit-based scholarships. It says the life and teachings of the Mahatma have inspired its teachings, and it has 180 alumni across India “on a mission of reclaiming politics as an avenue of public service and bringing sarvodaya alive in each corner of the country”.

Mumbai-based IIDL, a centre that Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini (RMP), an outfit ideologically affiliated with the Sangh Parivar, manages, runs a nine-month postgraduate diploma in ‘Leadership, Politics, and Governance’, which it says is “designed to produce trained, ethical, and responsible leaders, in short, “New Leaders for a New India”. It costs Rs 4 lakh.

Headed by BJP Rajya Sabha member and Indian Council for Cultural Relations President Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, RMP gained prominence in the initial years of the Narendra Modi government when it took up the challenge of training BJP workers to be political assistants to Union ministers when the Prime Minister’s Office barred ministers from employing “career political assistants”, or those in their office staff who had worked with ministers of the previous United Progressive Alliance regime. However, the centre has since coached not just Sangh Parivar cadres but those from other parties.

“We are not shy about our ideology but are professional in our approach,” a functionary said.