The charms of populism

Both the dramas were, in a way, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. The sanction by the Maharashtra government to prosecute Thackeray for penning inflammatory pieces in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece, Saamna, failed in its basic purpose simply because the government of the day had not done its homework. Maharashtra’s home minister Chhagan Bhujbal’s passion and the NCP leader Sharad Pawar’s guile notwithstanding, it should have been clear to anyone that under Section 153-A of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with promoting enmity between groups on grounds of religion and some other basis, the case against Thackeray enjoys a clear time bar of three years. Despite the incriminating evidence collected by the Srikrishna Commission report against Thackeray, the tiger goes scot free simply because of administrative ineptitude.

The case against Laloo is built on equally fragile grounds. In a scandal of Himalayan proportions, which involves by some estimates, about Rs 960 crore, the CBI has to date only collected evidence of Rs 42 lakh and, that too, in the DA case. In the absence of damning evidence, the victims in the two arrest dramas claimed that they were being witch-hunted, and unfortunately this charge has stuck.

What is, however, interesting is that the parallel extends beyond the act of defiance and the melodrama of arrest. In many respects, the two personalities have an uncanny resemblance. Thackeray’s bluff is equally matched by Laloo’s bluster. Both are used to behaving as extra-constitutional authorities, who remote-control governments, roller-ball opponents, and thumb their nose at the law. Both are equally dictatorial, and are, therefore, commonly referred to as party supremos.

Both enjoy a certain charisma. Both are at the centre of political controversy and are, therefore, a reporter’s delight. Both tend to generate extreme reactions: they are equally doted upon by their supporters, and detested by their detractors.

Although the duo represent the most advanced provinces (Maharashtra) as well as the most backward (Bihar) in India, Thackeray and Laloo, in some ways, pose the most formidable challenge to the Indian state and its enterprise of building a modern republic. For the urban chatterati, despite being urbane, Thackeray symbolises virulent communalism. Laloo, the rustic clown, turns out to be an emblem of casteism, and also a symbol of corruption. More importantly, both also constitute an overpowering threat to the rule of law.

While the Maharashtra administration requested neighbouring states for additional police force to prepare for Thackeray’s arrest, in Laloo’s case, the CBI joint director Upendra Biswas was so peeved by the former Bihar chief minister’s blunt boast that he, in a fit of hyperbole, asked for the army’s intervention.

What has led to the rise of this new irredentism? What contributes to the new populist challenge to the Indian republic? How do we cope with these powerful, arguably diabolical individuals, one of whom can hold to ransom India’s commercial capital while the other has, in the last one decade, almost smothered the destiny of her potentially richest state. How do we combat the new terror that strikes even institutions that uphold the rule of law?

Aside from the Tilaks and the Gokhales, Maharashtra during the national movement gave birth to the father of the Indian Constitution, Babasaheb Ambedkar. Bihar was not far behind with the likes of the first President of independent India, Rajendra Prasad, and Jayaprakash Narayan. The erosion of the nationalist elan witnessed a new set of leaders, whose perspective unfortunately was regional, at times even sectarian. The penetration of democratic culture to the village level empowered a completely new class of people, mostly from the dominant land holding communities: the intermediate groups in Maharashtra, and the other backward castes’ (OBCs) in Bihar. They articulated a new logic of collective mobilisation: the assertion of the ethnic identity. Language, religion, and caste became the new axes of politics. Although the resultant social churning democratised the polity, it ended up divorcing it from its republican roots. The competition for entrance into educational institutions and for securing scarcejobs added a certain fierceness to the new conflict.

The Shiv Sena, since its inception in 1966, turned out to be an anti-minority party. Given the subaltern status of local Maharashtrians in Mumbai, its nativist venom was first directed towards South Indians settled in Mumbai. Under the sons of soil’ slogans, it soon directed its ire at Muslims, Dalits and even Sikhs.

By the 1970s, Bihar began witnessing increased conflict between the upper castes and the newly empowered OBCs. The stranglehold of the upper castes in the Bihar Congress laid the foundations for the acute caste conflict. Laloo, ideologically poles apart from Thackeray, proved to be a master at building a new social equation among the OBCs, Muslims and dalits. With this rainbow coalition, he directed his vituperative attacks on the upper caste.

Indeed, with the numbers in favour of the new leaders, their rivals never batted an eyelid while using their knowledge of the intricacies of the law to combat this new militancy. Thus political battles began being fought through court wranglings. Thus in this fierce conflict for distribution of goodies, the legal procedure became the first casualty.

If the rule of law is to be protected, and, if it is to be implemented fearlessly regardless of the consequences, then political witch-hunting by taking recourse to the law must stop. The rise of new populism must be confronted headlong, politically, and not through legal shortcuts.