Che-ranjeevi

New entrants can extend the democratic process to spaces established parties may not

There have been many,many crowds in Andhra Pradesh over the years that will have turned up to gawk at and applaud Chiranjeevi. And the number of such gatherings will only have increased since he finally decided that electoral politics was,after all,a suitable destination for a filmstar of his magnitude. But even given the number and variety of these rallies,the one he addressed on Tuesday at Lal Bahadur Nagar in Hyderabad should be considered exceptional.

For one,while there was,as usual,a giant cut-out dominating this Southern political rally,it wasnt,this time,of the party leader. It was of Che Guevara. Another unusual thing was the group of

people lined up to join Chiranjeevis Praja

Rajyam Party,or PRP. His rallies frequently feature ceremonies in which groups of people proclaim their dissatisfaction with the existing political set-up in Andhra Pradesh and then join the PRP; but,in this case,those lined up to participate werent retired bureaucrats or company officials; they were former Maoists,members of the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) and of other fringe,splinter groups.

This is something which new entrants into the political space can perform that is extraordinarily difficult for established parties. Comparisons to the Telugu filmstar who took the plunge into politics before him,N.T. Rama Rao,are overdone and perhaps not accurate,but what both men shared was an ability to,just by the fact of their presence as a credible alternative,bring into the mainstream those who had begun to feel dangerously marginal. It would be difficult to claim that the former Naxalites who joined the PRP on Tuesday represent the end of the insurgency,or even the beginning of the end; this paper has consistently argued that without a sterner,law-and-order-based approach,no end will be discernable. However,it does represent confidence: the confidence that,in the end,the democratic process,if made sufficiently attractive and fresh,will prevail. Chiranjeevi spoke at the rally of general amnesties,of ending fake encounters; but he also spoke of the time-tested values of electoral politics winning out against violence. Merely by presenting an alternative,by shaking up a states moribund polity,he might have helped bring that victory closer.