If it is any yardstick for a vibrant democracy, India today has six former Prime Ministers around. Only two of them, namely, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and P V Narasimha Rao completed a full term, and thus became mascots of political stability in their time. Yet, subsequent elections proved that stability was not the only concern of the Indian voter. To him, political stability is a vehicle for his deliverance and in ways he understands.
The post-poll concerns over the future of the "reforms regimen™ as expressed through the stock market indices are in a way a prescription for ˜guided democracy. It means that the Government should do what it thinks is good for the nation and not necessarily what the people expect it to do. This is what the Governments led by Narasimha Rao and Vajpayee did without saying so. Whatever the justification, they paid little heed to the writing on the wall, which in turn was faded by the media glare. With the result, there was continuity in economic policy-making and implementation, but the political cost could be overlooked only at one's peril.
It is not only the nation's economy but the nation's polity is also at the cross-roads. Sooner, rather than later, India will be asked to choose, not necessarily between economic reforms and democratic decision-making, but between ˜guided democracy'' and ˜guiding the democracy''. In the latter case, the voter tells the ruler, what should be done " if not in so many words. Who should guide whom is the question" whether the Government, or the governed. Elections-2004, like those earlier, particularly in 1996 and 1999, is being interpreted to imply that the governed should guide the Government, and not the other way round. It is for this reason that even traditional critics of the parties forming the ruling coalition at the Centre a present see virtues in their Common Minimum Programme (CMP).
In the absence of emotional election issues and leadership charisma of whatever kind, the nation has voted for a coalition dispensation. While it is true that the new coalition does not exactly enjoy the people's mandate, there is no denying the positive denial of the same in the case of its predecessor. The fact remains that on politics and economics, parties forming the ruling minority coalition and their outside under-writers had shared a similar, if not a common line " in turn, variously opposed to the one followed by the Government that was voted out. It is this similarity that has also helped fashion the CMP without dissent.
Whatever be their intentions, for the first time regional allies in the ruling coalition have talked seriously about regional concerns, both during and after the formation of the new Government. Some have sought more funds for their States, others have mentioned greater coordination among coalition Ministers at the Centre from the State to promote its interests, without weighing them on the political scale. It remains to be seen how serious are they about these concerns, yet such a realization is a cumulative reflection of the voter's mood and expectations, as understood by the regional parties. The national polity needs to accommodate such aspirations and concerns in the coalition environment.
This time round, the Vajpayee Government disproved a coalition-related myth that its the political partners who bring down an alliance dispensation.. The people voted it out, instead, fully aware that a successor government would be less stable, if not less than stable. That should be a warning signal to the present dispensation, and some of its partners, small or large, who may nurture ambitions and agendas of their own. If the voter felt unconvinced, he could turn the tables on them, as he had done many a time in the past decade and more. He has shown the political class, their real place in his scheme of things.
No comment expresses the burden of the peoples mandate in Elections-2004 Vajpayees observation on Indian democracy. My party may have lost, my alliance may have lost, but India has won,he told the nation while bowing out as Prime Minister for the third time in eight years.
That's Indian democracy for you, now as earlier.
* Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Observer Research Foundation.
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