After the loss in Bihar, now it is incumbent on Modi and his team to start rolling out reform, iron out the wrinkles and implement his promises, otherwise, 2019 will be a distant dream. The days of waiting are over.
Actor Manoj Bajpayee has essayed many roles, none more notable than Bhiku Mathre in the gangster film Satya. In Rajneeti where he plays a politico whose frailties are exposed constantly, he has this one terrific line - "Karara Jawab Deenge". As the Bihar results were done and dusted and the BJP was reduced to debris in the state, my mind switched to Bajpayee's one liner. For this was exactly what happened in Bihar. A conglomeration of factors won Bihar for the Mahagatbandhan, but none as significant as the fateful moment when the communal card was introduced by Amit Shah into the caste ridden narrative of Bihar politics. It was needless for the BJP president to say that crackers would be burst in Paksitan if BJP lost in Bihar.
Two things happened - first the people's riposte to the communal card was closing ranks against the interloper but more importantly it showed that the BJP had become desperate in its Bihar strategy. This gambit proved counter productive. I don't want to get into the whys and wherefore of the Bihar elections nand why the Nitish-Lalu combine won and why the BJP was vanquished. Enough has been said and written about it. At the same time, one cannot ignore the subliminal message from this verdict. Intolerance doesn't pay, suppression of dissent certainly doesn't and anyone attempting to undermine the idea of India will not be paid in spades.
The clatter of caste equations and return of jungle raj will not dissipate in a hurry. Its echo will remain even if the BJP echo chamber has been dismantled temporarily till the next state hustings. Equally, bipolar politics may be back given that the Congress knows that it may have to forge alliances in different states that go to the polls in 2016. Assam may be a case in point, and CM Tarun Gogoi may have to strike a partnership with AGP and AIUDF's Badruddin Ajmal. this may be the new model for an ailing Congress till it manages to rebuild itself and rise from the brutal defeat of May 2014. The Bihar template will now be followed in other poll bound states as the index of opposition unity will only be strengthened to dry gulch the arrogance of the BJP.
Equally Bihar is not India and it certainly cannot be equated with a similar debacle in Delhi earlier this year. Yet it warrants an
answer - if a credible opponent is thrown into the calculus, then the BJP does face problems. Anyway let us keep that aside and examine what it does to the ruling dispensation at the centre which came to power on the plank of growth and development. Jobs too. The tyranny of numbers is not going to change in the Rajya Sabha, in fact, it will probably remain the same or get worse. April will see the biennial elections and Bihar for instance has 16 seats (of which five will see new faces) which will more or less remain unaltered.
Why is Bihar different from most states? Like Uttar Pradeshp, it holds a pre-eminent position in Indian politics. Bihar has seven per cent of seats in national parliament and 8.6 per cent of India's population. "The Bihar Arithmetic", caste equations were against BJP led NDA coalition in a fight where key opposition parties were united. Young voters (18-30 yrs) are likely to have not voted for NDA in large numbers, which has resulted in defeat of NDA. The biggest positive after the vanquishing was that the BJP decided to open the flood gates on FDI across 15 sectors. Maybe even that wasn't as important as the fact that the PM himself chose to rush these changes using the instrumentality of transaction of business rules on the eve of his double header in UK and Turkey. If this realisation is an emerging trend line then it augurs well for the Indian economy. It means that the PM is impatient now and wants to get down to business.
The government opted to use Rule 12 of the Transaction of Business Rules to usher in the changes. The clause allows for "departure from rules" and says: "The Prime Minister may, in any case or classes of cases, permit or condone a departure from these rules, to the extent he deems necessary." The Times of India reported that it was only after the Prime Minister's Office issued the instructions on Tuesday afternoon that the decision was announced "informally". Later in the evening, Modi tweeted about the decisions and finance minister Arun Jaitley briefed media persons. The trigger was the lukewarm response to several opening up decisions, including those for defence, railways, construction and insurance. In fact, the prescription of "Indian ownership and control" in case of insurance is being seen as a step backward, given that the foreign investor exercised much greater control with the 26% FDI limit than the new rules that allow 49%. Similarly, the stiff conditions in construction were seen as a major deterrent, prompting the review.
Over the last 18 months, one has seen a government lurching from one state election to foreign trips of the PM, leaving reform more or less untouched. What was even more galling was the fact that the government was obsessing over legislative changes in parliament, knowing fully well that the tyranny of numbers in the upper house would baulk them. Fortunately the Bihar debacle has ensured that the government looks at various avenues under executive authority to undertake unpalatable reform.
Sadly, India too seems to be hostage to state elections. Next year sees four important states go to the polls around the same time in May - Assam, Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The opposition emboldened with the success of the Mahagathbandhan will look to stall reforms in parliament, so GST and Bankruptcy Code will see strife. And after the budget next year, all political parties will go into poll mode for the state hustings. Barring Assam, the BJP doesn't have a realistic chance in any of the four state elections, but it will obviously try to garner traction, so code of conduct, electioneering et al will once again stymie the reform process. With three of the states unlikely to alleviate the BJP's woes in the Rajya Sabha, there is going to be no respite for the BJP on the numerical front in the upper house.
Now after what the PM did with FDI, it is clear that the BJP and the PM are alive to the fact that momentum has been lost on economic reform. Hence the alternate strategy viz. FDI. When one studies cause and effect, nothing emerges as a straight line. So, the BJP too has to comprehend the challenges going forward and eighteen months after assuming the most comprehensive mandate in Indian polity in a long, long time, it has to deliver on its promises. Opposition will crackle like a hickory fire before the BJP can say Nitish or Lalu. Politics is about comebacks and as Lalu Yadav has proved, nothing is permanent in Indian politics, jungle raj be damned.
It is incumbent on the PM and his team to now start rolling out reform, iron out the wrinkles and implement his promises, otherwise, 2019 will be a distant dream. The days of waiting are over, Bihar has jolted the BJP into action hopefully. Reform is irreversible is something that the political spectrum has to understand. The hullabaloo in the winter session will be something that the BJP will have to deal with, it will have to engage with the opposition, shed its arrogance and stop talking down. Maybe some business will be transacted, it is the budget that needs to be transformative, otherwise the PM won't have legs to stand on before the international community. Bihar has to become the whetstone.
(The writer is a Visiting Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)
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