People did not come spilling out onto the streets with fury like they would have in the ’60s or ’70s. Nor was there a complete chakka jam or shutting down of shutters for an entire day as happened many a time even in the ’80s. Yet, judged by the yardstick of the declining trend of political mobilisation in the past decade or so, the Bharat Bandh called by the Opposition was not as flop a show as the Congress would like everyone to believe. There was disruption not only in the NDA and Left-ruled states, even Congress-ruled states like Maharashtra and Rajasthan were affected.
This, despite the fact that these states have voted the Congress to power only recently whereas the Opposition has been ruling many of its states for quite a while and the Left is not in the best of shape in the states it is in power. Even with these incumbency handicaps, the Opposition cadres displayed a robust morale in the states ruled by them and were imbued with enough enthusiasm to overcome demoralisation in the Congress-ruled states. Major opposition forces like the BJP and the Left may not be in the best of health organisationally but it was the issue they raised—rising prices—that struck a chord with the aam aadmi. Inflation has hit not only the poor hard but is also burning a big hole in middle-class pockets. Which is perhaps why the middle class was not so vocal this time about bandhs crippling or paralysing lives and how disruptive it is as a mode of political protest.
In fact, never before in the past six years might the political clock have ticked more worryingly for the UPA government, especially its leading partner, the Congress, though they seem completely oblivious to it. I know some pundits will point to the nuclear bill crisis during UPA-I, but that was a game being played within the finite confines of the Lok Sabha where the numbers required to be managed were known, and the UPA managers knew of a trick or two to turn around the likes of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh. Also, if push came to shove and UPA-I had to go back to the people for a fresh mandate, the government and the Congress knew they could play aces, like the rosy promises of the recently launched National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the Right to Information Act and the loan waiver package for farmers. No wonder the UPA and Congress managers then went around their task in a business-like manner and with a spring in their step. But when resentment begins to stalk the streets and mohallas in silent steps, the political game starts acquiring a sombre, uncertain shade, with the variables becoming infinite and the numbers to be managed unknown and huge.
Six years ago, the NDA and the BJP were tripped by their own make-believe of ‘India Shining’. The UPA and the Congress wisely avoided that kind of delusional drum-beating. The palliatives UPA-I handed down to the people left out of ‘India Shining’ paid them dividends in the 2009 general elections. However, having kickstarted the above-mentioned progressive legislations and schemes, as also others like the Panchayati Raj Extension to Scheduled Areas Act and the Right to Education Act, the UPA and the Congress seem to have lost the plot. Runaway inflation has been accompanied by renewed eruptions in Kashmir, threatening the recent thaw; the conflict with the Maoists is getting dirtier and dirtier, without showing any sign of quick resolution either to the satisfaction of the warmongers or the progressive peaceniks; the farm crisis is continuing unabated, marked by hunger, rampaging malnutrition and farmer suicides accompanied by government confusion over food security and poverty; the political and business class is continuing to collude in megascams like in telecom and in IPL while sector after sector of the Indian economy is being opened up to Indian and global corporations in an unregulated manner. Masses at the mercy of hunger, inflation, mega scams and a pro-rich tilt of the system and policies can be a potent factor; public resentment and alienation can become endemic. No wonder that even after more than 25 years, the tragedy and injustice of Bhopal is being played for a month—much, much more than a normal media cycle.
It has been a little more than a year since the UPA and Congress’s clinching victory at the hustings. It’s really time for them to pull up their socks. If the Manmohan Singh-led government and the Sonia Gandhi-led party do not heed the wake-up call now, they will do so at their own peril.
