For a less adversarial political climate

In the incubation stage of any political start-up it helps to follow an agitationist model. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) exemplifies just that.

Indeed, the DMK began with confrontation; the Shiv Sena followed this model for long time and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena is carrying it forward. In India, civil society and NGOs thrive by confronting government. Their very raison d’etre lies in confronting government, and probably even funding flows from this. But political parties?

This is the crux: The emphasis of political parties and civil society should lie in engaging government and opponents rather than confronting them. Heads of government being agitationists is antithetical to governance.

This is exemplified by Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal. One CM sits in dharna and another goes on hunger strike. One government engages the Centre through Assembly resolutions, and another through court proceedings. Mamata sees everywhere a Leftist conspiracy. There is no scope for dialogue. As for AAP, it had a chance to move from its confrontationist position. Its leaders should have reformed the bureaucracy by engaging with it, rather than belittling it.

Administration can be reformed only from inside and not on the streets of Delhi. By showing an adversary with whom you have to work in poor light, you rule out the scope for any reforms.

The CMs should have working relationships with the Centre, even while contesting issues. The Centre-State relationship is now managed more through the bureaucratic than the political route. Forgotten are the ways of Vajpayee, President Pranab Mukherjee, or even an MGR, who always maintained a cordial relationship with the Centre, in the interest of the State.

I was reading about the negotiations between the all powerful President of the US and the equally independent Congress over the debt crisis. It was a situation over which even cab drivers were agitated. There was acrimonious discussion.

Finally, a settlement was reached. All the time the parties were discussing matters, there were backchannel negotiations as well. There were fierce statements but nothing that would compare with what happens here. One concern prevailed over all else: national interest.

Here, the Lokpal is a contentious issue. But, even in ordinary matters, we make it more acrimonious than required.

Even where all parties agreed (like the new rape law) it was marked by one-upmanship. In mature democracies parties can take non-partisan positions. The government engages with civil society, instead of discrediting it.

We need a system wherein the Bills and Questions can be considered, even when there are major controversies. The Congress and the BJP practised precipitative instead of competitive politics. Finally, Congress pushed everything to the last session and the last day. Is the passage of a Bill a success of the ruling party or a failure of the Opposition in preventing it? Is there a third position where everybody gains, apart from these parties? Who pays for the lapsed Bills in the final analysis?

On a recent visit to the US with a group of senior bureaucrats, we met senior US officials. At the time, a difference of opinion was raging between two departments in the public domain.

I asked one official how they would handle cases involving serious differences in positions. He replied innocently saying, “Why, we just meet over lunch and discuss it.”

This is unthinkable in Indian democracy. That is the mark of a mature democracy, where national interest comes before doctrines or winning elections, or even ego. India, one would like to believe, is moving to the next orbit of democracy, governance and civic society involvement.

For that, political parties and civil society have to engage and be open to being engaged. Strident adversarial positions make any convergence complex and difficult.

The writer is Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.