The Economic and Political Weekly
December 24, 2005
Editorial
Saffron Parties: Dilemmas of Transition
The saffron parties, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena, recently saw the public exit of two prominent leaders. Uma Bharati, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister and one of the more charismatic of the BJP's younger leaders was expelled for "indiscipline"; while Raj Thackeray, scion of the Sena's founding family and leader of its youth wing, quit the party after years of being sidelined in favour of cousin and Bal Thackeray's son, Uddhav. Both events are similar in that they reveal contradictions in inner party functioning and the dilemma parties face as they graduate from a grassroots "action-oriented" party towards one that has to balance the demands made by governance and institutionalised politics. Both Raj Thackeray and Uma Bharati are considered popular, with wide grassroots support; yet both found themselves shortchanged by the political parties they represent, which remain marked by a paternalistic mode of functioning and an absence of internal democracy. This is characteristic of most Indian political parties, yet in the context of the two saffron parties it has some significance. For in recent decades, it is the BJP and the Sena that in very many instances have set the agenda at the national and state level respectively.
Where the BJP differs from the Shiv Sena is that it is a national level party; in the states it has demonstrated its ability to mutate, even adapt to different agendas. A decade and more in governance has led the BJP to rely on and balance a heterogeneous mix of leaders representing various caste and class groups. Notwithstanding its wrangling with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP has a collective leadership that decides on strategy and discipline, with a second generation in the wings.
The Sena, like the BJP, was born out of a perceived majoritarian insecurity. With its beginnings in the 1960s in Mumbai, the Sena has championed the maratha cause, portraying the group as one denied of opportunity and exploited by successive groups of clearly recognisable "others": Gujarati business houses, south Indians, communists in the 1960s, Muslims in the 1980s and 1990s and more recently, emigrant north Indian labour. The Sena's ability to spread terror against the "other" was at its peak in the early 1990s, and Bal Thackeray acquired a veneer of invincibility from the central role he played in that period. Various Sena leaders, despite being grassroots leaders in their own right, were seen to derive their authority from Thackeray. Acquisition of political power first in 1968 in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and later in 1995, when the Shiv Sena came to power in the state in alliance with the BJP, however, little changed the complexion of the Sena party structure. There were half-hearted, short-lived attempts to expand its support base, but it remained primarily an urban-based, maratha dominated party. The party moreover did little to distinguish itself in matters of governance, its tenure marked by ill-devised, corruption-ridden schemes such as those relating to slum redevelopment and 'jhunka bhakar' outlets. The Tinaikar committee probing into the BMC's functioning further tarnished the Sena's reputation.
The politics of patronage in the Sena remained undisturbed as long as Bal Thackeray was at the helm; dissension set in soon after his son, Uddhav was made executive president in 1999. Arguably, the task the new president faced was difficult, for on Uddhav lay the onus of transforming the party – from one that relied on its domination of street-level politics to a party that sought to be pan-Maharashtrian in reach. But this was riddled with contradictions. The party attempted to reach out to the dalits by seeking alliance with factions of the Republican Party of India (RPI); yet Uddhav's choice of candidates, as for instance, for local level elections in 2002, relied on bonds of patronage and loyalty.
The exit of leaders such as Sanjay Nirupam, Narayan Rane and now Raj Thackeray is symptomatic of a wider identity crisis in the Sena. For long a party limited in reach, and confined in its support base, the Sena had to make the transition to a higher political level in a short time frame; its ability to adapt was constrained by the steeply hierarchical mode of organisation structure. The 2004 Lok Sabha and assembly elections showed that the political scene in Maharashtra remains dominated by bipolar alliances. Yet the support base of all four parties in the state – the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, BJP and Shiv Sena – remains in flux, with the maratha vote divided largely between the NCP and the Sena. Interestingly, in 2004 most Sena seats came from the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions, its support base primarily accruing from maratha and peasant-OBC caste groups. It remains to be seen whether Raj's departure will lead to a wider exodus from the party; but in the immediate term it appears that the balance within the Sena will tilt in favour of the group, either Uddhav's or Raj's, best able to tap into such groups in these regions that have long perceived themselves as neglected and discriminated against.
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