political analysis

The fragmentation of regionalism

When the PMK announced its decision to leave the United Progressive Alliance [UPA] and join Jayalalitha’a AIADMK for the forthcoming Loksabha elections, this event pointed towards a different feature of Indian polity. It is the fragmentation of regionalism. Once when there was only one regional force to challenge the national political party, now we have more than one force which represents some community or some region of a particular state. Take the case of Tamil Nadu. It is one of the unique states of Indian Union that has produced a strong regional force in the form of Dravid Movement. The DMK came to power in 1967. Since then the power has been alternating between the DMK and the AIADMK. But both do not yield any ground to national parties. Since 1967, no national party has managed to come anywhere near power in Tamil Nadu.

However the Dravid Movement soon broke into various versions. After the death of Anna Durai in 1969, there was a tussle for power between Karunanidhi and late M.G.Ramachandran. Finally MGR broke away in 1972 and launched All India Anna DMK [AIADMK] which came to power later. Today there are PMK, MDMK, etc. in Tamil Nadu. These are small parties with powerful bases among some castes and some regions of the state. For example, the PMK is a party of Vanniyars who form 17% of the population. The PMK is quite powerful in north and North-east parts of Tamil Nadu. In other words, in Tamil Nadu we find a plethora of sub-regional parties which create a grand front. This is how Karunanidhi managed to sweep 2004 LS election by creating a grand front of many sub-regional parties. In these elections AIADMK could not win a single seat thanks to proper negotiations conducted by Karunanidhi. This is the unique feature of regionalism in India.

Today’s political scene in India is in such a flux that all those theories which were put forward to explain to rise and growth of regionalism are now proving grossly inadequate. Theoretically a region/state should have one force which comes into existence to express the aspirations, dreams of the people of the region. This was how it was for quite some time. Not any more. If it was Tamil Nadu yesterday, now we have Andhra Pradesh.

There was a time and that too, not in distant future that AP was regarded as a strong bastion of Congress. But in the 1980s, late N.T.Ramarao floated the Telugu Desam Party [TDP] on the platform of ‘pride of Telugu society’ which caught the imagination of Telugu society. No wonder NTR swept the polls and came to power. This was the beginning of regionalism in AP. For quite some time, the political picture in AP was clear. On one hand there was a national party like Congress and on the other hand there was powerful regional party like TDP. But then came Telengana Rashtriya Samiti [TRS] launched by K.Chandrashekhar Rao who was a senior leader of TDP. He left TDP on the single issue of separate statehood for Telengana. The TRS of K.Chandrashekhar Rao was a formidable force. When the Congress made alliance with the TRS in 2004 LS elections, they swept the poll reducing the TDP to ashes. Since Congress did not honour the promise of creating a separate state of Telengana, the TRS left the UPA in 2008. Same year matinee idol Chiranjeeve launched his party ‘Praja Rajyam’. In other words, today in AP, we have TDP, the oldest regional party. Then there are TRS as well as Praja Rajyam. All are contesting the forthcoming LS election competing with Congress. This clearly shows the fragmentation of regional force.

Even in Maharashtra one gets a somewhat similar picture. The state had its first regional force back in 1966 when Balasaheb Thackeray launched Shivsena to protect the interests of Marathi speaking people. For years this party was confined to Mumbai and some pockets of Thane. It joined hands with BJP in 1989 on the issue of Hindutva. And the alliance managed to grab power in 1995. Then some ten years ago, Sharad Pawar was forced out of Congress and had to launch the Nationalist Congress Party [NCP]. A couple of years ago Raj Thackeray left Shivsena and stared Maharashtra Navnirman Sena [MNS]. As a result today in politics of Maharashtra, we have SS, NCP and MNS as three regional forces battling it out. Though technically Pawar’s NCP is a national party, for all practical purposes, it is a regional force.

Similar situation prevails in Bihar also. There used to be Congress once. Then came Laloo’s Rashtriya Janata Dal [RJD]. Then Ram Vilas Paswan floated his Lok Janashakit Party [LJP]. We also have Janata Dal [U] which is in power in alliance with the BJP. It shows that in Bihar we have three regional forces and two national forces competing with each other for 40 LS seats.

Even in West Bengal this time there is a tough contest between CPM-led Left Front and Congress-Trinamool Congress [TC] alliance. In this case TC and CPM are two powerful regional forces. Like NCP, though the CPM is a national party, for all practical purposes it is a regional party confined to three states of Indian Union. The case of Uttar Pradesh is too clear to bear any discussion.

The above details clearly show that in today’s India not only regionalism, but sub-regionalism has come to stay. Not only this, in some state it is likely to upset some established equations, leading further to political uncertainty. The macro perspective would inform us that this is inevitable as more and more castes/sub-castes, regions/sub-regions assert themselves. This assertion automatically leads to fragmentation of the polity. This will not be a permanent situation and soon equilibrium will come back. With political maturity, each and every political force learns to adjust with each other and work out some type of pact and power-sharing arrangement. Look at the way Laloo Prasad, Mulayamsingh Yadav and Ramvilas Paswan have come together. It may be for tactical reasons but it does show the necessity of coming together. This is integral to the process of fragmentation that it ultimately leads to stability.

By Prof. Avinash Kolhe
Sr. Lecturer in Political Science at D.G.Ruparel College, aMumbai.