Hindustan Times

Prashant Jha

The coalition era took shape, and showed that fragmented verdicts need not translate into political instability and a high turnover of governments. What made these elections distinct, and able to do this? What social and political forces were at play?

A crucial turning point

The late 1980s and 1990s produced a new moment in Indian politics.As Sanjay Ruparelia’s essay in this series has shown, the outcomes of the 1989, 1991, 1996 and 1998 elections deepened democracy, reflected a churn in identity politics on both the religion and caste dimensions, gave a voice to regional and Left parties in national decision-making in unprecedented ways at different moments, and marked the slow decline of the Congress and rise of other forces.But between 1989 and 1998, India also saw six prime ministers — VP Singh, Chandra Shekhar, PV Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, HD Deve Gowda, IK Gujral and Vajpayee again. Note that Rao completed his five-year term, illustrating how short-lived the others governments were and the mood of instability that permeated the national discourse.It was the next set of elections — from 1999 to 2009 — that consolidated the coalition era in India and showed that fragmented verdicts need not translate into political instability and a high turnover of governments. What made these elections distinct? What brought disparate parties together, both before and after elections, to produce stable regimes at the Centre? And what were the social and political forces that were at play through this decade?<h2 style="text-align:center;">When Vajpayee consolidated</h2>If Vajpayee’s government in 1996 lasted 13 days because the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) found it hard to win over allies, his government in 1998 lasted 13 months.This time, the problem wasn’t finding allies but arriving at stable terms of power-sharing with those who had decided to support the BJP in Delhi, with the joke in Delhi’s power corridors revolving around how Vajpayee was finding it hard to manage Samata, Mamata and Jayalalithaa.But it was J Jayalalithaa’s decision to drive a hard bargain and eventually withdraw support from the Vajpayee government — she was egged on by Vajpayee’s bete noire from his Jan Sangh years, Subramanian Swamy — that saw it lose the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha by a single vote. Despite Sonia Gandhi famously declaring, in her biggest political blunder, that she had 272 seats, an alternative coalition couldn’t be formed.

India was ready for the next election, but the sense of fatigue and frustration among voters was palpable. Stability was the buzzword of the times, there was a craving for a degree of political order, and there was a sense that Vajpayee hadn’t got his full and fair chance yet and had been pulled in different directions by different partners. Still, in no way was the outcome certain.And then, between the spring of 1999 when Vajpayee’s government fell and the fall of 1999 when elections were held, a dramatic event occurred.India went to war. Pakistan had broken the spirit of the Lahore agreement to intrude across the Line of Control (LoC); its armed forces personnel adopted the guise of militants but Delhi wasn’t fooled by the pretence. India detected the incursions late, but then pulled off a fine military and diplomatic offensive. It recaptured territory on the Indian side of the LoC but refrained from crossing the LoC itself. It was decisively able to show the international community that Pakistan was the irresponsible belligerent. And it was able to get the US to intervene on India’s behalf for the first time in diplomatic history in a conflict involving Pakistan, when Bill Clinton read the riot act to Nawaz Sharif and asked him to withdraw troops, at a meeting held on July 4 in Washington DC.But it wasn’t the diplomatic triumph that made the difference, so much as the fact that this was India’s first televised war, playing out on screens across homes, urban and rural. That had a political impact. The images of brave jawans battling incredibly tough terrain to recapture territory, as well as the stories of the slain, led to a surge of nationalist temper and consolidation of support behind the government of the day.If the sympathy for Vajpayee and faith in his ability to lead India at the centre constituted one pillar of the BJP election campaign, the win in Kargil constituted the other. But this time, the BJP also carefully tied up with allies before the election, giving the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) a more concrete shape. If it was the DMK in Tamil Nadu, it was the TMC in West Bengal; if it was the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, it was the Akali Dal in Punjab; if it was the INLD in Haryana, it was the JD(U) in Bihar; if the TDP came on board the NDA ship post-polls in Andhra Pradesh, it was the AGP in Assam. Small or big, north or south, east or west, Vajpayee was on a charm offensive to win not just voters but friends.

Meanwhile, the Opposition was fragmented and lacked a coherent narrative. Sonia Gandhi had recently taken over as Congress president and was still finding her feet, both in the intrigue-filled ways of the party organisation and mass politics on the ground. Reducing the BJP to being communal as the sole plank didn’t quite fly when Vajpayee was presenting his most accommodative avatar, with the party having dropped its three core issues — the Ram Mandir, Article 370 and Uniform Civil Code — from the NDA agenda for the time being.The inability to form an alternate government when Vajpayee lost the confidence of the House also reflected poorly on the Opposition’s ability to come together. And given that the principal contradiction in most states remained between the Congress and regional parties, the latter found it more politically convenient to partner with the BJP.The 1999 election was therefore a crucial, often underrated, turning point in Indian political history. It saw the Vajpayee versus Sonia question answered in favour of the former. With 182 seats, the BJP still needed to moderate its ideological agenda and work with other parties. Smaller regional forces had also realised that they had to use their newly acquired power in a measured way, rather than overreach and run the risk of returning to the electorate annually and annoying voters. A new coalition dharma was suddenly taking shape. The Congress dipped to what was then its lowest seat tally, revealing the loss of major social groups across the Indian heartland.Vajpayee was back, and this time, he became the first non-Congress leader to serve a full five-year term. He ruled from the centre, eschewing his own ideological family’s right-wing instincts on both economics and social harmony, barring the Gujarat 2002 riots when the PM gave in to the party’s base. The coalition era was coming of age. The centre was holding again.<h2 style="text-align:center;">An India Shining election goes wrong</h2>In the winter of 2003, the BJP won a set of state assembly elections. Vajpayee had completed close to five years in office. There was an air of optimism about the economy. Cities were booming, and middle-class consumption was visible. Pakistan was on the defensive, having been forced to concede that it would not allow its soil to be used for terrorism. There was relative tranquillity at the border. And the Vajpayee versus who question seemed like an obvious advantage for the BJP, with Sonia Gandhi’s weak oratory and her foreign origin controversy continuing to stalk the party on the leadership question.

The BJP took the plunge and called elections early; in the process, it also shifted the general election cycle to the summer, a trend that persists to date.But beneath the glitter was a grim story. The BJP’s slogan, India Shining, turned out to be a fatally misjudged campaign plank. Not only was it seen as ignoring the plight of the majority, it presented the government’s image as one smug in its achievements and one that catered to a tiny segment of the haves rather than have-nots. Vajpayee’s success in governance, in keeping the RSS affiliates and ideological agenda at a relative distance, also extracted political costs as the wider organisational cadre experienced low motivation. And if 1999 represented the BJP’s ability to weave alliances with the right partners, 2004 was an example of what happens if you don’t have the right partners.On the other side was a new Sonia Gandhi. A more confident leader, she hit the ground running and converted what was her strength, ground-level individual and group-connect, into the key campaign strategy rather than allowing her weakness, mass meeting oratory, to overwhelm the campaign strategy. The Congress had also shed its arrogance and realised that coalitions were here to stay; the most symbolic instance of this approach was Sonia Gandhi walking to her neighbour, Ram Vilas Paswan’s home on Janpath in Delhi to extend a hand of friendship. From DMK in Tamil Nadu to TRS in Andhra to RJD and LJP in Bihar, the Congress suddenly had the right allies.In terms of social groups, Gujarat 2002 continued to reverberate on the ground, with the minority vote consolidating in large numbers behind the Congress. With a slogan that focused on the aam aadmi, the common citizen, eight years before the term was appropriated by a new party, the Congress was also able to speak the language of the have-nots.The X factor in the 2004 elections turned out to be Left parties, which did exceedingly well in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Between themselves, the CPI(M), CPI, Forward Bloc and RSP won 59 seats, ensuring that in a fragmented house, the Left would hold the key to government formation.There was also a methodological innovation; voters didn’t stamp the ballot anymore but pressed the button for their favoured party and candidate. The era of the electronic voting machines had arrived.Eventually, the election results shocked pollsters. The BJP dipped to 138 seats, while the Congress inched up to 145 seats. The gap between the national parties wasn’t significant but the relative gains and losses, and the status of the allies, meant that the pre-poll Congress-led formation was comfortably ahead of the NDA.<h2 style="text-align:center;">A mandate for change</h2>With the Left parties throwing in their lot with the Congress, in exchange for a common minimum programme, a text outlining the alliance’s governance agenda with a clear Left-ward tilt, the pieces were falling into place for Sonia Gandhi to assume the mantle of prime ministership. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was born, and even without the support of Uttar Pradesh’s biggest party, a willing Samajwadi Party, it had the numbers to form the government.But there was a twist in the tale. Sonia Gandhi decided not to take the job. In a recent book, the journalist Neerja Chowdhury has written, based on an eyewitness account provided by the then Gandhi family confidante Natwar Singh, that Sonia Gandhi’s refusal stemmed from Rahul Gandhi’s strenuous objection to her accepting the leadership role. The Congress wasn’t happy about her decision, and the allies grumbled. The move would turn out to be both a blessing and a curse for the UPA.It was a blessing because Sonia Gandhi selected Manmohan Singh to be PM, a man who was known for his sobriety, integrity and economic reforms; her “sacrifice” gave the Congress president even greater authority and legitimacy.But that decision also sowed the seeds of a dual power structure that paralysed decision-making, eroded the standing and legitimacy of the PM’s office, weakened the idea of the cabinet’s collective responsibility, and eventually created the ground for the BJP to campaign on the plank of having a “strong PM”.The crisis was to come later. In the initial years, the Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh duo succeeded in introducing a set of pathbreaking legislations, particularly the Right to Information Act and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The man who had introduced reforms wanted reforms with a human face, or inclusive growth, in deference to his party leader’s political wishes. When differences arose over foreign policy, Singh asserted himself and staked his survival over the nuclear deal with the US; a reluctant Sonia Gandhi came on board and supported her party’s PM, at the cost of the Left withdrawing support.The importance of 2004 election result, fractured as it was, lay in reorienting the matrix of India’s governance. After six years of a dispensation that was, in principle, guided by Hindutva even if Vajpayee made a conscious effort to steer the party away from it, voters had brought in a clear Centre-Left government. The welfarist thrust to policy was apparent. Minorities felt a sense of belonging because their votes had played a huge role in ousting the BJP-led government.

The internal contradictions within the Right were to play out in subsequent years. Regional parties remained important but with both Vajpayee’s win in 1999 and the Congress’s win in 2004, it became clear that there would be two broad national umbrella coalitions — and the space for a third front had shrunk, ironically enough at a time when a third set of parties was at their peak political strength. This trend would continue into the next election.<h2 style="text-align:center;">The return of Manmohan Singh</h2>If the 1999 and 2004 elections centered on Vajpayee, with varying outcomes, the BJP framed the 2009 election as one between a weak and “incompetent” Manmohan Singh and a strong LK Advani. The tactic didn’t work.The 2009 campaign was among the most badly managed in recent BJP history. The party was in the middle of an ideological churn precipitated by Advani’s comments on MA Jinnah in Pakistan; his certificate to Jinnah for being secular ended up eroding the Hindutva hardliner’s credentials with his base and even led to his ouster as party chief. But it didn’t win him the moderate vote or refashion him into another Vajpayee.In contrast, Singh’s quiet efficiency, stable growth rates under his leadership, and his earlier record of economic reforms swept urban India off its feet — and the Congress swept constituencies in cities in the election. But the Congress didn’t repeat the BJP’s mistake, and kept an eye on the rural economy. Its decision to waive farm loans right before the elections struck a chord, as did the welfare and rights-based legislations that had won it the accolades of civil society and the rural poor.Surprisingly, the party also did well in UP, winning close to two dozen seats on the back of a campaign led by Rahul Gandhi and a social coalition that saw large segments of upper castes, Muslims and Dalits come together to return to their old party — the only time this has happened so far, since 1985.The Congress was also able to keep crucial states in its corner; Andhra Pradesh had catapulted the party to the position of the single largest force in 2004, under YS Reddy, and the state stayed loyal to the Congress in 2009. The post-2004 dynamics had changed though, with the Left now leading an independent bloc of a third set of forces while regional forces from Bihar constituted a separate front after their seat-sharing talks with the Congress collapsed.If 2004 had seen the introduction of EVMs, the 2009 election also saw a rupture — constituencies were delineated after a fresh round of delimitation based on the 2001 census. It didn’t affect the numeric composition of candidates sent by each state to the Lok Sabha, but the boundaries of the constituencies changed, forcing all parties to make fresh political calculations.The results overturned the conventional wisdom of post-1989 political analysis. The Congress exceeded expectations and won over 200 seats, with over 28% of the vote share. The BJP slumped to 114 seats, with its vote share dipping to just below 19%. The four Left parties saw their political footprint shrink to 24 seats, from the high of close to 60 seats in 2004. Regional parties continued to do well, with the Congress’s bet of relying on DMK in Tamil Nadu paying off as that party won 18 seats. RJD and LJP may have contested separately but supported the UPA at the centre. The UPA had a comfortable majority and a weak opposition.The fact that UPA-2 collapsed despite a clear mandate in its favour is one of those ironical tales of Indian political history. The cohesion visible in the first term was missing. Whether the mandate was for Singh, or whether it was for continued domination of the Gandhi family, was unclear even in Congress circles, with the balance tilting even more towards 10 Janpath. Allegations of corruption from UPA-1 tumbled out of the closet as independent institutions, from the CAG to the judiciary, smelled the weakness of the political executive. A mass anti-corruption movement, badly managed by the ruling dispensation, saw its credibility take a bigger hit. The media was aggressive in its reportage and corporate India turned its back. And into that void stepped Narendra Modi, altering Indian politics forever.Given the dramatic shift in the composition of the Lok Sabha since 2014, it is tempting to ignore what came before. But India’s coalition era can be distilled in two phases. If the first decade from 1989 saw the deepening of democracy but also parties struggling to come to terms with a fragmented polity, the subsequent decade and a half, from 1999 to 2014, saw the coalition era stabilise and three governments complete their full terms in office. Indian democracy had matured.