Time To Junk Indian Exceptionalism

With the results of the Bihar elections in, it may be time to slay that mythic dragon of Indian politics: 'anti-incumbency'. Nitish Kumar has demonstrated that it's possible for a government to last its full term and yet be voted back to power, perhaps with an increased majority. Of course, other chief ministers too have been there in recent times: Raman Singh, Naveen Patnaik, Sheila Dikshit, Narendra Modi. Even at the Centre, the UPA was able to win a second term in office. When western electorates are caught up in their days of rage - witness the drubbing Barack Obama's Democrats received in congressional elections soon after Obama's triumphant ascent to the White House, or the ejection of a Labour government in the UK after more than a decade of Labour dominance - it's significant that Indian voters are bucking the anti-incumbency trend. It's no coincidence that this is happening roughly at the same time that the Indian economy has entered its high-growth phase. Bihar conforms closely to this model; under Nitish Kumar, it clocked a scorching 11 per cent GDP growth annually. And that haspaid off at the hustings, confounding the received wisdom of growth scepticsthat economic growth has no political constituency. Political cynics have longsubscribed to a version of Indian exceptionalism, according to which the Indianvoter, unlike voters elsewhere in the world, doesn't really respond to economicincentives. Indian elections can be won only through complex caste and communitymanipulations. And Bihar, as one of India's most backward states, was supposedto exemplify this phenomenon. But if even Bihar cannot be fitted into this modelany more, surely it is time to question itseffectiveness.'Anti-incumbency', if one cares to examine it closely,is a vacuous concept. Nirupam Sen, the No. 2 man in West Bengal's cabinet afterchief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, has conceded that the Left Front mayface a difficult time in next year's assembly elections because of'anti-incumbency'. Surely that formulation begs the question, it has littleexplanatory power. What Sen doesn't say is that the Left Front has enjoyed thebenefits of a low-level equilibrium in West Bengal over the past three decades,but those benefits are fast running out. A low-level equilibrium works bykeeping people's expectations low so they are happy with little. At that point,throw them a few sops and they'll vote for you. It's akin to what sociologistshave named the 'culture of poverty': people may be poor but they don't reallysee a way out of it, so they are content with their lot rather than suffer thedissonance that comes from trying to improve their condition.A low-level equilibrium also characterised India's polity as a whole in the period 1950-75, when Congress was repeatedly voted to power as India plodded along with its 'Hindu' rate of growth. This can be seen as India's 'pro-incumbency' phase, coasting along on the cachet Congress had acquired by leading India's freedom struggle. The discontents of such a regime exploded from about 1973 onwards, leading to the declaration of Emergency. What followed was anti-incumbency, which V S Naipaul has vividly described as the eruption of a 'million mutinies'. But while anti-incumbency can be effective in undermining an old regime, the problem with it is that it has few ideas about how to build a new order.This process can be seen to work in Bihar as well. Rule byupper castes - principally Rajputs, Bhumihars, Brahmins - was disrupted whenLalu Prasad rose to power in 1990. There's some truth to the claim that themovement of middle and lower castes that he led was a catalyst for socialjustice in Bihar. Nitish Kumar, too, was a part of the same movement; he was amember of the original Janata Dal from which Lalu's RJD broke off in 1997.Having destroyed the old regime, however, the RJD-led dispensation had few ideasabout governance as it imposed economic stagnation onBihar.Anti-incumbency took over again as the RJD was swept out in2005, but that anti-incumbency isn't inevitable is demonstrated by the currentverdict in Bihar. Rather, the state may have entered what can be described as apost-incumbent phase: whether you've been in power the last time doesn't matterpositively or negatively in terms of current electoral results, what matters ishow you performed when you were.The Bihar story should hold somelessons in neighbouring West Bengal. There's little doubt that, as Nirupam Sensays, there's an anti-incumbency wave there now. The revolution of risingexpectations makes the current political regime untenable. Mamata Banerjee andthe Trinamool-Congress alliance can capitalise on Bengal's anti-incumbency waveif they play their cards right. But does Mamata aim to be the Lalu Prasad or theNitish Kumar of Bengal? We know that she is against land acquisition, but wedon't know yet her alternative plans for industrialisation and job generation inBengal. If she settles on the Lalu Prasad model she will only prolong Bengal'santi-incumbency days, which will boomerang on her.