Commentary/Saisuresh Sivaswamy
Bombay looks global and turns local
It is a paradox like none other. The gateway to foreign institutional
investment in the country, Bombay, is currently riding high on
a wave of local sentiment. The thumping majority that the city's
voters handed over to the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party
combine in last week's civic election is only the latest pointer to a
process that began when Manmohan Singh threw open the doors of
the country to the second wave of foreign invasion, this time
financial.
Although Bombay was the first urban centre to turn
its gaze abroad even while securing firmly its local moorings,
the process has quickly spread to other parts of the country as
well. Politically, it has taken the form of the voter plumbing
for regional forces, parties which he thinks will echo the local
sentiment better in the corridors of power, as happened across
the nation in last year's general election.
The world of information was among the first to record and reflect
this paradoxical change in the country's commercial capital. As
Manmohan Singh's credo gained ground in the city and the Sensex
raced through the stratosphere, the clamour for local news grew louder,
forcing publications to buttress their international coverage
even while devoting more space to what was happening in one's
own backyard.
And this process was taking place simultaneously
with the growth of local cable television channels that focussed exclusively
on the neighbourhood, be it Dandiya Raas or Ganpati visarzan.
There is nothing peculiar about this trend, since through recorded
history the world of information is always the first to first
register and then influence trends in society.
Possibly because he runs an enormously popular chain of newspapers
in Maharashtra, Shiv Sena pramukh Bal Thackeray was quick
to perceive and seize upon this trend. Realising that
increasingly local issues exercised the minds of a population
that was more and more turning overseas, he has given his organisation
that extra edge. It can be no one's case that the Congress party was
routed in the Bombay municipal election because what happened in
Ayodhya some years ago or because of the so-called elitist approach
towards the economy under Manmohan Singh.
Where the Congress party failed miserably
was in fulfilling the local aspirations of the city's voters, be
it providing clean drinking water or eradicating corruption in the administration,
for which it has been punished roundly.
Starting with the general
election last year the voter has served notice that in any poll --
Lok Sabha, assembly or local bodies -- only those parties will be
elected which represent her/his interest better and not be swayed
by any other issue. The Congress has been unable to perceive
this voter trend and continues to believe that raising larger
issues will bring in the votes.
In other words, what the party needs to do is send across the
message that it is serious about its own electoral revival by
actively decentralising itself, free the various local units by
giving them more autonomy in deciding upon poll-related issues,
run the entire set-up in a more federal manner, and heed the grassroots's
demand, especially where there is disenchantment with the local
leadership, as was the case in Bombay.
Under this kind of a system,
the Congress party in, say, Assam will be fighting elections
over different issues from its counterpart in Tamil Nadu, except
under unusual circumstances as happened in 1984 and 1991. Otherwise,
there will be no single, national issue that the party will use
as its election plank.
In Bombay the extent of voter disillusionment
with the party can be gauged from the fact that the voter had
reposed faith in it in 1992 only to see the Sena come to power through
unconstitutional means. Ordinarily, the voter would have rejected
the Sena the next time round, but the Congress had by then lost
the mandate to govern. The message is clear for the city Congress
leadership that spends any amount of time in global conclaves
and bringing in citizens of the world to the city: Change your
ways, or...
The message was first sent two years ago in the assembly
election when the Congress won only one out of the 36 seats
in the city. This was repeated last year when the party was routed
in all the Lok Sabha constituencies, among the vanquished being
the city Congress chief. But, no one took serious note of these signals.
The voter does not like rebuffs, and the Congress's central leadership,
by ignoring these distress signals, has done incalculable harm
to itself. Conversely, the new leadership in the city Congress has
its task cut out: Focus on the city's woes aggressively and put
the ruling combine on the mat over its administrative failure.
This would also mean relegating issues like Ramesh Kini -- which
has anyway been wholly rejected by the voters -- to the backburner.
The aim for the Bombay unit then would be Bombay, period, and
not New Delhi. Unless the Congress party sheds its hangover from
the pre-Independence days, when it was the only pan-Indian political
entity and wake up to the new reality that regional issues have
come to the fore and the popular demand is for a federal set-up,
its future is doomed.
Will Congress president Sitaram Kesri have the courage to
bring about such a radical change in the 112-year-old entity's outlook?
Does he have any other choice
before him? In the absence of a charismatic presence in the party
whose appeal can help it transcend local issues, like the
Gandhi family mystique, the Congress party president will otherwise
be doing nothing but preside over its political liquidation.
How ironic it would be if that process were to begin with the
electoral reverses the party has suffered in Bombay, the same
city that saw the birth of a glorious movement and which culminated in
1947 in the country's independence!
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