Counterpoint: Democracy in shambles?
By Vivekanand Jha*
Democracy, instead of becoming a potent tool of strength, often cedes space to the oligarch ruling the roost. Ironically, it is all in the name of the people! The latest such example was seen in Bihar where Nitish Kumar joined hands with Tejashwi, bidding goodbye to his “opportunistic?” ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party. Bihar has become a theatre of absurd where decadent politics is in play in full public glare. But why blame Bihar alone? This has remained in vogue elsewhere in the country too. Sometimes, it is also to upstage an oligarch which was recently witnessed in Maharashtra, and what is happening in Jharkhand, where the veteran leader and one of the founders of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Shibu Soren’s son and State Chief Minister Hemant Soren, awaits a decision from the State Governor on the alleged office of profit case. But it’s not just a one-way ticket, but it has become a tendency of politicians of every ilk to cling to power by hook or by crook, either by exploiting the grey areas in the Constitution or by making a mockery of the law till the court intervenes to re-instil some sort of confidence in our democratic system.
In the context of the latest act of political expediency in Bihar, the moot question which arises today is this: where is the importance of voting a party or a coalition to power when, in the midway, the party or coalition voted to power changes or changes gear? How did Nitish Kumar put to shreds the overall importance of public mandate by unseating a party of his alliance and then, effortlessly stitching another where no public will or mandate was involved?
It is worth recounting that Nitish had experimented with the same antics earlier too to break his pre-poll alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal, to join hands with the BJP in 2017, thus, blowing into smithereens the people’s mandate of the 2015 State elections. This political somersault is becoming a habit for him now. While in 2017, it was the RJD, which cried hoarse, alleging the treachery of Nitish Kumar to betray the people’s trust in him, and the BJP gained, in 2022, the BJP was conveniently replaced with the RJD by a calculative Nitish, who purportedly apprehended hijacking of his legislators by the Lotus like had happened in Maharashtra.
In this game of dissolute politics and political one-upmanship, Nitish Kumar is again the doubtless winner, but the much-vaunted democracy has been the obvious loser. Nitish Kumar, master in the art of cobbling a majority, gave two hoots to the mandate of the people when it connived with the BJP and severed ties with the RJD, and then again now accommodated an obliging RJD at the cost of the BJP.
But then, why blame Nitish alone, and how can one discount that the ‘big brother’ BJP has of late been the central figure in all such political upheavals everywhere? Take the example of Maharashtra, where, after the 2019 State assembly election, the BJP won 122 seats whereas Shiv Sena won 63 seats in the 288-member House seats and the BJP-Shiv Sena combination was voted to rule. But once the result was out, Uddhav Thackeray insisted on the chief minister’s post despite his party being a junior partner of the alliance. When his demand was not entertained by the BJP, he found his suitors in the form of the Congress Party and the Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar. A new coalition with their help, Maha Vikas Agadhi, was formed and Uddhav got what he wanted. This was tantamount to manipulating the people’s verdict just for the sake of political expediency. As the adage goes, ‘the way you sow, so you reap’, his own party man Eknath Shinde’s betrayal of Uddhav and forming an alliance with BJP is only a tit-for-tat response to Udhav’s publicly exhibited dishonesty and lack of exhibition of probity in public.
The latest political theatrics going on in Jharkhand is another exercise of blatant opportunism where the public interest is disdainfully given short shrift. In 81 members of the State Assembly, the people of Jharkhand gave the ruling combination of JMM and Congress a comfortable majority to govern. Yet the ongoing political drama where the MLAs of JMM and Congress are herded to a resort in Raipur is the vindication of democracy being long reduced to a farce.
Unequivocally, the political turncoats today have taken absolute control of democracy, as the faceless multitude only counts during voting. This grievous anomaly needs immediate course correction. The faceless multitude who are the masters in a democracy must be restored their pristine position: Their voices must count in every stage of decision-making by the public representatives.
*The writer is an author, academician and public intellectual. The views expressed are personal.
