Events & Issues

New Delhi, 20 April 2015

Extended ‘Parivar’

OPPORTUNISTIC ALLIANCE!  

By Dr S Saraswathi

(Former Director, ICSSR, New Delhi)

Six factions of the Janata Parivar have merged into a single political party and have accepted the leadership of Mulayam Singh Yadav.  This development – by itself momentous in the politics of alliances – is doubly significant for its timing before the Assembly elections due in Bihar this year and in Uttar Pradesh in 2017.

The merger is the outcome of intense efforts going on for quite some time to revive and reconstruct a “Third Front” as an alternative to both the Congress and the BJP-led alliances. However, it is a down-sized Third Front excluding some strong regional satraps, but including some prominent leaders having ambitions to Prime Ministership. Hence, expectations from this merger of parties are different from what was anticipated from the still-born Third Front before the last General election.

The new formation indeed constitutes a “parivar” (family) comprising of parties that emerged out of the Janata Dal that surprised the nation in 1989 by coming to power at the Centre under the leadership of VP Singh. The Janata Dal has the unique distinction as a political party that provided a Prime Minister to the nation without having any organizational strength of its own to stand up against even some regional parties.

The parivar parties profess socialist ideals in this age of liberalization. These include the Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal, Janata Dal (Secular), Samajwadi Janata Party, and Indian National Lok Dal which were earlier  part of  different national alliances.

This family presently has 15 members and holds the 8^th place in the Lok Sabha, and has 30 members holding the third place in the Rajya Sabha behind the Congress and the BJP. The first test on the impact of this new party is expected to be felt during the united opposition against the land ordinance.

The country has seen several types of groupings of parties for fighting elections and to form governments. These have assumed different names such as “like-minded parties”, “anti-incumbency forces”, “left unity”, “secular front”, “united front”, “third front” and so on. Today, these can be labelled as “Extended Parivar” to match the strong family ties operating in the Indian society.

Three groups of extended parivar are in existence in the country.  Each group has a few branches or like-minded organizations or some ideologically united forces to make a virtual parivar. They are    actively engaged in politics, or are remaining as their guiding force, accessories, and think tank 

These are the newly-formed Janata  Parivar which is truncated Third Front, the well established Sangh Parivar as referred to by outsiders and not  by insiders, and the Left Unity that is struggling to come to life and take shape.  These have in common the characteristics of a typical Indian family, which is held together by sentimental ties but nurturing at the same time individual ambitions and competitive spirit.

The original Janata Parivar of the 1970s which fought the Internal Emergency and came to power as a grand alliance under a single name and leadership was much bigger and had many more constituent units. It broke down and dispersed, some going with the Congress and later the UPA, some with the BJP and then the NDA, and some experimenting with non-Congress, non-BJP Third Front idea. Those with the UPA included RJD, Socialist Janata (Democratic) Party, and RLD. Those allied with the NDA were Janata Party, Samata Party, JD (United), and Lok Jana Shakti.  Protagonists of the Third Front comprised SP, JD (Secular), INLD, and the SJP.  However, there was no stability in the partnership.

Potential constituents of the Third Front before the emergence of the present Janata Parivar included many more parties including the AIADMK, TMC, BJD, TDP, CPI, CPI(M), Forward Block and many small outfits, all of which had shown some interest in forming a government without the Congress and the BJP. These seem to have lost interest in the new formation.

The present Janata Parivar has technically the numerical advantage to fight both the UPA, and the NDA in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.  But, it has the biggest disadvantage of having State-level popular leaders nursing national ambitions.

This Parivar has a common enemy in the Sangh Parivar which refers to the family of Hindu nationalist organizations which have been started by members of the RSS or are inspired by its ideas. They are independent organizations without common organizational control. They are looked upon as a parivar due to their ideological moorings.

In popular perception,  following organizations (present and extinct) are deemed to be members of the Sangh Parivar namely, Bharatiya Jana Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party (political); Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Bharatiya Railway Sangh, Fishermen’s Cooperative Societies, Samskar Bharati, Adhivakta Parishad, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Akhil Bharatiya Shaikshik Mahasangh, Akhil Bharatiya Poorva Sainik Seva Parishad (professional and occupational); Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, Vit Salahkar Parishad, Laghu Udyog Bharati, Sahkar Bharati (economic). The Sangh covers nearly 20 organizations devoted to service for education, socio-ethnic groups, news and communication, and social service and presents a multidimensional and cultural force beyond politics.   

Members of the Sangh Parivar have different policies, programmes and activities. Their priorities are different. Opinions of the members of different organizations of this parivar may also vary. Publicity for members of this parivar, excluding the BJP, comes mostly from outside. The very term “Sangh Parivar” is used by anti-BJP forces.

The “left bloc” in India was born within the national movement in the 1930s. It had its roots first in the Workers and Peasants Party and later in the Congress Socialist Party.

The first split in the Communist Party occurred in 1964 between radicals and those who believed in mass politics within the parliamentary system. A second split happened in 1967 when the insurrectionary wing of the CPM declared the path of “constitutional communism” as nothing but revisionism.  

Left Unity refers to union of not only communist parties, but also of some smaller parties championing the interests of the poor and the depressed. Most of them are State-level parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Republican Party of India, Pattali Makkal Katchi. Very small parties with just one member in the Lok Sabha and some working as movements outside Parliament oriented to champion the cause of the poor and working classes technically come under the “Left”.  But, possibility of their political union with the communists is an unanswerable question.

Left unity is needed to stem the tide of liberalization and adjust its force to suit the preparedness of the masses. It cannot reverse global economic policy in which we are caught, but can be the voice of the common man to remind our governments of the actual plight of the people.  

In the backdrop of several kinds of political alliances in recent decades, the construction of the Janata Parivar looks like a pre-election stunt with an eye exclusively on the forthcoming Bihar Assembly elections. Electoral arithmetic may be in their favour.  But, long-term governance needs a common ideology and approach. Opportunistic alliances have been a blot on the Indian party system and election. We are witnessing one more drama in this series. ---INFA

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