At election time, most political parties prepare manifestos defining their priorities if they get elected. Manifestos have become as much a part of democratic elections as banners, candidates and campaigns. In the largest democracy of the world, political parties have generally been very casual about their poll manifestos over the past decades. Most national and regional political parties ‘draft’ manifestos through a small coterie of party ideologues; in several instances, such manifestos have been reproduced from previous elections.
Then came a wave of populism where political parties began to promise everything subsidized or free—from rice to electricity and even laptops. Such competitive populism reached a disastrous level recently where abuse of public finances became a regular practice. The Supreme Court then gave a judgement which asks political parties to publicly explain how additional public funds will be raised for additional sops and gifts promised in their manifestos. It even went a step further and suggested that failure to implement poll manifestos should attract penal action from the Election Commission of India.
Over the past twenty years, some sections of civil society and trade unions have been preparing and presenting ‘alternate people’s manifestos’ before the assembly and parliamentary elections. Such manifestos have been inspired by the desire to influence political discourse, at least at the time of elections. On several occasions, media groups and academics have also been issuing suggestions for political parties to consider in their manifestos.
This process of citizen participation in manifestos of political parties has reached a new crescendo during the current parliamentary elections; it has been characterized by several new dimensions.
First, the surprising victory of AAP in Delhi in December last year focused attention on a broad-based consultative process that the party had undertaken at constituency level to identify local priorities that then made way into its manifesto. As a consequence, the Congress Party under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi launched a broad-based consultative process in framing its own manifesto. The difference was that local civic and panchayat leaders were ‘brought’ to a safe central auditorium by the Congress Party for nationally televised consultations to occur. BJP, on the other hand, used ‘tea-shops’ to enter into dialogue on issues it considered important.
Second, all media groups—TV channels and newspapers—have jumped into this exercise of proposing ‘agenda for India’. Televised debates from community locations and studios have been bombarding political parties with ideas for their consideration. Newspapers are conducting opinion polls through their papers to consolidate key ideas for political parties to consider. These are variously called as citizen charter, plan for 100 days, women’s agenda (49%), voice of youth, etc.
Third, a large number of civil society actors, networks and coalitions have been undertaking consultations amongst their partners at local levels to arrive at ‘people’s manifesto’ items. Some are specialized on issues of women, water, urban poverty, education, health, children etc. etc.; some others are omnibus and include all possible causes.
This burst of political interest and participation from a wide-range of citizens and coalitions of civil society is indeed a welcome phenomenon. In the past, organized trade unions and industry associations (like FICCI, CII etc.) were the only ones doing such lobbying, and that too away from public view. Now, all sorts of aspirations and interests are getting articulated in full public view for considerations by political parties. While this burst of energy, engagement and participation from citizenry at large is welcome as a sign of vibrancy of Indian democracy, it also poses certain questions about the long-term impacts of such a mobilisation.
Do last minute pre-election attempts to influence the thinking of a few national political leaders make any impact on the substance of the manifestos? Do manifestos really provide the blue-print for the government after elections? Should such engagement with political parties by civil society not be an ongoing process throughout, as opposed to just before elections? And should that engagement not focus more pointedly at state level parties and leaders? How would political parties make sense of a large cacophony of demands and suggestions? Would there be a public discussion on conflicting priorities and recommendations?
Would the past four months of public conversations on manifestos and priorities in the country result in more informed, active and engaged ‘demos’ of Indian democracy? Would the election results on May 16 show that criminals, crooks, and corrupt candidates have been defeated in elections?
Rajesh Tandon
April 12, 2014
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