NEW DELHI, 8 February 2004 — There was something missing in the portrait of worthies that graced the front pages of some newspapers this week, a scene of bonhomie among politicians as distinct as Chandra Shekhar, Sharad Pawar, Somnath Chatterjee, Laloo Prasad Yadav, Amar Singh, Ram Vilas Paswan and Praful Patel. They were guests of Sonia Gandhi at a lunch held to celebrate the spirit of a Third Front, an alliance that seeks to challenge the ruling NDA in the coming general elections.
There was nothing wrong in the variety of creeds of temperaments that they represented, for any coalition must agree on a minimum agenda that involves compromise of many kinds. It was also understandable that the get-together marked a possible agreement rather than an actual one, for all discussions on seat-sharing between these potential allies is going to involve some heavy bloodletting. Mrs. Sonia Gandhi’s dialogue with Mayawati has already crumbled under the weight of sharp political questions, as for instance who brings what to the table, and who will measure its value. Politics is a meal at which friends are as cool as enemies.
So what was missing at the Third Front luncheon?
A question. Where on earth is the Second Front?
The answer might lie in a proposition. The meaning of “front” has changed, just as has the meaning of political alliance.
One origin of the term “front” is of course from the lexicon of the two world wars of the last century. Germany launched her campaign in World War I in the West (thus the classic, “All Quiet on the Western Front”) and Czarist Russia opened a second front on Germany’s east, against her ally Austria. The second front collapsed along with the Czars, and the first might have suffered the same fate if Britain had not been able to lure America on to its side with some clever subterfuge. Lenin walked away from World War I, and concentrated on consolidating the revolution. In World War II, the Soviet Union under Stalin was indifferent to a conflict between two enemies of communism. There was therefore no second front until Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union. The war for Europe was eventually determined far more by the fluctuating destinies on the second front rather than the first.
In our country, “front” came to the fore with the start of the age of coalitions, in the elections of 1967. In Bengal, the United Front was formed in 1967 by a melee of anti-Congress parties and won the assembly elections. But incompatibility soon wrecked that experiment. (Pranab Mukherjee, who was among the first Congress rebels, could write a book about that experience. He won’t. He is still in politics.) The Marxists parted such company to form their own. Led by Jyoti Basu and Promode Dasgupta, they adopted a Leninist approach, that each front was only a means toward the next step on the way to eventual power for the party and the party alone. To this purpose they cobbled the Left Front in 1977 after the Janata Dal miscalculated its strength in Bengal and refused a deal in the assembly elections. The important decision that the Marxists took after 1977 was to stop the pursuit of independent power at the expense of its allies. Lenin would have approved of such pragmatism. There is no substitute for staying in power.
At the national level, strangely, the various “fronts” found every substitute for staying in power. Their first chance came in 1977, when the post-Emergency, anti-Indira wave swept a strange conglomeration into office in Delhi. The spirit of the moment led to their first, and crucial, mistake. That coalition might have lasted if it had been honest enough to admit that it was a coalition with a limited agenda. Instead, its leaders were convinced that merger was synonymous with unity. (Chandra Shekhar, who was president of the Janata Dal, could write a book about that experience. He won’t. He is still in politics.) If the various constituents of the Janata had been candid that they held different views, but that such differences should not hold a government to ransom, the experiment would have worked. Instead the Socialists, propelled by the vibrant but mercurial Madhu Limaye, insisted that Jana Sangh (now the BJP) members not be allowed to retain membership of both the new Janata Party and the RSS. Charan Singh, the peasant leader whose sole ideology was to become prime minister, cleverly exploited such tensions to break the government. (George Fernandes, whose last-minute switch to Charan Singh in 1979 sealed the split, could write a book about that experience. He won’t. He is still in politics.) The self-destruction of the Janata also destroyed the credibility of any ‘”front” at the national level for two decades. The Congress sabotage of the governments of Inder Gujral and H.D. Deve Gowda was a further setback to the idea of coalition politics in Delhi.
It is possible that someone in the BJP took some time out to read Lenin. It is probable that they simply took a long look at Bengal and decided that what the Marxists had done was logical. The National Democratic Alliance became the first “front” of Delhi that obeyed the parameters set down by the Marxists in Bengal: One central party at the core, with the gumption to leave a sensible amount of space for smaller allies. That space had to be both strategic and tactical. The BJP therefore did not impose its core agenda on its alliance; nor did it seek to elbow out its partners by marginalizing them in seat equations.
But to understand what a first or a second or a third front means in electoral politics, we need to return to the analogy of wars. In elections, the first front is the establishment, or the ruling alliance. The second front is the principal opposition party, either singly or with minor partners. The third front is a separate alliance, with a different internal mix. The second and third fronts are united in one primary cause, a desire to uproot the first front. They may have nothing else in common, and indeed be hostile to one another in their strongholds. But as in a war, they attack the common enemy from different regions.
When the Congress was in power, the dynamics of the second and third fronts were apparent. You could quibble over ranking, about who was really second and who was third, but there was no confusion that there were two alliances with the common purpose of defeating the Congress. The BJP was the central fact of one front, and some variation of the Janata held together the other, with the left as a further bulwark. V.P. Singh used the dynamics of two fronts to perfection when he and Arun Nehru took on Rajiv Gandhi in the general elections of 1989 after accusing him of taking bribes in the Bofors gun deal. (The most extraordinary statement I have ever heard is V.P. Singh saying that he never accused Rajiv Gandhi of taking Bofors money. What?! Presumably he gave N. Ram and Arun Shourie Padma Bhushans for not accusing Rajiv Gandhi as well.)
Arun Nehru perfected the strategic positioning of the two fronts against Rajiv Gandhi in 1989. On paper, and in their manifestos, no groups could have been further apart than the second front (including the left), led by V.P.Singh, and the third front, propelled by L.K. Advani and the BJP. But they coordinated their offensive to bring down Rajiv Gandhi. From over 400 seats in the eighth Lok Sabha, the Congress crashed to 193 seats in the ninth. Within the next ten years, the BJP had changed the ranking. It moved to the status of a second front, and then in 1999, under Atal Behari Vajpayee it became the ruling alliance and thus the first front. So in the coming election, we have the first front. The picture of smiling leaders at the Sonia Gandhi lunch tells us that there might be a third front. But where is the second front?
It does not exist, because the Congress has vacated this space. The Congress no longer leads any alliance but seeks cooption in a variable alliance. It is an unfortunate position for an organization that was till yesterday the natural party of governance. This is why it is not in command of any bargain with any ally in any prominent state. In Bihar, Laloo Yadav will squeeze the Congress out of reckoning. Mayawati accepted Sonia Gandhi’s flowers and birthday cakes, smiled before the cameras and then told her to find her own way through the electoral maze in states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Mulayam Singh Yadav and his allies have told the Congress that it can be granted the status of a supplicant. In Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar will determine the arithmetic. The Marxists have promised the heavens to Sonia Gandhi in Delhi but will not leave a single seat to her in Bengal or Kerala. In Karnataka Deve Gowda is not interested in even a conversation with the Congress. In Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi showed the Congress its place by an arbitrary announcement of seat divisions. The local Congress leaders fumed, and kept quiet. In Gujarat, the Congress does not need allies to humiliate the party; the party’s factional satraps are doing that very well. In Andhra Pradesh the Telengana regional party is likely to come to terms with the Congress, but on its terms.
The Congress should have had better judgment about its strengths and weakness, and claimed the space of the second front. It is now a ship that has lost its compass.
When you have lost your way, how can you win an election?
