What Election Results Mean; An Example From My Files
Saeed Naqvi
A creeping cynicism about elections, including the recent Bihar outcome, had begun to seriously afflict me after the 2018 assembly elections in Tripura. Covering elections over decades had caused personal likes and dislikes to fade somewhat. This is why my sudden personal interest in the Tripura contest deserves an explanation.
One day my neighbour in South Delhi, a former Director General of Police in Tripura, B.L. Vohra dropped in. He was all wrapped up in nostalgia about his innings in Agartala, during the Chief Minister, Manik Sarkar’s term in the state. A decorated officer, Vohra spoke of Sarkar with admiration bordering on reverence.
Turning the pages of Vohra’s book on his years in Tripura, the following was quite extraordinary.
“Manik Sarkar was definitely unlike any Chief Minister whom I had seen, met, worked with and heard about. He was honest personally and that had percolated down to all echelons of the government. One cannot find any examples of his ilk unfortunately in the country.”
The universal assessment of Manik Sarkar even among opposition leaders in Tripura would flatter any politician. It was not just that he was himself a gentleman but he appeared to have instilled his qualities in his cabinet colleagues and the administration across the board. By all accounts his predecessor and Guru, Nripen Chakraborty, was even more worthy of emulation. The staff in the Chief Minister’s house had never ever dreamt that they would serve a boss whose groceries were purchased on a ration card and who never saved enough money to open a bank account. This may be syrupy stuff in an era when an increase in the number of billionaires is a matter of pride.
It is elementary that 25 years of CPM rule could not have lasted only because of the leadership’s decency. Despite the economic crunch, the government in Agartala implemented every central scheme with greater efficiency than any other state: 96% literacy for instance. The gender ratio was something of a record. That is how Tripura’s middle class was created. True, having created a new middle class, the government found itself flat footed. It could not cope with the next stage of aspirations. It produced distributive justice but found itself bereft of ideas to generate wealth to accommodate the educated unemployed. It could not promote two wheel drivers to the four wheel level.
Upon arrival in Agartala I was able to find accommodation only in a government guest house. When I asked the CM if the absence of reasonable hotels was state policy, he was frank: “we are not in a position to cope with social imbalances that come with five star hotels, bars and restaurants.”
After the end of Left rule in West Bengal in 2011, the CPM in Agartala had no structure to lean on. In this friendless era it was exposed to hostile TV bombardment. Riding the crest of economic liberalization, market fundamentalism galloped at breakneck speed to accommodate advertising for rampaging consumerism marketed by dream merchants, architects of plush malls and multiplexes. Hindutva flourishes when rampaging markets determine the pace of life.
CPM Chief Minister, Manik Sarkar’s controlled austerities withstood this barrage of televised razzmatazz for 25 years. By this time another generation had arisen, torn between a lifestyle of simplicity and the Eldorado on the horizon that metropolitan centres of control teased and tempted them with.
After the Left defeat, Agartala was in trauma. Before they found their feet, the stunned CPM cadres were having to adjust to another reality: Party sympathizers were suddenly not making eye contact with them. Some, with an eye on the main chance, even joined the mobs attacking CPM offices, or pulling down Lenin’s statue.
To a considerable extent, the outcome in Tripura and elsewhere was the Congress’s gift to the BJP. Himanta Biswa Sarma, brilliant in electoral management, walked out of the Congress because he could not bear Rahul Gandhi’s insulting silences. Tarun Gagoi, the former Assam Chief Minister, was eager to make his son Gaurav the Chief Minister. This would cut out Sarma whose political skills underpinned the latter half of the Gogoi years.
This kind of a dynamo, backed by money power and an adversarial centre controlling the purse strings – this is how the Left was uprooted in Tripura. Just imagine, when state after state was implementing the 7th pay commission, Tripura found itself stranded at the 4th pay commission. CPM dogma also stood in the way: “7th pay commission made some demands which were anti people.”
I have dug up my Tripura file as a metaphor, an additional story to mull over while the Bihar verdict is being digested.
The State had been ploughing its furrow diligently with some quite extraordinary results on the Human Development scale which the mainstream media never discussed. Yes, the State with a population of 40 lakhs was small. Only Sikkim and Goa were smaller. Or was the media squeamish about applauding a State which for 32 of the past 37 years has been under Left Front rule?
Some of its records are amazing. Its 96 percent literacy makes it the country’s most literate State. Literacy rate in Gujarat is 83 per cent.
Instead of beating its breast and flailing its arms around for being short changed by the centre, the regime picked up all the Central and State schemes, put its head down, called in the officials, party cadres, involved the three tier Panchayati Raj system and gave a sense of real participation to the elected Autonomous District Councils which cover two thirds of the State and all the Tribal areas of Tripura.
The impending change of cultures was imminent from the day the BJP planted Tathagata Roy as Governor of Tripura. The genteel tone of Chakraborty-Sarkar gave way to a inelegant vocabulary. “They should be buried head first in pig’s excreta”, said the Governor by way of a recommendation for dealing with terrorists.
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