The outcome of the recent Delhi assembly elections has given a new lease of life to pro-poor politics in the country. All of a sudden, opposition parties are competing to project themselves as messiahs of the poor. Consequently, the opposition has been making every possible effort since the budget day to project the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) as pro-rich and pro-corporate with little to offer to the poor and the farmers.
Down and out after the shock defeat in the April-May 2014 Lok Sabha elections, parties such as the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, which were staring at a bleak political future, suddenly discovered this neo-left ideology as their ticket out of political wilderness. However, considering the uniqueness of the Delhi election and the socio-political dynamics of Hindi heartland politics, it is not clear how far this assumption would pan out.
Changing nature of poor in India
In 1960, Indian economist B.S. Minhas estimated that 59% Indians live below the poverty line. Thus, a pro-poor ideology and well-coined political slogans found resonance and acceptability among a large section of voters. This is probably the reason that the Garibi Hatao slogan worked perfectly for Indira Gandhi in the 1970s.
However, 67 years after independence, the population of the poor has come down to 25.7% (Planning Commission, 2011-12), while some estimates put this figure below 20%. Thus, this portion of electorate in 2015 has got substantially reduced, limiting the ability of pro-poor rhetoric to earn political capital.
Moreover, the aspirations of the present day-poor have undergone a sea change since independence. Before the advent of the green revolution in 1960 and liberalization of the economy in 1990s, the aspiration of the poor was limited to roti, kapda aur makaan. However, exposure to mass media and education has drastically changed these aspirations, which are no less than those of the middle class. Therefore, opposition parties need to read the Delhi verdict beyond simple appeasement of the poor.
The psychology of poverty
The Aam Aadmi Party, which contested the Delhi state elections entirely on a populist agenda directed at the poor, is believed to have attracted the imagination of the have-nots. By standard definition, if Delhi has just 9.9% poor (Planning Commission, 2011-12), who are the remaining 44% who voted for the AAP, as it polled 54% of the votes? These are those Delhi citizens who don’t meet the standard definition of poverty (Tendulkar poverty line) but live under the psychology of poverty. The majority of such Delhi voters are migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, earning their livelihood from semi-skilled and manual occupations.
Even a manual labourer, who earns just Rs.200-300 a day and supports a family of three-four people, is not among the poor in Delhi, according to the Tendulkar poverty line, which puts only those who earn less than Rs.1,140 per head per month in the poverty bracket. Therefore, statistical estimates of poverty are irrelevant in giving a socio-economic definition to poverty in Delhi. The aspirations of low-income group Delhi citizens are vastly determined by the lifestyle of the middle classes due to their frequent interaction with them in their daily life. Thus, this section of population is constantly reminded of their have-not status despite being comfortably placed in the bracket of roti, kapda aur makaan. Therefore, even a family earning around Rs.20,000 per month will identify itself with the poor and will be prone to be attracted by a populist agenda laden with freebies.
On the other hand, the same people who live under psychological poverty in Delhi will not identify with the poor back home even if they own just a couple of acres of land or are operating a petty business, due to the pride factor attached with rural social psychology. Thus, a pure pro-poor agenda will not be able to attract their imagination in rural India. Moreover, states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where regional parties are in power, will suffer more from populist issues due to anti-incumbency against their governments.
Dominance of social divide
In the last two decades, the political landscape of the Hindi heartland has transformed drastically due to the emergence of regional satraps like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad, Mayawati, Nitish Kumar and Kalyan Singh thriving on Mandal and Kamandal politics. The traditional applecart of the Congress has been destroyed and poor politics has ceased to yield results.
The politics of social justice and communal polarization has overtaken the call for Garibi Hatao. The social justice politics of Bihar has been further complicated by the introduction of concepts like Ati-Pichada (Most Backward Class) and Mahadalits by Kumar; the pure dalit agenda of Jitan Ram Manjhi has added more fuel to the caste divide. Similarly in Uttar Pradesh, even though Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav have their strong constituencies of support, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was rejuvenated in the state by the creation of a rainbow coalition of Hindu castes, including Dalits, in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Dalits and most backward classes earlier represented a poor class, making them prone to be attracted by pure poor agenda, but opportunities arising out of reservation have created a class divide among them, thus restricting their polarization on poverty line. Therefore, it is hard to believe at this point of time that the class divide will be able to dilute the caste and religious divides in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, unless proven otherwise.
Past history of parties
Offering sops and making promises are an integral part of electioneering in India but more often than not, these promises don’t cut much ice with the electorate because of the past history of political parties. The AAP’s promises to the Delhi electorate were in the extreme but still large numbers of voters bought them because of its clean slate and the populist decisions taken by the party during its 49-day rule. However, next time, the same party will be judged by its performance over five years and its evolution as a political entity. None of the regional parties in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have such a clean history, and thus the voter may not buy their poor agenda in the same way as the AAP in Delhi.
BJP’s efforts to reassure poor
Developments in the last month indicate that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP head Amit Shah have charted out an extensive plan to counter the opposition’s strategy. Ministers have been instructed to visit the states and educate the voters about the National Democratic Alliance government’s long-term agenda for inclusive development, budgetary provisions (social security, medical insurance, savings promotion, MUDRA bank, etc.), the reality of the land acquisition bill and the government’s sensitivity to the agrarian crisis arising out of unseasonal rain. The top leadership of the BJP is expected to come clean on its sensitivity to the poor in the ongoing national executive meet in Bengaluru.
Therefore, a pure populist agenda may not be good enough to reverse sagging political fortunes of regional players in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar unless they address the larger aspirations of the electorate and rework their social calculus.
Devendra Kumar is a psephologist and director of Research and Development Initiative.
