Most politicians know it in their gut that India shines only for the rich while what works with the masses are sops such as free TVs or rice, preferably doled out by a charismatic state-level leader. It also helps the process of re-election of a regime if the state is NOT seen as an agent of corporate lobbies, out to clear lands and forests. Indeed, overplaying the corporate hand has damaged leaders and parties as opposed to helping them.
The NDA regime learned it the hard way in 2004—the plain fact that even at a time of economic growth and apparent progress, India does not shine for the majority of its people. Atal Behari Vajpayee was very sceptical about the India Shining pitch at the time. But L.K. Advani and Pramod Mahajan were convinced and consensus man Vajpayee went along with it. After the defeat, Pramod Mahajan told this correspondent: “I’m ready to take responsibility as I never listened to Atalji’s doubts.”
The scepticism within sections of the NDA and Vajpayee himself was not due to any unfriendliness to big business. On the contrary, the quip about the Vajpayee PMO was that it was RH (Reliance-Hinduja) positive. Back then, there were several stories in circulation involving corporate lobbies’ backroom manoeuvres, particularly in the field of communications and disinvestment, with Mahajan and Vajpayee’s son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya being the pointsmen.
In fact, it was often said that Project Vajpayee took off precisely because he had old links to business. As Narendra Modi is being promoted now, Project Vajpayee too unfolded after a supplement appeared in several English dailies describing him as “the Man India Awaits”, when print was still the most powerful medium. A BJP insider puts it even more bluntly: “Vajpayee had both corporate backing plus he was a Brahmin—that goes a long way in creating a pan-Indian acceptability. Much before he was positioned as PM in 1996 and again in 1998, he had spent three decades building relations with other parties and MPs.”
Which is why he had the instinct to know that overplaying the corporate hand can cause irreversible damage. Mulayam Singh Yadav too learnt it to his detriment when “socialist” became “socialite” in the company of Amar Singh, once considered the man with the hotline to industrialists and celebrities. But after a very thorough defeat at the hands of Mayawati in 2007, Mulayam began a process of distancing himself from the image of one who cavorted and partied with corporates and cine-stars. His links to big business remain but a certain decorum is maintained while son Akhilesh too has consciously sought a more down-to-earth and modest image.
The public kiss of corporates can therefore be lethal to political longevity. Conversely, it’s almost impossible for a party to survive the political game without the big bucks of corporate backing. Even someone like Mamata Banerjee, who tries to be more left than the Left, has business backers. Yet there are certain favours that simply cannot be given for fear of public anger: this includes land acquisition, now one of the most tricky areas being negotiated between business and politicians.
There are some like the late YSR who quite mastered the art of surviving the contradiction. On the one hand, the crony capitalist model thrived while he was Andhra Pradesh chief minister. Yet he succeeded in promoting and projecting the state as a vehicle of welfare schemes. That, in today’s context, is a successful political entrepreneur. In neighbouring Karnataka, the BJP regime made a complete hash of this, overrun by rapacious mining and business lobbies.
This is the backdrop in which Narendra Modi is changing the rules and unabashedly seeking corporate media sanction. Sources reveal he has sought events choreographed for himself. From business-friendly Gujarat, he is playing to the hilt in the new chambers of politics.
