Grassroots Civil War

New Delhi: May 20, 2008
Panchayat elections in Bengal have claimed dozens of lives – and 231 people are in hospital. This is the news today. More 'post-poll violence' is expected.

What makes village elections so violent?

Obviously, there must be economic motives – a pointer to the fact that local elections and politics are extremely important in determining economic outcomes for poor villagers.

Villagers who are deliberately kept poor by perverse policies are being offered the even more perverse incentive of seeking survival through ‘politics’ – though I doubt that this sort of “civil war” can be called politics, which is always based on a ‘recognition of restraints’. Politics is about talking, about airing one’s views in public about matters that affect a community – and being allowed by one’s opponents to do so: this is the vital recognition of restraints, that all are bound by the same laws. Lawless elections are not ‘politics’.

What is happening in rural Bengal cannot be called ‘politics’ as the western world understands the term. Note that politics is a western concept, born in ancient Greece. The rest of the world has tried to emulate it, to import it – but rarely succeeded.

What are the economic incentives offered to poor villagers to engage in this civil war? On top of the list is the NREGS – the employment programme. This is what politicizes all outcomes. Only those fighting for the winning party get a share of the loot.

Therefore, Aruna Roy’s assertion that the NREGS “strengthens grassroots democracy” is nothing short of naive sentimentalism.

This cannot be grassroots democracy.

It is political clientelism: something extremely ugly.

Note that rich businessmen who become Mayors of great cities – as in the west – are never political clients. That is ‘local self-government’; that is ‘grassroots democracy’.

What is astounding is the Times of India editorial that accompanied Aruna Roy’s interview. Their editors also appear as naive sentimentalists.

But are they spin doctors hand-in-glove with the State?

I strongly suspect the latter.