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The Coca-Colanisation of our polity

The only Congressman with balls is Mamata Banerjee. Unfortunately, she is not a man and, unfortunately, she is not in the Congress.

She doesn't have the oomph of a Kiran Chaudhury. She doesn't have the dress sense of an Ambika Soni. She doesn't have the accent of a Sheila Dixit. She doesn't have the poise of a Margaret Alva. But boy, does she have some earthy political canny that a Sonia Gandhi could do with?

Dead sure about who her rival is (the Left Front) and what she needs to do to get rid of it, dead sure about what she wants (the levers of power in Writers' Building) and how to get it, the leader of the three-year-old Trinamul Congress shows what the leader of the 115-year-old Congress lacks.

And, in getting almost the entire West Bengal Congress to endorse its idea of a mahajot against the Marxists, to the consternation of the socialites in South Delhi, Ms Banerjee demonstrates an unwavering, unrelenting and unsentimental focus that is a prerequisite in political warfare.

Still, that is no reason for the Congress to do business with Ms Banerjee and join the Trinamul -- and by extension the Bharatiya Janata Party -- in the "grand alliance" against the Left Front. It might kill the Congress in West Bengal if it doesn't, but it will kill the Congress across the nation if it does.

For Sonia Gandhi today, the choice is between nation and state. Should she tie up with an NDA member just to cling on to West Bengal which is due for civic body elections next month and assembly elections next year? Or should she spurn the very open and almost shameless advances of L K Advani, who has shown once again how shallow the BJP's ideology is?

If Ms Gandhi succumbs to the political blackmail of West Bengal Congress chief A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury, who has threatened to quit the party if the Congress doesn't join the mahajot, it could strip the Congress of its only USP: its avowedly secular character as opposed to that of the BJP.

Sure, the comatose party hasn't put one foot right since last year's general election. It has compromised on corruption by supporting the Rabri Devi government. It has dunked the absolutist interpretation of the Pachmarhi resolution against coalition governments by joining the Bihar government. It has shed all pretensions of democracy by putting off organisational elections. It has faced the brunt of cross-voting in the recent Rajya Sabha elections. It has had such leaders as Meira Kumar leaving the party. And such others as C K Jaffer Sharief and Chhabildas Mehta and Kapil Sibal speaking out against the way things are drifting.

But none of those blips comes even remotely close to the astonishing proposal Barkatda, as the venerable Ghani Khan is known on either side of the Hooghly, and his pals have delivered to 10 Janpath, to join hands with Ms Banerjee and the Trinamul -- and the BJP -- to take on the Marxists. Their rationale: The comrades have killed West Bengal over the last 20 years. They have to go. We can't do it on our own. But Mamatadidi might be able to. Let us lend her our support. The BJP is with her, but that's okay. The anti-Communist vote won't get split. And Jyoti Basu will go for sure.

Vinasha kaale vipareetha buddhi. India's principal opposition party cannot even recognise who its main rival is, the Communists or the communalists. At one level, it conveys the naivete of the Congress leadership, which has even entertained such a possibility, and the desperation of the BJP to grab power at all costs. At another level, it is sweet revenge for Mamata Banerjee; she has got the very man who got her out of the Congress, Somen Mitra, to call her "the only ray of hope for West Bengal".

As it is, Ms Gandhi's power and reach in West Bengal (as in much of the country) stands severely eroded. Thirty-three of her MLAs voted against her handpicked nominee, D P Roy, in the Rajya Sabha polls. The state unit is close to a split. Riding piggyback on a junior partner while diluting its own identity and ideology is the strongest signal partymen and voters elsewhere in the country can receive that the clinically alive Congress is dead. RIP.

On the one hand, it knocks the bottom out of the Congress' fight against communalism. But more importantly, by aligning with the Trinamul, which is an NDA member, it lends a tinge of legitimacy to the BJP, which for all its growth in the last 11 years is still pretty much of an untouchable in significant pockets of the country.

Is it the Congress riding piggyback on the Trinamul or is the BJP riding piggyback on the Congress? All it takes to tickle a Congressman is the promise of power, and no one knows it better than Ms Banerjee. So she has promised to make Ghani Khan Chowdhury the chief minister if the mahajot works. This is crass opportunism being packaged as survival strategy.

But, at a broader level, what we are seeing is the Coca-Colanisation of our polity. In its quest for global approval, the Atlanta transnational tampers with the taste of the cola soft drink concentrate to suit local tastes. Result: it tastes different in different countries and different in different cities of the same country.

The same is the case with our 100% ideology-free parties. The Congress ties up with Laloo Yadav's RJD to take on the BJP in Bihar, but the BJP wants it to join the mahajot against the Marxists in West Bengal. The Congress is a partner of the Muslim League to take on the Left parties in Kerala, but the BJP wants it to join an "open alliance".

In their quest to be all things to all people, our political parties are in danger of becoming nothing to nobody.

Krishna Prasad