The Hindu Business Line : Politics of the protest-game

Launching protest campaigns comprises a major instrument in the hands of political parties which are out to carve for themselves a distinctive niche in the variegated national political spectrum. The truism is being borne out in practice today by a number of the leading political players in the country — each trying to make a splash but, at the same time, each being wary of the move being made by others.

Currently, examples abound and it will be of interest to see where this competitive protest-activity will lead the nation. More pointedly, will the plethora of protests from all political quarters result in remedy or will the activity itself be scaled down when the political protagonists feel that the time has come to reorient "populist-propagandist" policies given the shifting sands of electoral politics.

US NUCLEAR DEAL

Take the nuclear deal with the US. True to their "anti-imperialist" stance, the Left has pulled out all the stops to attack the accord, citing it as a prime example of the "anti-national" policies of the UPA Government which will end with Washington wielding unacceptable control and influence over the country's nuclear policy. This line of thinking has been subscribed to by a number of experts, among whom are the leading lights of yesteryear of the nation's atomic energy establishment.

There is no doubt that, through the campaign, the Left is making an important political (and ideological) point, the political gain being that, in the people's mind, the Left is being strongly associated with a move which seeks to protect the nation from foreign attempts to control its nuclear policy. The problem of course is that the BJP — the branded `communal' force of Indian politics — too has taken on itself the task of `exposing' the long-term frailties of the India-US nuclear deal. The point is that this too is making an impact on the average citizen's mind, in the process diluting the Left's ideological impact of the campaign.

It stands to reason that, in their heart of hearts, neither the saffron brigade nor the Left likes this `intrusion' because, at the end of the day, it robs both of them of the political point that they exclusively took up the cudgels to protect the country's nuclear future.

OIL PRICE ISSUE

The same has been the case with the protest against the oil price increase where, interestingly, the Congress too threw its hat into the ring when the party organisation began making unfriendly noises against the move taken by its own Government. Though the effort was partially botched up by the unwarranted utterances of the Petroleum Minister (a Ministerial novice), the fact remains that neither the Left nor the BJP was too happy with the `intervention' because what it fundamentally meant was that the `opposition space' on this specific issue had to be shared with another national-level party, this time hailing from the ruling slot.

The third example is the present concern being shown by all the three protagonists over the price-rise phenomenon, the extent of protest-rivalry having reached a point where the Left has dubbed the Congress concern as `phoney'. More important than the concern being phoney is what the Congress proposes to do to control the problem, especially as it is in the driver's seat. This is what demands much more attention than fuelling the protest-competition, which may not be able to fool all the people all the time.

Ranabir Ray Choudhury