Of course, not all parties are oligarchic to the same extent. Internal party democracy exists on a continuum across democratic countries. On one end of the spectrum are democracies like the United States, where party elites wield significant power but are constrained by internal party structures as well as primary elections. On the other side of the spectrum are countries that have democratic structures on paper that largely serve as window dressing; they exist to placate party members and civil society but have no real authority.
India, unfortunately, is situated toward the latter extreme. This is true for both established parties, which have experienced serious organizational decay over time, and for newer parties, which have not dedicated themselves to the hard work of creating enduring party structures. Most political parties in India today are elite-driven outfits, with ultimate power residing within the hands of a select few.46 By and large, this is by design; party elites are intrinsically more interested in accumulating and protecting their own political power rather than building well-institutionalized organizations. This top-down architecture maximizes the discretionary power of party elites, offering little political space for the aspirations or views of the rank-and-file membership. One observer writes that in India, the internal structure of parties is “generally autocratic and oligarchic. . . . The uppermost crust of the party organization tends to form a ruling group, isolated from the mass of workers.”47
The lack of intraparty democracy infects political parties of all stripes, including prominent national parties like the Congress and BJP.48 For instance, neither party’s constitution contains any detailed information on the candidate nomination process.49 State parties, however, are perhaps most prone to this vulnerability as they often resemble little more than personal fiefdoms. Most regional parties in India function as “single-leader parties without substantial organizational networks,” where the absence of organization is “compensated by the projection of the leader as a demi-god.”50 The political scientist Kanchan Chandra recalls visiting the state president of one well-known regional party and requesting a list of his party’s office-bearers. The official turned indignant upon being asked to disclose “classified” information, barking, “Why should I give my party’s inside information to you?”51
When it comes to selecting candidates, the preferences of party elites play an outsized role in choosing candidates. Party primaries in India do not exist, and although parties often possess very detailed, decentralized procedures for candidate selection, in practice the party often authorizes the party leader to select its slate of candidates.52 Using objective criteria on the degree of decentralization in party nomination procedures, political scientists Adnan Farooqui and E. Sridharan found that India lies on the “centralized” extreme; its major parties rate as “completely centralized” or “near-completely centralized” compared to other countries, with the national party leadership given the final say for all nominations.53
One immediate consequence of the lack of intraparty democracy is nepotism or “dynastic politics,” which is rampant in Indian politics. In an elite-dominated environment, families have become substitutes for weak party organizations, with “the proximity of blood ties” serving as a readymade chain of command.54 Of the 543 MPs elected in 2014, between one-fifth and one-quarter hail from political families, depending on the measure used.55 This figure is a slight decline from 2009 (29 percent) but roughly on par with 2004 levels (21 percent).56 Many critics of India’s hereditary politics tend to direct their fire at the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, which has controlled the Congress Party for much of the past one hundred years.57 But family politics cannot be reduced to any single party; many parties operating at the national and state levels exhibit dynastic tendencies.58
Indifference to Ideas
Together with internal party democracy, ideology is largely an afterthought in Indian politics. By the absence of ideology, I am referring to the fact that there is no single issue-based dimension along which parties can be neatly organized, such as a simple left-right (liberal-conservative) spectrum. “Ideologies like socialism or liberal democracy . . . make no sense to this generation of politicians,” Sumanta Banerjee wrote in 2004 of India’s political class. “Whichever party gives them [candidates] that slot of power is good enough.”59 Ideology then has taken a backseat to more pragmatic considerations.
Since there is no ideas-based criterion to gain entry into a given political party, politicians can seamlessly move between parties as free agents. To a significant extent, party recruitment and nomination is based on sheer opportunism. “The rise of leaders within political parties is not, in a single instance, dependent on persuading party members of the cogency of your ideas,” according to Pratap Bhanu Mehta.60 Rather, aspirant candidates gain traction with parties based on social connections and leaders’ assessments of their “winnability.” There are few permanent friends or enemies in Indian politics; as one author noted, “It is possible for practically everyone to cohabit with practically anyone else in the pursuit of power.”61
In a politics free of ideology, ideas are neither a barrier to entry into a party nor to exit. Large-scale party defections were commonplace well into the 1980s. In one well-known case in 1979, one minister from the state of Assam defected three times in less than 36 hours.62 Parliament eventually passed a law in 1985 to curb the defection of sitting legislators, but the law does not apply to politicians who switch party alliances at the time of elections. Indeed, party switching continues to be rampant.63
Although India’s anti-defection law was originally intended to curb party fragmentation and the proliferation of factionalism within parties, it only further strengthened the hand of party elites and diminished the relevance of individual legislators. Hence, it simultaneously weakened internal party democracy and exacerbated the absence of ideology. One reason parties do not necessarily traffic in new ideas is because ordinary rank-and-file members have very little incentive to do so since upward mobility within parties is severely constrained.
While ideology of a programmatic sort is virtually absent, it is present in a very different (noneconomic) sense. Across political parties, caste, religion, region, and language all represent cleavages in society that have acquired ideological import over time.64 In diverse societies, the practice of ethnic politics revolves around concepts like “dignity,” “honor,” “justice,” and “inclusion.” Although they do not operate on a conventional left-right spectrum, these notions do contain substantive content.
Using this broad definition, Indian politics possesses a surfeit of ideological competition. According to Ashutosh Varshney, three “master narratives” have formed the ideological core of political parties in India since 1947: secular nationalism, Hindu nationalism, and caste-based justice. Secular nationalism has historically been associated with the Congress while its chief national rival, the BJP, is the most prominent representative of Hindu nationalism. Caste justice has been most fervently championed by a host of smaller, regional parties with relatively narrow core constituencies but is regularly exploited across the political spectrum.65
But even if we are to expand the definition of ideology in this way, the boundaries between parties still appear to be “highly flexible and permeable.”66 In order to enlarge their appeal by engaging new demographics, parties regularly recruit candidates from a diverse array of backgrounds. So a party like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which was founded as a vehicle for promoting Dalit interests, has recast itself as a party that seeks to cater to Muslim, Dalit, and Brahmin voters.67 Even the BJP, an avowedly Hindu nationalist entity, has gone to great lengths to recruit Muslim and other minority members, including setting up a “minority morcha,” or outreach wing.68 And while the caste justice and Hindu nationalist narratives are often portrayed as diametrically opposed, the Hindu nationalist BJP has had great success touting the caste credentials of its candidates to win votes of sought-after communities.
In sum, even though parties espouse d
iffering ideologies (defined in identity terms), with a few exceptions (namely, the extreme Left and Right) they are more or less recruiting candidates from the same talent pool.
THE MERITS OF MONEY
Given the rising costs of elections, the limited funds parties have at their disposal, their organizational infirmities, and ineffectual election finance regulations, it comes as little surprise that parties rely on unreported (“black”) sources of campaign funds. For instance, an independent analysis of the disclosed income of the six national parties between 2004–5 and 2011–12 indicates that 75 percent of parties’ income comes from unidentified sources. Around half of these funds came in a period of four months around elections, largely in cash (for the Congress Party, this figure stood around 90 percent).69
The sources of black money are numerous and diverse, but two are especially important. First, parties solicit businesses for financial contributions to party coffers. These donations can be voluntary, typically made in exchange for a favor to be paid down the road, or can be achieved through more coercive means. Although companies can legally make tax-deductible contributions to political parties and candidates (with some limitations), most continue to give under the table rather than report their giving. This is an outgrowth of the continued regulatory intensity of the state, whereby politicians and bureaucrats can use their discretionary authority to punish firms who do not do their bidding by denying licenses, cancelling permits, or giving contracts to competitors. The nexus between builders and politicians cited in Chapter 2 is a good example of this.
Recruiting self-financed candidates is a second source of raising private, often unaccounted funds. Increasingly in India, personal wealth is widely considered to be a prerequisite for seeking (and winning) higher office. Indeed, a 1996 survey of sitting MLAs revealed that personal funds were an important source of campaign finance for a majority of legislators. While a large percentage also benefited from party funds, the author of the survey clarifies that each respondent “added that this was extremely small” and usually came not in cash but in publicity support. The author concludes that, with the exception of the Left parties, “all candidates must generate personal resources if they hope to contest an election . . . without which they believe they do not have any chance of getting elected.”70
If the costs of elections have risen and parties, as a consequence, are under intense pressure to raise funds, what exactly are these funds used for? Money greases the wheels at all stages of the electoral process, beginning with obtaining a party nomination. The process of prospective candidates paying for party tickets is known as “ticket buying,” whereby potential candidates pay parties to contest elections under their banner. If party leaders can sell party tickets to the highest bidder, they can create new sources of revenue for themselves and the party.
Ticket buying is a common practice carried out by most parties, with the exception of the Left; what differs is the extent to which parties acknowledge its use. For example, Mayawati, the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and president of the BSP, is quite open about her expectation that prospective candidates should make a hefty contribution to the party in exchange for a nomination.71 As described by Farooqui and Sridharan, potential candidates must first make a payment to district-level party functionaries in order to have their names sent up the chain to Mayawati and her inner circle. Then, in order to be seriously considered for the nomination, they must make direct payments to Mayawati for the honor. The authors estimate that the total cost could be upwards of 5 million rupees ($76,000).72 Other parties follow similar procedures although in a much more clandestine fashion. For instance, the Congress Party in the 2002 state election reportedly demanded a mandatory 5,000 rupees ($76) “application fee” from prospective ticket-seekers. In order to obtain an audience with the party’s central election committee, aspirants had to cough up another 25,000 to 75,000 rupees, or between $380 and $1140 (without any guarantee of a party ticket).73
Assuming a candidate is lucky enough to get a party nomination, he or she then has to distribute funds for party maintenance and support. Often, this takes the form of regular cash payments to “social workers,” who are the candidate’s “captains” in the constituency. These workers are often only loosely connected to the party, but because they often function as the candidate’s eyes and ears, they must be adequately compensated lest they switch allegiances. The fascinating ethnographic work of Lisa Bjorkman from a Mumbai slum reveals that, contrary to popular opinion, the money distributed by candidates around elections is not principally about buying votes but rather about spreading enough cash to stay in the game. Instead of explicitly buying votes, “cash works to produce and shore up relations of trust, facilitate flows of information and reduce the incentives for a social worker to ‘flip.’”74
Of course, money is also necessary to cover the practical aspects of campaigning: advertising, rallies and meetings, care of party workers, and so on. In the municipal election Bjorkman observed, the local candidate she followed paid between 15 to 1,000 people 200 rupees ($3) per day to attend rallies and accompany the candidate on the campaign trail.75 Election campaigns in India are typically very short—officially they last no longer than two to three weeks—but the frenzied pace and sheer number of activities involved is bewildering. A partial list of expenses includes posters, billboards, vehicles for transport, polling agents, booth managers, workers to distribute publicity materials, and food and shelter for campaign workers. This list, of course, reflects only the legal expenses that are openly acknowledged. The vast majority of election spending takes place in cash, which further complicates the regulator’s monitoring efforts. As one former chief election commissioner estimated (in 2011), “For every 100 rupees spent on elections, 90 rupees is spent in cash.”76
The list of illicit expenditures ranges from the obvious to the surreal. As Sanjay’s example demonstrated, candidates routinely engage in the provision of material inducements to voters. This practice is, of course, explicitly forbidden, yet it is routinely pursued. Gifts typically include cash, jewelry, liquor or other consumables—ranging from opium paste to bricks for home construction. In the run-up to Gujarat’s 2012 state election, candidates competed with one another to provide free mobile phone minutes to voters. In one neighborhood of metropolitan Ahmedabad that I visited, the ruling MLA had instructed local owners of mobile kiosks to provide free 200-rupee ($3) “re-charges” to customers courtesy of the candidate. A candidate from a rival party, catching wind of the scheme, instructed kiosks to provide 300-rupee ($4.5) charges on the candidate’s dime in an effort at one-upmanship. On the eve of the election, liquor flowed uninhibited despite the fact that Gujarat is a “dry” state; the Election Commission reported seizures of 550,000 liters of country liquor during the campaign.77
In recent years, parties have had be more innovative in their vote-buying practices thanks to more aggressive enforcement action by the ECI. A former chief election commissioner once told me that a popular form of vote buying candidates often pursue is to sponsor a “wedding,” in which thousands of locals would be invited to drink, eat, and engage in general merrymaking (and leave with a shiny parting gift) when in actuality there was no bride and groom. The entire evening is a ruse to woo voters. A U.S. diplomatic cable on elections in south India, made public by Wikileaks, serves as an engaging ethnography of the current state of pre-election handouts. The cable details the exploits of M. K. Azhagiri, a powerful MP of the ruling DMK Party in Tamil Nadu, who allegedly spared no expense to win a crucial 2009 by-election.78 A local mayor and confidant of Azhagiri’s claimed the latter paid 5,000 rupees ($76) per voter ahead of the election by distributing the cash in envelopes which were delivered to houses tucked inside their morning newspaper, along with the DMK’s voting slip.79
As Bjorkman points out, with the advent of the secret ballot and the increased range of candidates voters typically can choose from, the actual purchase of an individual’s vote is near impossib
le. But candidates are trapped in an impossible situation. If they provide cash or gifts to voters, there is no guarantee those voters will ultimately vote for them. If they do not provide such payments, however, there is a decent chance the voters will not support them. Hence, the logical course for candidates to follow is to continue paying off voters.80
The extent of trickery does not stop there. Another common practice is the financing of “dummy candidates,” meant to confuse voters or cut into your opponent’s vote share.81 In one constituency election I observed in Bihar, the incumbent candidate hired a dummy candidate to contest the election in order to steal urban votes in the constituency away from his main rival. The dummy candidate, a friend and sympathizer of the incumbent legislator, had no interest in holding office; he was merely acting as an instrument to peel off votes from an opponent. Arun Kumar, in his study on India’s black economy, documented one MP who paid for eight dummy candidates in 1998 to contest elections at a cost of 7.5 million rupees ($114,000).82 When the Congress Party ended its relationship with Jagan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh, it allegedly tried to sabotage his election campaign by fielding eleven candidates named “Jagan Reddy” in an effort to trick voters into wasting their votes on his similarly named opponents. The party directed a similar effort at Reddy’s mother, Vijayalakshmi, in a neighboring constituency, where they backed six “false” Vijayalakshmis.83
Last but not least is the publicity budget. In addition to the traditional practice of advertisements and flyers, in today’s environment, candidates and parties must also budget for activities such as social media.84 According to official disclosures (which are almost certainly an underestimate), the BJP spent nearly 7.15 billion rupees (or $108 million) on the 2014 parliamentary election. More than 40 percent (roughly $43 million) was spent on media advertisements.85
When Crime Pays Page 17
