(Swapan Dasgupta is a Delhi-based political commentator with avowedly right-wing inclinations.)In the early-1990s, the Haryana Jat leader Devi Lal emerged as the only worthwhile successor to the truncated legacy of Charan Singh - the man who brought down the Janata government, became Prime Minister for a few months and paved the way for Indira Gandhi's return to power in 1980. An earthy politician who loved being photographed on his charpoi, surrounded by his Jersey cows, Devi Lal epitomised the rustic anti-intellectualism of politicians fiercely opposed to the Congress. He had the air of the village elder and his utterances reeked of blunt common sense. Devi Lal was always good copy for journalists and he was also someone the metropolitan elite loved to snigger over.
Yet, in hindsight, Devi Lal probably had a greater understanding of politics than both journalists and the pundits from academia. A small incident drove home this point. Prior to a general election, Devi Lal was asked a suitably abstruse question to which he proffered a characteristically unorthodox reply. The reporter humbly suggested to the Haryana patriarch that his reply varied from what had been stated in the election manifesto. Devi Lal's retort was sharp and instant: "Who reads a manifesto?"
This is a question whose answer I have been struggling to discover for the past two decades--and quite unsuccessfully.
Each election, a group of intellectuals, looking very purposeful and self-important, descend on the party headquarters to draft either the party's election manifesto or the Vision Document. A committee, usually headed by a veteran leader with a reputation of being a "thoughter" is formed and sometime midway through the campaign the document is released. The contents are perfunctorily analysed in the media and promptly forgotten unless there is a howler of sorts.
In that case, copies are pulped and a suitably sanitised version is left for the record books.
Devi Lal was right. No one gives a damn for the manifesto and certainly not the Vision Document which--if the BJP experience is any guide--seems like a MNREGA project for under-employed courtiers.
The document which is significant is the one that often goes by the name of the Common Minimum Programme. And that is drafted after the voters have had their say.
What does this indifference to the election manifesto tell us about the politics of India?
First, it confirms what is well known but wilfully under-acknowledged by the punditry: that Indian voters choose leaders and leave it to them to decide the priorities of governance.
It is not that ideas don't count. They do - but only as a slogan. The details of governance don't excite the voters.
Secondly, politicians (particularly those in opposition) are only too aware that manifesto promises are not based on a rounded assessment of what is possible and what is not. This inherent shallowness of commitments is also understandable. The ruling party apart, other members of the political class are insufficiently exposed to matters of state to enable them to make informed judgments of the future.
Despite the best of intentions, politicians have invariably found that their manifesto promises were based on insufficient understanding of all the complexities of policy-making. Governance in India tends to be needlessly over-secretive and this in turn prevents the exploration of realistic policy alternatives.
In recent days, a section of the commentariat has accused Narendra Modi of failing to go beyond listing the inadequacies of the UPA. They have charged him with speaking too much of what he has done in Gujarat rather than what he will do in the whole of India.
The criticisms have a basis. But the reasons for not charting out the future in exacting detail doesn't stem from the lack of application. Indian politics is less about governance because of the paucity of information.
No politician likes to be tied down by promises made on the strength of insufficient data.
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