India's high-handed high commands

Since direct democracy is not possible to be practised, many countries across the world have accepted indirect democracy, be it parliamentary or presidential. The central feature of such a system lies in the importance attached to the role of political parties. India’s parliamentary system has seen the rise of political parties at the national and state level, catering to linguistic and social diversities. Parties have also emerged based on the personal ambitions of powerful leaders. However, what has happened over the years is the rise of the high command culture in the operation of political parties in India, which is in principle antithetical to the basic tenets of democracy.

The high command culture developed largely with the coming to power of Indira Gandhi as prime minister. She presided over the destinies of the government and party affairs in matters relating to the choice of ministers in the Union Cabinet, chief ministers in the states and also in the selection of candidates for the Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections.

The BJP, which claimed initially that it is a party with a difference, has also adopted in a more brazen manner the high command culture with the party’s top brass selecting candidates for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections across the country and deciding who should be the chief ministers. Under the Modi regime, the high command has come to mean the role played by the ‘trimurthis’ — Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and party president J P Nadda, in that order.

It is this high command-driven calculation of political parties to field candidates for the ensuing Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council elections in Karnataka which provides the context for this article. As regards the choice of candidates for the Rajya Sabha by the BJP, it is well known that the local sentiment was to choose a state-level leader and not to renominate Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who has hardly served the interests of Karnataka. But the party high command brushed aside the regional sentiment and decided to field Nirmala Sitharaman from the state again. Likewise, the choice of filmstar and partyman Jaggesh for the Rajya Sabha seat has also come as a surprise, even to Jaggesh himself as confided by him, and state-level leaders, though the decision may have been taken to appease Vokkaliga voters in the run-up to the Assembly elections of 2023.

The least that was expected was for the party high command to ask the state leaders to recommend the names it had decided to nominate. Even in the choice of candidates for the Legislative Council elections, the BJP high command has ignored the state party leadership and Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai. It is a well-known fact that Bommai has not been able to get the approval of the high command regarding the timing of the expansion of his council of ministers and the list he is reported to have submitted during his previous visits to Delhi. It is a sad commentary on the powerlessness of the chief minister. The party high command and key RSS functionaries are taking decisions, even ignoring the noting made by the general secretary of the party in charge of the state.

The position in the Congress party too clearly reflects the overbearing role of the high command. The names suggested by state party president D K Shivakumar and Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah — whose highhandedness in recommending names to the high command has also been reportedly criticised by senior leaders like V Sudarshan and B L Shankar, both being former chairpersons of the Legislative Council — were ignored by
the high command regarding the choice of candidates for
the Rajya Sabha and the Legislative Council.

The choice of Jairam Ramesh for the Rajya Sabha may have been driven by his utility to the party and loyalty to the Gandhi family. The Udaipur Declaration has turned out to be a farce as it has had no real impact on the decision-making structures in the party. Udaipur conclave’s purpose was to legitimise the control of the Gandhis over the party who treat it as their fiefdom. In the Janata Dal (S), the party high command consists of Deve Gowda and his son Kumaraswamy who virtually take all decisions, including the present decision to field millionaire Kupendra Reddy to the Rajya Sabha.

The sad conclusion is that in India, high commands play an excessively dominant role not only in national parties but also in regional parties, like the TMC, DMK and the TRS, to name a few. It is high time parties practised internal party democracy.

(The writer is former professor, Bangalore University and former Senior Fellow, ICSSR, New Delhi)