Book Review: Sanjay Ruparelia,Divided We Govern: Coalition Politics in Modern India

Coalition politics has been popularly construed in India as an impediment to a stable and efficient democracy. Yet, for almost half of India’s life as a parliamentary democracy, coalition governments have ruled it. Given this fact, understanding the workings of coalition politics can hold important clues about the nature of India’s democracy. How should we evaluate coalition governments beyond considerations of stability and instability? What do coalition politics tell us about democracy and plurality in India?

Sanjay Ruparelia’s Divided We Govern investigates how national coalition governments described as the ‘broader parliamentary left’ in India arose since the 1970s, what they contributed to Indian democracy and ultimately why they could not last. Focusing especially on three coalition governments—the Janata Party (1977–1980), the National Front (1989–1991) and the United Front (1996–1998)—the book claims to evaluate the ‘third force’ in Indian politics insofar as these formations sought to challenge the two dominant national parties, the centrist Indian National Congress (INC) and the rightist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The book brings much-needed attention to the study of coalition politics, a topic that has not been adequately studied. It takes a largely sympathetic view of the achievements of coalition governments and challenges the popular assumption that national coalitions are opportunistic formations motivated by the urge to secure power. It argues that far from dismissing coalition governments as failed political formations, a careful reading of their performance reveals a string of achievements, including improvements in centre–state relations within India, increased trade, investment and liberalization of the economy and better foreign relations between India and its neighbours.

Through a comparison of the parliamentary cabinet government versus the winner-takes-all logic of presidential systems, Ruparelia discusses why the institutional arrangements of the Indian federal system make it inherently favourable towards executive power sharing in a highly diverse political party landscape. This also engendered formal and informal mechanisms by which internal divisions and disagreements within coalitions had to be managed.

The use of ‘narratives’, Ruparelia claims, helps to elucidate the ‘nexus between agency, structure and process’ (p. 8) that shape coalition politics. The narratives he presents occasionally reveal astute observations, such as the expanding caste base of the Janata Dal (JD) reflected in the fall in the ratio of upper caste MPs below 40 per cent for the first time in the ninth general elections in 1989 and the simultaneous widening of its Muslim support base. This social profile became a big hurdle in the stability of the National Front coalition government, which was led by the leftist JD and supported from the outside by the rightist BJP. However, barring a few such exceptions, much of the narratives in the book tend to remain an assemblage of unanalyzed facts as entire chapters meander on without a clear theoretical framework and analytical discussion.

The biggest weakness of the book is the lack of clarity in the definition and criteria for categorizing coalitions as ‘left’, which is used interchangeably with the term ‘third force’. Ruparelia glosses over the many serious ideological inconsistencies among the coalition partners that undermine his fundamental claim of these as leftist coalitions or the ‘third force’. For instance, it is not clear by what criteria the Janata Party coalition, with the avowedly Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) party as its constituent member, could be considered a ‘left formation’. The Janata Party was indeed historic for being the first ever non-Congress coalition government that brought together many disparate national and regional political forces. However, the Janata Party experiment also legitimized rightist forces, enabling them for the first time to gain political power at the national level. Some have argued that the coalition provided a crucial opening for the BJS and played a catalytic role in enabling its successor, the BJP, to become a key player in Indian politics since the 1980s. Thus, it may be argued that not only was the Janata Party not a truly leftist formation but also that it eventually helped shift Indian politics in a rightist direction.

A reader hoping to gain new insights about the ideological disagreements and calculations of political expediency among the constituents of the Janata Party will find scant discussion of these complex dynamics. Instead, what we get is the standard narrative about the achievements of the Janata Party in ‘restoring India’s federal parliamentary democracy’ (p. 79). Similarly, in what sense can the National Front be considered a ‘leftist coalition’ if it depended on the BJP’s external support for its survival? Can we objectively view the United Front as an example of the ‘third force’ if it survived with outside support from the Congress? These problems with ideological categorization are compounded by the puzzling description of the Janata Party as having a ‘neo-Gandhian’ outlook. It is not clear how this tag fits with the description of the Janata Party’s efforts at liberalizing the economy and easing industrial licences and corporate taxes.

The book convincingly challenges uncharitable allegations about the entirely detrimental effects of coalition politics on Indian democracy. Despite its extensive length, it is ultimately a partial study of coalition politics that leaves out crucial coalitions led by India’s two dominant political parties in the past two decades. Given the book’s stated focus on left coalitions, readers would expect to know how and to what extent ideological orientation mattered in the workings of the so-called left coalitions. What distinguishes leftist coalitions from those with other ideological orientations, if at all? But answers to these questions remain elusive. Ruparelia ascribes the demise of coalitions to the failure in leadership among leftist leaders. They shared, he claims, an ‘enduring Gandhian skepticism’ (p. 334) towards parties. But this may not be an accurate reading of M.K. Gandhi. After all, Gandhi begins Hind Swaraj with a spirited defence of retaining and building the party structure of the INC. The history of the Indian left would have been very different if they had imbibed the Gandhian strategies of party and coalition building.