The publication of party manifestos is a big moment in a general election campaign. Political parties contesting elections announce their plans for running the country, setting out the policies they would deliver on, if they were to win. Manifestos contain a description of the party’s world view and approach to governance and state policies. Even though manifestos do not usually decide election outcomes, they can sometimes feature prominently in the campaign, and bear the ability to shape political narratives, and influence how people vote.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) issued its manifesto, the ‘Sankalp Patra’, on April 14 just before April 19, the first phase of this potentially momentous general election in 2024. Perhaps it was issued this late because the party assumes that the election result is a foregone conclusion. Meanwhile, the Congress’ Party manifesto, titled the ‘Nyay Patra’, was announced on April 5 and has already evoked much interest. The manifesto offers an agenda of progressive politics and policies against the backdrop of unprecedented inequalities and the BJP’s majoritarian agenda. It defines an alternative vision, and proposes measures to ‘reverse the damage’ purportedly done by 10 years of BJP rule at the Centre.
Behind the ‘idea of justice’
The Congress manifesto puts the idea of justice as the centrepiece of its philosophy. Constitutional values of equity, justice, dignity, and fundamental rights form the core of this document. It embodies many of the ingredients, processes, and commitments required to revitalise India’s constitutional democracy.
Apart from India’s high unemployment rate, the manifesto focuses on inflation, crony capitalism and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. The major promises include providing a one year apprenticeship as a right to every diploma holder or graduate below the age of 25, raising the 50% on reservations for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes and conducting a nation-wide socio-economic and caste census, providing a legal guarantee to minimum support price (MSP), and starting an urban employment guarantee programme. Many of the promises that the Congress is offering to voters mark a significant break from the past, including its own history and politics. But that is exactly what makes this an interesting document.
Two significant points of emphasis are contained in section VI entitled ‘Defending the Constitution’ and under it, the section, ‘Reversing the Damage.’ From promising to probe the electoral bonds scheme and the PM Cares Fund, to rejecting the concept of one nation-one election, to reviving the Planning Commission, several sections of the manifesto promise to undo key policy initiatives of the BJP government, if the Congress party comes to power.
Debates about the credibility of manifesto promises and the expenditure of commitments are common in election campaigns. But there is little discussion of this. Instead, attention has been diverted to the Prime Minister likening the Congress manifesto to the Muslim League. The Prime Minister wasted no time in dismissing it as a ‘bundle of lies’, saying ‘every page reeks of divisive thoughts’.
In a public rally in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, he said two things. He said the manifesto has the imprint of the Muslim League of the pre-independence period and, therefore, is geared to dividing India. Although the statements are devoid of fact and reasoning, the Muslim League was dragged into this to reinforce the current strategy of religious polarisation and somehow tie the main Opposition party in India to Pakistan. Voters can legitimately ask how promising a higher minimum wage for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) workers or the right to apprenticeship or the right to health with cashless insurance of up to ₹25 lakh, reeks of divisiveness. However, apart from polarising the election, the statement was simply meant to stop any discussions on policy issues and on the performance of the government.
A pursuit to reinvent the party
The egalitarian pursuit, as promised or envisaged in the Congress manifesto, is a push towards reinventing the party, which after suffering two devastating defeats, in 2014 and 2019, has been unable to devise a way of denting the popularity of the Prime Minister and the BJP in the Hindi heartland. The manifesto has drawn upon the broad-based discussions during the Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra and Bharat Jodo NyayYatra. Both these campaigns made attempts to reinvent the Congress ideologically and politically and managed to enthuse the party cadres. But its impact on national elections remains to be seen.
The thrust on equity and justice as the prime movers in this battle of ideologies sets it apart from the Congress party’s previous manifestos. More suggestively, the egalitarian push is at odds with the politics and policies of both the landlord-dominated erstwhile Muslim League and the corporate dominated present-day BJP, which has undoubtedly garnered the support of subaltern castes and classes, but which remains at its core a conservative majoritarian party. Also, we must not forget that the Congress and Muslim League were bitter rivals during the anti-colonial struggle. It was the BJP’s ideological progenitors who entered into tactical alliances with the Muslim League to form governments in Sindh, Punjab and Bengal in colonial India, as they sought to take advantage of the Congress boycott after the Quit India movement in the 1940s. Therefore, the point about the Muslim League’s stamp on the manifesto is a non-starter. Nor should we be assessing its relevance against the Congress party’s own record of governance.
Surveys and issues that matter
It is more important to place the policies and paradigm shift in the context of BJP’s record of governance in the last 10 years, and not the flawed record of previous Congress governments. This would help to pin down the ruling party, which is not fighting the 2024 election on the basis of its successes or record. It is either talking of the past or the future (Viksit Bharat in 2047/100 years after Independence), but not the present, even as there is mounting evidence of inequality which has increased dramatically in the last decade, along with heightened levels of corruption, unemployment, inflation, and gaps in access to education and health care. The extent to which these issues matter to the people has been highlighted by the recent surveys by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) published in The Hindu last week.
The Congress manifesto is essentially a welfarist document, but the wide-ranging welfare schemes are different from those of the central government under BJP rule. The Congress’s welfare schemes are based on a rights framework or constitutionally enforceable guarantees which are quite different from the welfare measures of the BJP government which operates in the form of a largesse. Apart from this, the manifesto also offers a vision of inclusivity and safeguarding democracy and freedom for all. This is significant because many commentators have lamented the absence of a vision in the manifesto.
The Congress manifesto offers a semblance of hope in the gathering darkness. However, the rider still remains in the party’s ability to take it to the masses, to publicise it and turn it into a tool of mass mobilisation and for the revival of the party. That is the litmus test. But if implemented, it could heal social relations and replenish India’s economy, society, and democracy.
Zoya Hasan is Professor Emerita, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
