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Intra -elite Acrimony in Punjab: A Case of Elite Legitimacy Crisis

[Presented at the seminar on “politics in North West India: emerging trends and changing patterns –
Feb8-9, 2006, Department of correspondence courses Punjabi University Patiala.]
Parminder S. Bhogal*
Abstract
In the aftermath of the era of tall national level, well respected statesmen,
contemporary India is well in the grip of mainly regional or group based
political personalities. Also the Indian society, after over sixty years of
political independence has gone through class and cultural transformation.
From a docile mass of yore, it has now become a sea of rising expectations.
All this requires a seasoned and a visionary political leadership at all levels to
steer and to deliver as per people’s expectations. Contemporary political
elites in India have not been very successful in this regard. They therefore
face legitimacy crisis and the institutions of policy making and governance
are under sever strains. This has forced them into useless acrimonious
onslaughts against each other. It is basically the crises of performances as
also the fall out of neo liberal globalisation in a society where civility in yet
not well entrenched, and which is being most shoddily covered up by the
rival elites by high pitch accusing and counter accusing of each other. The run
up to the recent elections to Punjab Vidhan Sabha was a naked exhibition of
the same.

.
Punjab has just been through the election process, and a new government
headed by S Parkash Singh Badal of Shiromani Akali dal has been heralded in the state. Everyone
who followed the Punjab elections and the period beyond that will agree to the fact that over the
years the political competition between the two main contenders i.e. the Congress and the Akali
Dal has become uncomfortably sharpened. In fact this tendency has come to be witnessed in the
post militancy phase in the state. However its tone and tenor was getting more and more hostile
with each passing election and the subsequent change of government.

Thus well before the actual countdown to the February 2007 Legislative Assembly
elections the political leaders belonging to both the main political parties in the state viz. the Akali
Dal (Badal) and the Congress were beginning to venture out for mass contact praogrammes in the
form of rallies and political meetings and no opportunity including melas (traditional fairs) and
religious and other social occasions including private functions with considerable gatherings, was
being missed for this purpose. The political acrimony in the state was beginning to get fiercer day
by day as the political elites resorted to populist declarations as well as ferocious trading of charges
and counter charges against each other, often reaching the dimensions of tongue lashing, character
assassination and sleaze. Obviously the inter elite competition and acrimony had reached at its
highest so far in the state. It is the later i.e. the ferocious trading of charges and counter charges
that has been called intra elite acrimony in this paper. The phrase “intra-elite” here means
between or among the political elites with in one group or a party ( such possibilities are rarer but do
happen where faction fight within a party becomes more prominent, however the pitch remains

relatively low), but more often between or among the principal elites of two or more political parties
Though the political competition all over India as well as Punjab has seen such
patches of elite behaviour during all the times. And specifically, such tendencies become even
sharper while nearing the elections. However acrimonious debates and tirades would usually
remain related to certain issues which affect the people directly or indirectly, and usually
acrimonies would not overshadow the underlying issues and acquire personal character except for
very brief periods and that too when these were to be used to hit the political opponent for a
moment only, in order to score a quick goal. Even this would be done with a degree of finesse,
carefully choosing the occasion, the words and the language. In such processes, very rarely one
would find deep bruised egos and lasting bitterness as the fences would be as soon mended
between the elites. However going by whatever was taking place in Punjab, the shrillness, the level
and the underlying personal irritations among the elites do point towards some thing altogether
different. In Punjab, a systematic and uninterrupted growth of such tendencies can be traced to
the days of militancy when the gun had an upper hand over the political process in the state and
the legitimate order of authority remained disrupted for quite sometime. After the militancy was
relatively subdued, elections to the legislative assembly were held under some of the most extra
ordinary circumstances in the history of the state. The surviving militant ranks had threatened to
disrupt the elections. The Akali Dal had also declared to boycott the elections. Therefore Congress
Party was the only major contender left in fray. Ultimately a Congress regime headed by late S.
Beant Singh was installed in the state. However this regime was rightly to become a prisoner of the
peculiar circumstances and method through which it was installed. Because of an election that was
practically uncompeted, and in which the voter turn out was very very low because of forced or
engineered polling to a large extent, the regime that was ushered in by it always suffered from a
complex of a flawed legitimacy.
The conception of a legitimate order “actually depends upon an organizational
structure (institutions) maintained by persons (elites) who exercise authority and claim legitimacy
for this exercise. The shared conception of a legitimate order and the persons in formal
organizations who help to maintain that order through the exercise of authority constitute a
network of social relations………”[1]This network of social relations, or “social contract” if we may
say so, in any political system, apart from other things is the functions of three main variables; the
level of political participation, both electoral and otherwise ; the capacity of the institution,
followed by the capacity of the elites to perform up to some minimum levels of general
expectations. With any major down ward variation in either of these variables, the net work of
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social relations tends to get disturbed. While the crisis for the institutions comes probably at the
last stage preceded by the crisis for the regimes, the crisis for the elites, especially the principal
elites is always immediate. In this case of Punjab, as the level of political participation, for what
ever reasons, was far from satisfactory, the Beant Singh regime always suffered from the flawed
legitimacy syndrome. [2] And this flawed legitimacy syndrome was sought to be managed
negatively, by brutally slandering the principal rival claimants to authority i.e. the Akali’s and
their leaders. Therefore the then Congress government Chief Minister harped on a policy of
menacingly targeting the Akali leadership, bringing in both their policies as well as their persona
within his massive hit range. Thus Chief Minister, late S. Beant Singh would thus never let go
any opportunity in launching scathing attacks on the Akali leadership including their two principal
leaders S. Parkash Singh Badal and Gurcharan Singh Tohra, often accusing them of supporting the
militants, being communal and betraying the interests of Punjab as also the Sikhs . Beant Singh
had gone to the extent of holding a political rally against Gurcharan Singh Tohra at a short distance
from his home at his native Tohra village Soon the Akali’s too were retaliating in the similar tone,
tenor and suitable content. This trend continued till August 1995 when Beant Singh himself was
assassinated.
In the 1997 elections the Akali’s were also resorting to similar tactics. The only
minor difference was that the Akali leadership did not indulge much in making personal attacks on
the elites of the Congress party in the state. This was simply because in the aftermath of Beant
Singh’s assassination, the apex persona of state Congress leadership was yet not very clear.
Otherwise Akali’s were equally forceful in launching propaganda attacks against their arch rivals in
the politics of the state. The high dimensions of corruption during the Congress regime, holding the
Congress party responsible for the rise of militancy and Congress laced police Raj being
responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Sikh youths in fake encounters as well as the
Congressmen led genocide of the Sikhs in New Delhi in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s
assassination were the particular planks of Akali propaganda and the Akali leaders were
proclaiming that, “the Congress has ceased to be a political party and has become a money
harvesting machine instead.”[3]. In various election rallies in the countryside, Akalis used the
traditional ballad singers of Punjab to castigate late Mrs. Gandhi and her son Rajeev Gandhi, the
then prime minister of India for their anti Sikh and anti Punjab policies. Even late prime minister
Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru was also some times adversely referred for betraying the Sikhs by going
away from the alleged promises given to the Sikh leadership of the time at the time of the partition
of India in 1947, regarding some kind of political autonomy with in the new union of India. The
tone and tenor of such musical presentations would often involve traditional sharp, jibbing and
lampooning vocabulary of Punjabi dialects of respective areas. The top level state police
bureaucracy including the previous director general of Punjab Police Mr. KPS Gill, under whose
command the state police and the paramilitary forces fought bloody battles against the militants,
were also targeted in the election rallies [4]. Thus legitimacy for the Akali Party and its leadership
was sought to be build upon the Sikh identity, the alleged betrayal of the Sikhs by the Congress
party as well as the Congress misrule, both during the long spell of President’s rule in the state as
well as the succeeding Congress regime that assumed power in the state in1992 after the above
referred controversial elections.
The 2002 elections brought in the personalized political vendetta back to the centre
of electioneering. ‘Because of obvious lack of real issues in the elections. The campaign saw a lot of
mud-slinging, with the publicity and propaganda wings of both the ruling Akali Dal and the
Congress working overtime. While the Congress accused the government, and Badal himself, of
corruption, the latter in turn blamed the mismanagement of the previous Congress governments
which had ruled Punjab for the greater part since independence. The Congress harped on
the government's 'non-performance' and in their media campaigns the Akalis sought to
contrast their attempt to 'restore Punjabi honor' viz a viz Congress’s Operation Blue Star.’[5] People
all over the country will never forget the cartoon warfare between the two parties ridiculing each
others principal elites. And this all did not end with the election results. The harsh trading of
charges between the elites of the two parties has been going on of and on. In a move which
probably is unprecedented in India and calls for the concern of all, even the formal constitutional
forum of the level of a legislative assembly was not spared for this purpose when a special sessions
of Punjab Vidhan sabha (State Legislative Assembly) was convened to discuss the controversial issues
related to discuss the origin and rise of the extremist movement in Punjab with the obvious
purpose of lambasting the Akali’s, especially Mr. Badal. The master mind behind this strategic
move, Capt. Amrinder Singh, the chief minister was successful in smearing the Akali’s by accusing
them of following fundamentalist policies and discriminating against the interests of Punjab.
Through out their speeches the Congress members were aggressively attacking the Akali
Leadership for being responsible for the rise of militancy in Punjab. Mr. Amrinder Singh was
particularly harsh on Mr. Badal, his family members and his followers for indulging in
“unprecedented corruption”. He “branded the Akalis led by Mr. Badal as mother of all corruption
and accused them by saying, “Akalis have looted Punjab and left it bankrupt” [6]. Friendly
electronic media channels were blatantly used to repeatedly telecast the speech of the Chief
Minister which was loaded with harsh words and phrases and was energized with an equally
suggestive body language involving direct finger pointing towards Mr. Badal who along with his
party members was finding it difficult to counter the Congress tirade against them. They indeed
“were unable to present the Sikh case. Perhaps he (Mr. Badal) was shy of talking about frustration
of the Sikhs vis-à-vis the rise of militancy because of his alliance with the BJP. In the debate he was
unable to set the tone for fruitful discussion. The speeches from the Opposition benches continued
to harp on anti-Congress slogan. They were anxious to prove that the policies of the Congress were
responsible for the rise of extremism in Punjab.”[7] This vociferous use of the state legislative
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assembly for extremely narrow political ends needs to be theoretically visualized separately.
This definitely is a complex issue and from one angle it can be seen as the
fall out of the emerging crisis of neo- liberal democracy not only in India and the developing world
but in the developed world as well. The following observation regarding the current U.S.
administration headed by George Bush (jr.) facing several such charges ranging from manipulating
the presidential elections to using the CIA to mislead not only the public opinion at home, abroad,
and the US Congress on the issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq bears an appropriate
testimony to the emergence of such trends in the oldest democracy in the world. In the words of
Prof Walden Bello, “presidential election in the year 2000, with its dodgy 'chads' and media
manipulation, brought the corruption of the US political system into the spotlight. Even now,
George W Bush's presidency is still viewed in some circles as illegitimate; an historical accident
that never would have happened with better technology. Yet with nobody and nothing of interest in
the Democrat camp, Bush dissenters have little political outlet for their opposition.” [8]

Similar streaks of crisis were some time ago seen in Britain when the Tony Blair
regime faced unprecedented public protests in recent times on the issues concerning foreign policy,
especially accusing him of misleading the parliament about the issue of weapons of mass
destruction in Iran, blindly following the US and other related matters. In the West this is seen as
the growing impoverishment of democratic institutions which has occurred due to the prolonged
neo- liberal under emphasis of procedural aspects of representative democracy and because of
which democratic institutions loose their functional capability and instead become mere
mechanisms for the renewal and change of elites. [9] The traditional classical role of democratic
institutions, of deliberating about national policy and that of restraining the governments to go
beyond its mandate has now been on the decline for quite some time. In other words the
relationship between the executives and the legislatures or other democratic organs of deliberative
and opinion making functions has changed towards the side of adversity. This has started adversely
affecting the legitimacy base of the democratic regimes in the West, albeit at a limited level.
Effective civil society traditions and structures definitely offset a large part of side effects of neo-
liberalism in those societies. On the other hand in India and in other developing democracies,
nascent civil society is still not regularly very effective in this regard.

A similar erosion of the legitimacy but at a larger scale, of democratic institutions

can be observed in the democracies of the developing world including India where in the name of
good governance such neo-liberal agenda is being inflicted upon by the developed countries
through international institutions, international monetary agencies and through sponsored
academia. As per Robert Keohane ‘legitimacy has two components and the institutions are judged
both on the procedures they follow (inputs) and on the results they obtain (outputs). If one widens
this definition, legitimacy of input would refer to institutions’ processes of accountability,
transparency, democracy, participation, appropriateness of actors, and other procedures, which
render a process or initiative more legitimate, while legitimacy of output could be extended to
include outcomes, efficiency, and sustainability; in short, legitimacy based on results.’[10]. In the
case of developing countries the crisis of legitimacy is on both i.e. input as well as out put accounts.
Where as the inputs like accountability transparency, democracy and participation etc. are being
effectively short-circuited by the political elites, at the same time, out comes are far from
satisfactory, manipulated or corruption laden and not really sustainable. Thus today in India we
face almost the same situation. The democratic institutions which are already weak and work
peculiarly because of the prevalence of the traditional elements of culture, are further beginning to
be eroded under the latent impact of these such an impact. The fall out of such like erosion of the
constitutional structures is much more sever in almost all the developing countries because of
underdeveloped civil society structures, concerns and values. Thus it tends to bread nasty trends of
authoritarianism in governance in case of regimes and of authoritarian management in case of
extra constitutional structures of political mobilization and competition. Thus the political
competition not only among the various groups (parties) contending for power but also among the
contending elites with in the groups tend to take the shape of raw power struggles. This in turn
begins to put a question mark on the authority of the institutions [11], as well as that of the elites.
This ultimately takes the form of a legitimacy crisis in both the cases. This all puts the still not very
stable democracies in many developing countries to severe strains, often taking them to the point
of break down.

This is one significant factor because of which the political parties, the primary
democratic instruments of mass mobilization in India, both at the national and regional levels
today have begun to suffer from a loss of credibility and are therefore groping for effective roles in
the political systems. Devoid of ideological convictions, weakened organization and without well
formulated programme charters based on long term societal needs and broader socio- economic
consensus, these parties revolving around elite personalities today appear more like cliques. No
doubt, therefore, the same have been reduced to the status of a mere mechanism for mobilizing
votes by bringing together as wide a coalition of interests as possible through populist measures
and adopting even mutually conflicting policies and programmes. Another strategy is to formulate
political and electoral alliances with convenient groups and parties irrespective of any broader
ideological or policy compatibility. This was what actually was happening in Punjab. In an attempt
to woo the traders and industrialists, Akali Dal held a conference in Bhatinda on i.e. 5th of
February 2006 .In this conference the President of SAD (Badal) Mr. Parkash Singh Badal “
promised immediate abolition of Octroi and setting up of statutory state development boards for
large, medium and small scale industry on party’s return to power”.[12] It goes without saying after
this that Mr. Badal heads a party which is widely known to represent the interests of farmers, and
one of the major grudge of the urban trader class against the previous Badal regime (1997-2002)
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was that while Akali’s always give preferential treatment to the farmers and other rural interests,
and trade and industry, which are largely urban interests, were given secondary treatment. The
coalition partners in the Badal regime, the BJP in fact count this Akali indifference towards the
urban interests as the major reason for their dismal electoral performance in the last elections
which the Akali- BJP coalition lost . Therefore there were no surprises when Akali’s announced
that it was open to an electoral alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party, despite the fact that BJP, the
other and much older alliance partner of the Akalis in Punjab was not to like it. Similarly the
Congress party in the state was also expressing its willingness for an electoral alliance with the
BSP. According to one observer, “The key parties, the Congress, the SAD, the BJP, the BSP, the
CPI, and the CPM etc. have all at one or the other election-time, had alliances. Therefore, different
types of assimilations and eliminations emerging among the key political parties are neither new
nor unexpected. Any line-up is possible any time. This is so despite all parties being ever ready to
get at each other’s jugular”. [13]

The condition of regional or state level political parties has gone even worst in this
regard. After the break down of the monopoly of the Congress regime at the center and the onset of
coalition politics in India in the 1990’s, the weightage of the regional parties in such a scenario has
increased many folds and it has become all the more profitable to be in, and continue to be in
power in the states. Thus the power competition has become all the more severe both for the
political parties and the elites, both with in the party as well as vis a vis the elites of the rival
parties, many times even involving the issue of legitimacy. This has further degenerated the already
weak and faction ridden regional parties into family cliques. In order to mobilize funds and voters,
the political parties, instead of genuine issues, are more and more depending upon professional
managerial skills to handle high profile public relations and election campaigns, who true to their
market ethos of business, use provocative slogans and issues, in campaign posters, huge cut outs
and electronic media projections .Thus the real issues, concerning different strata of society get
buried deep under a superimposed queer mixture of provocation, glamour and fantasy at a mind
boggling level.[12] And thus a stunned and a mesmerized voter often trips over to the machinations
of the high and the mighty in contemporary politics .In addition to this over the last a decade or
so all sorts of corrupt practices are being resorted to, for voter mobilization in India, in elections to
all elected bodies right from the village Panchayats to the Lok Sabha at the national level. These
include distribution of free liquor, narcotics and currency notes etc .etc. In the previous elections to
the state legislative assembly in 2002, Akali Dal (Badal), the then ruling party added a new
dimensions to such practices by distributing large sums of public money to the people in the name
of grants, through Sangat Darshan programmes. In several cases grant cheques were handed over
to any one who came to represent any forum or club in any village without verifying its antecedents
and without caring much about legalities like their registrations etc. [14]. The only criteria was the
recommendation of the local Akali leader. The state government which was cash starved due to its
several other populist programmes, diverted funds of various state public sector ventures like the
state agriculture marketing board, as also funds received from a friendly government at the centre
for various specified programmes were diverted to Sangat Darshan largesse’s to the rural voters
whom it considers to be its permanent constituency. This can be safely termed as an attempt to
bribe the masses, or mass bribing.
Though formally ideologies have not been discarded but clear cut
ideological positions are being fast abandoned to accommodate more and more interests, or at
least to avoid being offensive to certain significant sectors who may otherwise offer stiff collective
political and hence electoral opposition. This amply explains the Akali moves to reach out to the
Hindu’s in the urban areas in Punjab and the BJP trying to be soft on irritating communal issues
and trying to reach out to the Muslims and other communities all over India.

“A similar situation exists with elected assemblies. (Now a days) They often
are not the primary agency through which people’s needs and demands are articulated. And there
has been an erosion of the powers of elected bodies while the executive, particularly the political
executive, is further strengthened. For instance, wide powers may be exercised by executive-civil
society bodies which are not accountable to the elected assemblies” [15]. One can not forget as to
how Mr. Badal, as already mentioned above doled out development grants worth millions of rupees
to rural clubs ignoring elected Panchayati raj institutions thus bypassing all channels of official
accountability, just before the previous assembly elections during his now much criticised Sangat
Darshan programmes. A number of these clubs were not even registered while several sprang up
on papers overnight just to receive the “cheques” and disappeared subsequently. Such populist
activities apart from breeding uncontrollable corruption at the mass levels in developing societies
also put a question mark over the legitimacy of the elected institutions and legal-institutional
procedures. The problem here is this that such elite actions do not even conform to the neo-liberal
agenda of reaching out to the civil society beyond the formal structures of governance, because in a
developing country like India where traditionality still plays a significant role and where West
modeled institutions of democratic political systems are still in the process of getting adapted to
the local conditions, the civil society structures and culture conducive to the growth of these is still
very rare and mostly at a nascent stage of development and thus still not very efficient to control or
regulate such processes with in the contours of any well defined socio-political agenda or an
ideology.

Similarly decisions with long-term implications for the citizens such as

accepting large loans from international funding agencies or memorandums of understanding with
private sector companies etc. may not even be referred to elected assemblies. Again a very
appropriate example in this regard comes from the previous Congress lead Punjab government’s
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decision to establish special economic zones for which Memorandums of understandings were
signed with private players without any kind of policy guidelines having been finalized by the state
legislative assembly or any mutually agreed provision for retrospective ratification. Such
undermining of the credibility of the elected institutions of democratic governments by sacrificing
the politicao-adminstrative processes, apart from breading mega corruption at higher levels of
administration, ultimately create a crisis of governance in the long run as the
institutional/democratic accountability of the apex decision makers become all the more scarce
resulting in the erosion of public trust. It is the political process that defines the creation and
distribution of power within a society and guides the relationship between the elites and the
institutions, and the elites and the masses. And when the political process becomes faulty or is
short circuited, it creates both the crisis of the legitimacy of the institutions as well as that of the
elites on an equal scale.

In India obviously the role of the elected assemblies is getting diminished as

the executive wings dominated by the principal political elites of the ruling parties and unfettered
by effective party organizations are getting in the habit of avoiding the assemblies by reducing the
days of the sessions, keeping the agendas to the bare minimum as also creating impasses and
deadlocks over controversial issues and several other such like manipulations about we all here are
very familiar. Other than this, to quote late Prof. Mahboob ul Haq, “the responsiveness of the
legislatures to the demand of people continues to be dictated by political exigency, personal ties
and patronage…. Parliaments are often perceived to be nothing more than a collection of those who
have bought their way to position of power”[16] Using Prof Rajni Kothari,s terminology, this can
probably be described as ‘deinstitutionalization and criminalization of politics and as an attempt
in moving away from the pluralistic and inclusive model of politics. This is obviously the crisis of
the political process due to, both, its abandonment and, its short circuiting. But what ever
happened in the Punjab Legislative assembly during the November 2005 special session to discuss
the origin and rise of the extremist movement in Punjab, where the forum of assembly having been
put to a gross partisan use to discredit and lambaste the political opponents as already mentioned
is probably an all together a new dimension to this direction.
Apart from the erosion of the legitimacy of the democratic institutions there
is also an equally sever crisis looming large over the legitimacy of the elites. Legitimacy is in fact a
compound concept “underpinning order in social and political terms. (It) results from the acceptance of
order and elite role in it. It is attained in part through the central cultural symbols, particularly
those represent and integrate the differentiated groups with in the states and is thus tied to high
culture and defining elements of a civilization”[17] The very process of legitimacy therefore involves
all, including constitutional institutions, extra constitutional institutions like political parties and
of course the political elites. Over the years now there has been an ever-widening gulf between
society's citizens and their political leaders. Due to this a crisis of governance is beginning to loom
large over the developing societies. As these societies are being increasingly subjected to the market
forces of economy and the state is withdrawing itself from the social sphere, the notion of a shared,
democratically negotiated conception of the public good and social justice has almost been
abandoned. With no social alternative on offer, and no vision of the future readily available, all this
has brought in growing disengagement between electorates and the established political parties.
This equally strongly impinges upon the legitimacy question of the principal elites of the political
parties. Many times the legitimacy of the elites may tend to be confused with the regime legitimacy
or at least tend to be seen parallel to it. However the concept of the legitimacy of the elites must be
at least conceptually seen differently from regime legitimacy or from the legitimacy of the party,
faction or the group represented by them. Elite legitimacy is specifically an intra group
phenomenon, though some times, in case of the principal elites it may run parallel to regime
legitimacy or the legitimacy of the party or group. When we talk about elite legitimacy crisis, then
what it implies is that the support base of the principal elites with in the respective organizations is
under strong very competition, in the first case, either due to strong challenges emerging from with
in the group or because of the severity of power competition from other parties or groups vying in
the sphere of power. In the second case the elite legitimacy tends to be questioned because of
deepening doubts about a leader’s capability to effectively lead his group in the power competition
vis a vis the other contending parties. There fore the principal elites are required to maintain their
legitimacy levels both among the masses as well as with in the party cadres vis a vis other rival
elites vying to replace them from the principal position with in that party. There is an other aspect
of legitimacy which applies to the legitimacy of different levels of principal elites with in a hierarchy
based political party like the one in a federal system., headed by strong leadership at the central
level. In such cases the regional elites many a times face legitimacy crisis because they lose or tend
to lose the confidence and support of the central leadership of the party even if they do not face
much legitimacy crisis at their own level in popular terms with in the organizations or with in the
masses of the region. Prof. Paul brass has observed in one of his studies about India, “some chief
ministers have resigned for “health reasons” that do not appear to be reasons of political health,
others were asked to resign by the central leadership of the Congress even though they continued
to command a firm majority in the state legislative party………some times also, weak and unpopular
chief ministers are able to maintain themselves in power solely because the national leadership
does not wish them to be removed”[18]

Thus, in such an environment, elites often resort to politicking over minor

issues, trying to superimpose these on the political process in order to just be there. Thus the issues
are not allowed to die and they keep on surfacing and resurfacing as per the convenience of the
elites, as also new issues are ‘invented” or small issues are sought to be inflated for political ends.
In a developing society like India where over the years due to a steady exposure to a kind of
 11
democratic environment, the growth of middle class ranks or what has been called as the crisis of
rising expectations, the political arena is replete with such “created issues” or other marginal issues
.Such a situation further gets facilitated by the rapid proliferation of electronic media where fierce
competition for market survival catches every small issue and blows it so disproportionately and
so sensationally, over and over, that often every thing loses its desired effect on the public and
instead becomes merely a funny stuff for public entertainment. The tragedy with such issues is that
these hardly are capable of generating healthy debate and socially acceptable strategies of possible
solutions. But these are very useful in creating political dog fights, tamashas, and ugly scenes,
politically generated crime and highly charged contexts which come in handy for the political elites
to claim legitimacy for their respective leaderships. And the situation today is clearly the one where
the real issue facing the society like the socio - economic direction that the development should
take, the concern about policy as well as structural adjustments and readjustments those may be
required to continue the right kind and speed of the developmental process etc. etc. often take back
seat or just get lost in the tremendous noise and clutter of other sideline issues referred above.

This heightened competition for legitimacy invariably leads to political

competition in the form of aggravated intra elite competition in power struggles. In a majority of
developing democracies the renewal of major individual political actors is still extremely slow. At
that level the avenues of political upward movement for lower level elites is certainly very difficult.
The things become all the more difficult because of increasing denial of internal democracy and
acceptable channels of grievance redressal with in the political parties. This, to some extent
becomes a handy mechanism for the repeated recirculation of power elites from with in the
dominant families or from within the same social strata. However the changing “class composition”
nurtured by the what ever form or quality of emerging democratic process and values in such
societies may be, it is certainly pushing in more number of competitors in the political power game
thus raising the pressure for political survival. Thus with in the groups and political parties the
leading elites are finding more and more difficult to hold on to it. There are always numerous
others on the toes, eager to replace the existing leadership. This intra elite competition further
toughens the process of legitimacy acquisition by elites. The legitimacy of most of the political
leaders hangs in the balance. In most cases they have no vision, no programme, and no reason to
be there except for the will of the electorate. And the will of the electorate, such as it exists, involves
casting a grudging vote for the one personality on offer. In a country like India where the process of
politicization has already begun to significantly reach lower strata and peripheral and marginalised
groups, the whole complexion of democratic politics is fast changing. The core issues of macro
development and nation building are getting relegated to the background and local issues,
involving both actual deprivations and those based on local social cleavages and sentimental issues
including political patronage and symbolic political empowerment of such groups are relatively
gaining more importance. This phenomenon, along with the issue of elite legitimacy is resulting
into what should be called the replacement of true ‘democratic legitimacy’ with superfluous and
short lived ‘mob(ilised) legitimacy’ where the later comes through the crime-politics nexus, caste
based or sectarian politics of demagogy where by elections are influenced by liberal doles or by
raising sectarian and other issues relating to the fault lines in the society even at the cost of
national unity, manipulated with money and free liquor/narcotic distribution, voters are
threatened and elections are rigged. The very fact that such an acquired legitimacy is often short
lived, ensures a situation whereby the legitimacy crisis of the elites, repeatedly keeps surfacing in
one form or the other thereby prompting them to manage it through quick political window
dressing type of mechanisms. Such elites, such legitimacy and such frequent legitimacy crisis’s
simply do not leave any environment, time and thought for some thing concrete and time tested to
be undertaken for relatively more development oriented and more lasting solutions till such times
when civil society intervenes (“reacts” in developing countries) to replace, redirect or reinstitute
the political process in a given society depending upon the formers maturity and strength.

Though Punjab is now well out of election mode and the new regime is now
in, however it yet is not the time to say whether the new regime and its political leadership will like
to address itself to this uncomfortable trend or the things will just go on attaining new heights and
dimensions. As I have said earlier, it is not that there are no genuine issues to speak about and rally
the political and electoral support. However it is apparent that the contemporary political elites
lack necessary vision and will power required to raise and tackle those real socio - economic issues
related with development and the problems of the masses. Democracies all over the world and
more specifically in the developing countries are certainly facing a crisis of legitimacy. This
includes the institutions, the processes, programmes, political culture and of course the elites
operating at various levels. Globalised neo- liberalism combined with the local socio political
aberrations is tending to loom heavily over the local-political processes, and this is at the root of
the crisis. It is also a testing time for the interposing “civility” or ‘civil society” in respective
societies as the emerging crisis, its possible solutions and time span required thereof will always be
inversely proportional to its maturity and strength. Contemporary Punjab, with its sufficiently
strong middle class base, enough matured through a series of historic crisis, is certainly going to be
a test and a lead case in India in this regard.

Notes and References

[1] Bendix Reinhard, “Nation - building And Citizenship: Studies of Our Changing Social Order
(1969) New Delhi, Wiley Eastern Pvt. Ltd. pp, 16-17.
 13
[2] For detailed discussion please refer to Chandok, Neera & Priyadarshi, Parveen, “Electoral
politics in post conflict states: the case of Punjab” www.crisisstates.com dated 29th of January,
2006. Also in EPW. Vol. - XXXVIV No.-IX. Dated 9th March, 2006.

[3] The Frontline, Vol. 14, March 7 199, p-30

[4] The author himself witnessed many such Akali election campaigns during Feb-March 1997.

[5] Editorial, EPW Vol. XXXVII No.5

[6] Congress -Akali’s out to humble each other “The Tribune” Nov. 9, 2005

[7] ibid

[8] Bello Walden, “The Global Crisis of Legitimacy of Liberal Democracy” Oct 25, 2005
www.focusweb.org
[9] For detailed treatment of the issue please refer to Cohen Jean (1999), “Trust, Voluntary Association
and Workable Democracy: The American Discourse of Civil Society’ in Democracy and Trust, Edited by Mark E
Warren, CUP, Cambridge, pp 208-249.
[10] Robert O. Keohane, “Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World”2002, Rouledge
London, P-234.

[11] Pye. Lucian, W, “The legitimacy crisis” in Pye. Lucian, W, Verba Sidney et el, “Crisis and Sequence in Political
Development” [1974], Princeton University Press, New Jersey, P-141

[12] Badal promises Octroi abolition, rethink on VAT “The Tribune” Chandigarh 6th Feb, 2006
[13] Gill. P. P. S, “Akali politics, brain teaser” The Tribune, Chandigarh, January 10, 2002

[14] Though this practice has been followed in almost all the elections in India from 1980ies onwards however
two general elections, one in December 1985 and the other in 2004 clearly stand apart in this regard. In the
1985 elections the prevailing anti-Sikh sentiment and Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s assassination were grossly used
by the Congress party in the form of posters, cut outs and media advertisements. In the 2004 general
elections BJP,s “India Shining” campaign the voters were sought to be mesmerized through the use of
fantasizing media blitzkriegs about India’s development and increasing prosperity.

[15] Probe reveals misuse of Sangat Darshan funds, The Tribune, Chandigarh, 22nd July, 2002

[16] Joseph Sarah, “Society Vs State? Civil society, political society and Non- party political process in India
“EPW Vol. XXXVII No.4, Jan 26th 2002.

[17] Haq, M. (1999) “Human Development in South Asia 1999: The crisis of governance’ OUP P-57

[18] Richards Janet and Van Burns, Mary edited “Order, Legitimacy and wealth in Ancient States”
[2000] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. P-4

[19] Brass, Paul R. “Caste, faction & party in Indian politics” Vol.-I, (1984) Chanakya Publications, New Delhi. PP, 50-51.
* Parminder S. Bhogal (M.A. SIS- JNU) is Head of the Department, Post
Graduate. Dept. of Political Science, Arya College Ludhiana & Associate,
Indian Institute of Advanced Study-Rashtrapati Niwas Shimla

[ Bhogal-ps@hotmail.com]