The optics of the Third Front (Alliance politics in India)

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The optics of the Third Front (Alliance politics in India)

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• Art of the possible: What is politics? It is the art of the possible and a vision for the future. It flies between the utopian and the pragmatic.
• Capturing the essence of politics: Today's Indian political essence is captured by the RSS and BJP, in a rhetorical and metaphorical sense. They have contained politics within the confines of their authoritarian future vision.
• Stauts quo please! They have pushed "status quo" on the whole system, stopping whatever is liberating and "changing". Young and aspirational Indians are hostage to a neoliberal corporatisation. The tremendous social power of Sangh was augmented by the BJP through unlikely alliances (with PDP in J&K, JD(U) in Bihar, and multiple alliances in NE, etc.)
• Stay aloof, attack, then align: BJP has made a strategy where it distances itself and attacks parties before the polls (to find its own strength), and then does post-poll alignments. Telangana Assembly elections 2018 is an example - TRS and BJP attacked each other (saving their own vote banks), and then came the Third Front strategy of K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR). He may ally with Modi in 2019.
• New space for new players: This "distancing and aligning“ strategy helps players like AIMIM's Owaisi, who are aligning with TRS and not with BJP or Congress. So he can play a distinct Muslim-identity politics.
• Remember the past: The RSS-BJP keep reminding Telangana of the past (autocratic Nizam rule and Razakar violence). AIMIM plays up the glory days of Hyderabad princely state and garners votes! AIMIM helps BJP grow.
• New Muslim politics: If this majoritarian politics of "distancing and aligning" is to be beaten, Muslims have to create a new politics. The Third Front is neither - it is a surrender of regional parties and minority politics in front of might of majoritarianism.

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