The Economist - UK (2019-06-01)

48 Asia The EconomistJune 1st 2019

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upwardsof 250 lastyear.

Concernsabouttheuseof thedeath

penalty are long-standing. The Pakistan

PeoplesParty(ppp), inpowerfrom 2008 to

2013,introduceda moratoriumonexecu-

tionsin2008.But thePakistanMuslim

LeagueNawaz,whichdefeatedthepppin

theelectionof2013,pledgedtoliftthemo-

ratoriumtotacklea tideofcrimeandmili-

tancy.Indeed,it didsojustdaysafteranat-

tackin 2014 ontheArmyPublicSchoolin

Peshawar,wheretheTalibankilledmore

than 140 people,including 132 children.

Intheirnewreportthengos arguethat

Pakistan’scapital-punishmentregimeisso

brokenthatthegovernmentelectedlast

year,ledbyImranKhan,theprimeminis-

ter,should impose anothermoratorium

immediately.Heseemsunlikelytolisten.

Thatleavesit totheSupremeCourttotem-

persomeoftheinjusticesofthejudicial

systemoverwhichit presides. 7

W

hat could be worse in politics than

for a governing party to lose four-

fifths of its seats in a single election? Try

spending years clawing your way back to

relevance, only to see your rival do even

better in the next poll. And what could be

worse than that? Ask India’s Congress

party. Pummelled by the upstart Bharatiya

Janata Party (bjp) in 2014, and trounced

again in a marathon general election that

wrapped up on May 23rd, the grand old

party that dominated Indian politics for a

generation after the country gained inde-

pendence in 1947 is now in even deeper

trouble than it was five years ago.

With Congress’s rank and file demand-

ing accountability for the party’s defeat, its

president, Rahul Gandhi—who lost his

own traditional family constituency—has

sworn to resign. But the Nehru-Gandhi

family has dominated Congress for five

generations, and many wonder who else

can hold it together. Seeking patronage,

smaller, allied parties are drifting towards

the orbit of the prime minister, Narendra

Modi, and his bjp, which is actively sniff-

ing out potential defectors. Small wonder

they are attracted. In constituencies where

it faced Congress in a straight one-on-one

race, the bjpwon 92% of the contests.

Already reduced to a rump opposition

in India’s capital, Congress now risks los-

ing remaining provincial toeholds. Along

with allies, it controls just six of India’s 31

states and territories. Local elections in

four of them—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh,

Chhattisgarh and Karnataka—had only re-

cently brought Congress to power. But vot-

ers seem to feel differently about state and

national elections. All four states have just

voted overwhelmingly for the bjp. Con-

gress must now struggle to keep its tenu-

ous hold on its handful of state assemblies

as the bjptempts its legislators with money

or future cabinet posts. Without weight in

the states, Congress’s sources of income

and influence would shrivel.

It is not just Congress that is hurting.

The just-concluded elections to the Lok

Sabha, or lower house of parliament, saw

the bjpmake deep inroads in states that

had been seen as resistant to its charms,

because they either had strong local parties

or felt culturally distant from its emphasis

on the Hindi language and a narrow ver-

sion of Hinduism. Even politicians who

had been friendly to Mr Modi, such as the

powerful chief ministers of Telangana and

Odisha, found his party eating away at their

electoral bases. In Andhra Pradesh a rising

political star, Jagan Mohan Reddy, had sig-

nalled willingness to join a bjp-led co-

alition. His plan was to extract conces-

sions, including more central revenue for

his state. But Mr Modi’s majority proved so

big that he has no need of Mr Reddy, even if

the young politician did indeed sweep the

polls in his own state (where the bjphardly

bothered to campaign).

Most shocking of all was the bjp’s suc-

cessful invasion of West Bengal, a state

with 100m Bengali-speaking people, nearly

a third of them Muslim, who have tradi-

tionally favoured local parties. Its fiery

chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, had been

a thorn in the side of Mr Modi, accusing

him of lying, cheating and sowing sectari-

an division. The bjpfought back with all its

formidable logistical and financial might.

Its party workers are said to have been paid

three times what Ms Banerjee offered.

Not only did the bjptake an unprece-

dented 18 of the state’s 42 parliamentary

seats. Disturbingly for Ms Banerjee, it won

57% of the Hindu vote, up from 21% five

years ago, suggesting that Mr Modi’s tactic

of stirring fear of Muslims, and calling crit-

ics “appeasers”, had worked. Ms Banerjee’s

party now looks uncomfortably like the

Muslim front that the bjphad unfairly said

it was. More dismaying still, dozens of its

elected officials are defecting to the bjp.

Even without its coalition partners, the

bjpnow controls 303 of the Lok Sabha’s 543

seats. Despite such dominance, India’s pe-

culiar constitution still denies the bjpa

majority in the 245-seat Rajya Sabha, the

upper house of parliament, where indi-

rectly elected members serve six-year

terms that expire not all at once, but in a

complex bi-annual rotation. Congress, de-

spite its diminished strength, still has

enough residual clout in the chamber to

block legislation. But with numerous seats

due to fall vacant, the reckoning is that the

bjpand allies should acquire a full majority

DELHI

It has been a grim five years for the Congress party. Can it recover?

Politics in India

In need of a hand

Down but not entirely out