Why Are Political Parties So "Reckless With Freebies"?
Part of the answer has to do with the twin challenges of mass communication along with the ability to control execution of government schemes while in power
Published in the Indian Express
Major state elections are underway and the national election is round the corner. All political parties have rolled out an expansive welfare agenda for the electorate in a bid to tip the electoral scales in their favour. This has been met with exasperation and even outright condemnation by much of the intellectual class. The Express in its editorial rued the “reckless election promises” by the “two main national parties engaged in competitive populism [in a] fiscal race to the bottom”.
Elite condemnation of “fiscally irresponsible freebies” to the electorate is a continuing strand in our national discourse. The Supreme Court waded into this debate when it held a series of hearings on the January 2022 petition by BJP leader and serial petitioner Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay. The petition asks the Court to direct the Election Commission of India to bar and de-register political parties from promising ‘irrational freebies from public funds before elections’. The bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana seemed to agree with the premise as it directed the petition to be listed in front of a 3-judge bench (pending) intoning that “Freebies may create a situation wherein the State Government cannot provide basic amenities due to lack of funds”. The RBI too highlighted the “growing preference for distribution of “freebies”” as a new source of “risk” to state finances.
A critique of non-merit giveaways is not necessarily anti-poor or in bad faith. However, the determination of what constitutes a public good versus a freebie is itself a political question and subject of democratic contestation, embedded in the specifics of the context. The only point which can be conceded right away is that state finances are finite and thus all expenditure must be subjected to a comprehensive review of relevant trade-offs.
At the same time, the longevity of this debate raises an important question. Why, if “freebies” are so wasteful, do political parties succumb to them? This is a complex question but is often glossed over with disparagement for the political class. There are many reasons but a part of the answer has to do with the twin challenges of mass communication along with the ability to control execution of government schemes while in power.
An under-appreciated aspect of electoral politics is the challenge of mass communication. The primary job of any political party is to capture state power. This requires winning elections through the slow grind of aggregating votes one by one. In an election, individual votes may be fungible but every single vote counts (ask Rajasthan Minister CP Joshi who lost his election - and a shot at Chief Ministership - cause he lost his election by a single vote). Therefore, in political campaigns, agreeing on the talking points is often a lesser challenge than the actual task of communication to the electorate at large. For this, political parties are reliant on their own organization and various forms of media. However, none of these channels are suitable for complex or nuanced messaging. Political parties require simple messages which can remain consistent even as they move through multiple intermediaries or layers of their own organization. This is also why political parties rely on slogans. Direct benefits such as cash transfers or smartphones have the benefit of being easily communicated as also being understood by the electorate. Outcomes such as jobs for youth, doubling farmers’ incomes etc are also easily communicated and understood but lack credibility for obvious reasons.
The second part of the problem is governance and execution when in power. There is no Chief Minister who doesn’t want to showcase development in his/her state either out of a desire for public good or to consolidate power and repulse challengers. However, governance for “development” is complex and has many contingencies. It is not just that investments in health, education, law and order take time to fructify (5 years is not an inconsiderable time) but that major changes are inevitably impeded by the political economy and balance of power at multiple levels. Fixing any one major issue is thus not just about conviction or prioritization at the highest level but also the ability to recalibrate the political economy without oneself losing power. There may be a teacher lobby resisting transfers and accountability, a faction-ridden political organisation, political arbitrage by local leadership at the police station, an opposition waiting to escalate issues in bad-faith - the constraints come in a myriad different forms. On the other hand, building infrastructure or cash transfers are relatively easier. It thus makes political sense to earmark at least part of the state budget to direct benefits to ensure that each voter is touched in a positive and tangible manner.
While practical constraints explain the enduring appeal of these benefits, excessive reliance on them inevitably corrode the party platform. The nature of these benefits is post fact redistribution through state coffers and thus it is difficult to link individual benefits to a coherent ideological framework other than the amorphous “empowerment” trope. In fact, the primacy of direct pecuniary benefits in political campaigns is itself an indication of depletion of the party platform. Moreover, the absence of an ideological framework to cohere people with the party leads to a fungible transactional arrangement between the electorate and political parties, thus requiring the deployment of progressively larger benefits with each passing election. It is true that direct benefits are a legitimate aspect of the dialectical process of building a political mandate. They may also have a special salience in the interim when most party platforms are depleted and lack connectivity with the electorate. However, party leaders allowing these benefits to supplant other aspects of the party platform do so at their own peril.
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