Why Grand Alliance was a failure – A non-political analysis

"Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean." – Ryunosuke Satoro

General Election of India – the largest democracy of the world - concluded in May 2019. The incumbent party retained the power with bigger people's mandate. The ruling party succeeded in putting in its achievements in the public domain. Other aspiring parties also made their own strategies to dethrone the incumbent. Some renowned parties also formed alliances to this course. ‘Grand Alliance' they called it. 

Grand Alliance faced an overwhelming defeat. Why so, Election pundits or psephologists might have different and rather bang on reasons for it. There are a lot of factors that derive any campaign and decides its outcome. But for me, the one reason which led to the failure of the grand alliance was – lack of common objective. I used to follow political developments in the country before and during the election days, equations were changing on breath-taking pace. However, all those developments always reminded me of an old historical event. That event although is totally different in nature from this one but somehow I could manage to relate these two. Through this piece of writing, I have made an attempt to present my analysis and have tried to compare this result with the incident that happened in India many years ago.

For this we need to go back some 160 years back in our history, there was a famous revolt which is also known as sepoy mutiny, that happened in 1857. It was a failed one. Back then, the East India Company had captured almost the whole country and was invincible. There was unrest in the different parts of the country against the British regime and all had their own reasons which inter-alia includes Political, Economic, Military, Social and Administrative. Leaders of the different groups decided to take on Britishers, to achieve their own motives. They were not capable of fighting with the giant force alone hence decided to come together. The reasons for coming along at the common platform wasn't the same and their way of execution wasn't likewise. Every region had its own problem which was mutually exclusive with the other. There were many epicenters of the revolt like Meerut, Jhansi, Delhi, Awadh (Oudh then), Kanpur and Gwalior. While all the local chieftains carried a lot of clout but didn't have central leadership that could manage all different groups. The revolt was poorly managed and could not initiate at one single point of time.

During the revolt, one of the group declared Bahadur Shah Zafar-II, as the king of Delhi considering all regional barons would coalesce around Zafar-II and void of central leadership would be filled. Till then Mughal dynasty had lost its relevance in the country and Bahadur Shah Zafar-II was almost the last scion of the Mughal Dynasty. He was initially unsure and was reluctant to lead but later on, sensing the opportunity, tried to steer the revolt.

Back to General Election 2019, whichever parties declared to fight together, didn't have the single or common objective. All had their own reasons and had their own desires. Some of them also declared a scion of a dynasty, as a leader of the campaign, who was as reluctant as Zafar-II was back then. Hence failed.

Back in 1857, most of the native princely states didn't join the revolt as they didn't have any motive to indulge in a fight with the then rulers. Sikhs of the Punjab Province supported Britishers and helped in extinguishing the revolt in the country. They had their own reasons for doing so since they had a past rivalry with the Mughal regime and they feared reinstatement of Mughal Rule back in the country if they didn't support Britishers.

Coming to General Election, every party and leader had their own issues, concerns, and desires. Someone wanted to recapture its state, some wanted to regain their lost ground and some wanted the chair of the premier. Some didn't support the alliance as they weren't having any issues with the incumbent and some didn't associate because of earlier rivalry with the challengers.

In both cases, although they fought together, because of lack of coordination, proper timing, common objective, and intentions, they failed dreadfully and the grand alliance bogged-down. There was also one common thing in these two events. These two fights were fought by the leaders but not by the common public. There was no participation of the common men back then and there was no concern of the majority of the people against the incumbent in the recently happened election. It is clear from this, a change can only be brought by folks or by those who succeed in getting people's support.

Even if we see in our own daily lives, partnership occurs and later vanishes. We all come together when the need of the hour desires so but as we do have our own motives and no single, common objectives; a partnership doesn't prolong. 

What we can learn from this is, no matter how calculative we may begin with or how diversified team we may form, if all the team members don't have a common objective or goal, it is bound to underperform or underachieve. 'Single Objective' is the basic ingredient of a successful team. Secondly, an efficient team having an inspiring leader only can turn the table.

"The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime." – Babe Ruth

P.S. This case study has been done with no political reasoning and must not be literally compared with.

Thank you for reading. :)