Thanks for reading it, and your note of appreciation.
I concur with all three of your points.
1)Negative campaigning -- it was not so much potshots. Those are allowed. A little bit of fun is ok. But what came off as disgusting was the thorough lack of decorum. And that was not one-off. It was carried out in a sustained way.
People are projecting Modi as Prime Minister. I wonder if they even have thought about what they are saying. Look at the way the guy speaks. It's out and out crass. It comes across as totally uncultured, totally tasteless. Does someone really imagine such a person to add to the prestige of India in international forums? That is assuming, he's even allowed entry. Do we really want a Prime Minister who'll have trouble getting visa to another country? Who might even need to take his lawyer along all the time, and seek anticipatory bail before he goes somewhere?
The budhia, and gudia, and bartender and topiwala talks may do wonders for public entertainment. But nobody should believe that they'll be taken seriously, or will attract people, or fetch esteem for the speaker.
The BJP stuck to personality politics instead of policy matters. Advani imagined that he is an Obama, and mimicked all his success recipes -- website, televised debate, strong oratory, everything. But he didn't have the most fundamental ingredient -- liberalism. Advani's trademark is his bigotry, which he calls principles. That essentially brackets him with Bush, not Obama. Yeah, Advani is principled, but so is Karat. But they are far removed from the pulse of the people. You can get your oil and baking powder and vanilla essence and your chocolate flavor all correct, but if you don't have flour, how will your cake rise? That flour is the liberal and inclusive approach. Advani missed that point.
Modi's brand of administration is good. The country needs that. It's emulatable. But nobody needs his brand of politics. Or public speaking. I'm sure any parent would be scared to see his children talk in the manner Modi does, and would instantly reprimand.
b) Varun *hi -- I do not really think that Varun *hi's aim was to threaten Muslims as a block. But it came across as that, and it did stoke such feelings amongst his followers. The guy was just a complete fool, who thought that he was becoming a hero by speaking thus. It was not so much Varun *hi's fault as that of the BJP senior leadership. They were fully in disagreement with Varun *hi but couldn't muster the courage to take an unequivocal stand -- so much for their talk of "Strong leader, decisive leadership".
Varun *hi won his battle and cost BJP all its allies, and the larger war. And the BJP still persists with its 'penny wise, pounds foolish' policies.
Kandhamal was not just a symbolic affair like the above, though. It's much more seriously a criminal affair, and deserves the strongest condemnation and punishment. Again the BJP was clueless to the extent that it ended up garlanding the principal perpetrator. For one seat, and the support of some fringe lunatics, it decided to give up on Naveen Patnaik, and also the popular support nationwide.
c) Votebank and support base: I do not think the BJP suffers so much from rural/urban or old/young divide. Its initial votebank was the Hindu hardliner who found some degree of identity in it. But it wasn't really limited to that. Wherever the BJP has been successful, it was because it could usurp the space of Congress opposition because of lack of other strong players occupying that seat. Wherever there is already a strong occupant like TDP in Andhra, BJD in Orissa, in Bengal (here Congress was the opposition, not the powerholder), in Punjab, in Kerala (the Left exists), in Tamil Nadu etc, even in Bihar -- they have drawn a blank.
While I'm certain that the BJP's communal ideology has no mass appeal -- it appeals on that score to a very small minority -- the BJP still has been successful in getting the support of people who do not necessarily abide by its ideology in places where the opposition chair was vacant, or there was a weak occupant (like Janata Dal in Karnataka).
Also, it must not be forgotten that ideology, and other such nitpickings, can be indulged in only by the privileged few, who do not have to break sweat to break bread. And by definition, that's the upper classes. The laborer, the peasant, the thelawallah, the rickshaw-wala doesn't have the luxury to think of high-falutin cultural nationalism or anti-imperialism. They care for work, for peace, for medical care, for sewerage, for drinking water, for electricity.
I'm one with you on the terrorism issue. It's not a matter of political decision making that one way or the other would make a difference. It's a question of execution on the ground. And no matter which party rules, it's ultimately the same policewalla and intelligence agent at work. If they aren't efficient, or coordinated, or given good leadership, then the failures will remain the same. Accusing the BJP for Parliamentary attack or Akshardham attack is nothing but empty rhetoric. It would have been the same had Congress been in power. Just as the Mumbai attack would have happened even if the BJP was ruling Maharashtra.
Terrorism is something the police have not been trained to deal with. Forget dedicated, trained marksmen, our police force is incapable of dealing with even small time thieves, or traffic violators, or drunken hoodlums. That's their level of efficiency. If you are saying that you want POTA then basically it translates to giving fillip to the same inefficiency and incompetence by saying -- OK I know you can't find evidence, so I'll allow you to lock people up for several years without it too. We know that if they are let loose you'll not be able to follow them, because you are incapable of following even a cat.
AuthorTopic: Indian politics comes a full circle (Read 434 times)
September 26, 2006, 12:56:20 PM