It’s the time
of reckoning for politicians in India and the season for the Indian
electorate to be wooed by all political parties. With elections to the
14th Lok Sabha around the corner, the Indian voter is being made to feel
very important and rightly so. Actually the party for the Indian public
has already started with the governments, both at the centre and in the
states going to the polls, doling out sops, in their pre-election budgets.
Somewhat unfair to the opposition but an election gimmick that every
ruling party across the world has indulged and continues to indulge in!
As the day of reckoning draws closer and electioneering reaches frenzied
levels, the voting public has started to witness a great deal of
mud-slinging and name-calling, as the major parties try to hit at what
they imagine to be their rivals’ weak points. It is a strange kind of
strategy that was ushered in during the last century (where you talk more
about the rival’s weaknesses rather than your own strengths), and one that
has assumed vicious proportions in the last few elections. Fortunately,
the Supreme Court has banned offensive political ads on television
channels or it would have been a great deal worse.
The BJP’s spokesperson, Pramod Mahajan, was the first to admit that Sonia
Gandhi’s Italian origins and an appeal to the Indian asmita (sense of
pride) will be focused upon in the BJP’s campaign. But it appears as if he
overstepped the limit when he ridiculed the entry of Rahul and Priyanka
Gandhi into politics saying that only s/he who has both parents Indian is
qualified to contest elections in India. Advani, during his Rath Yatra,
has said that questioning Sonia’s occupying the highest office in the land
was not a personal attack but a political issue and Mr. Vajpayee has also
fired his first salvo in this matter in an election speech.
One would then like to ask the BJP their objective in holding
get-togethers like the Pravasi Divas for non-resident Indians from all
over the world. Several of these Indians were honored by the BJP for
their achievements in their countries of residence and many sops were
offered to them including dual citizenship. If the Pope or the Italian
government were to honor Sonia similarly, the loudest protests would
probably emanate from the same camp that has no problems with honoring
Indians who are minorities in other countries.
When Bobby Jindal contested for the post of the Governor of Louisiana, the
whole of India, including the government-owned television network,
Doordarshan, focused on the election as if it were something taking place
in the Indian backyard rather than in America. Wonder if those rooting for
Jindal knew of his right-wing leanings and his pledging of support to
George Bush’s wars against Afghanistan and Iraq? Similarly, when V.S.
Naipaul won the Nobel Prize, there was much jubilation both in government
circles and outside, for a man who has never lived here and has always
expressed his sense of alienation with regard to India. (Recently Naipaul
has been sighted at BJP platforms and stated that the country has moved
from being a wounded civilization to a Shining India under the stewardship
of the BJP… as if the Indian electorate was in need of this endorsement!).
When Mahendra Chaudhuri headed the government in Fiji, India lauded his
achievement and Mr. Vajpayee’s government was the first to express its
unhappiness when he was removed in a coupe. If the country is proud of its
ethnic minorities making it big in other countries, it is only right to
extend the same courtesy to minorities and foreigners who have accepted
Indian citizenship. There cannot be two irreconcilable standards here.
If the BJP is attacking the Congress on its dynastic tradition, it would
be very interesting to know from them their reasons for admitting a
portion of the same dynasty namely Maneka and Feroz Varun Gandhi into the
party with such a great deal of fanfare. It is bad enough to witness the
sycophancy in the Congress without having the BJP follow suit!
If the issue of Sonia Gandhi has to come up, let it be with regard to her
political inexperience or her lack of confidence. But, it seems somewhat
unfair to attack her on the issue of her origins. Is it a disqualification
for a woman to make the home of her beloved husband her own home? There is
a Biblical quote about Ruth who tells her husband: Wherever you go, I will
go with you. Your people are my people. Your God is my God. Sonia known to
be a practicing Catholic might well be following the dictates of her heart
or her religion. In a country like India where a woman is expected to
leave her home when she marries, and is watched and praised most for her
ability to integrate into her husband’s family, Sonia’s efforts at
dressing and speaking like the locals and opting for a Hindu wedding for
her daughter should actually have been appreciated. And to say that her
children are not Indian, is only adding insult to injury. Wouldn’t it be a
shock for the BJP if India’s young electorate (the youngest in the world
as of now) of 54% below the age of 25, were to decide to dump the old
warhorses in favor of young, untainted candidates like Priyanka and Rahul?
As it is, with Rahul making his intention to contest from Amethi very
clear, the BJP has been closely watching Priyanka’s move to pit one of its
star candidates against her. Again unexplainable from a party that is said
to be oozing with confidence about garnering votes because of its
achievements of the past five years!
As for the Grand Old Party, the Congress, which is dithering over naming
its Prime Ministerial candidate, this is a fitting time for members of the
party to forget their infighting and offer an appealing alternative to Mr.
Vajpayee who on account of party pressures, has often been forced to
switch from talking about secularism and forging peace with Pakistan to
playing the communal card.
The BJP’s manifesto, significantly released on Ram Navami day, looks
reasonably secular but the party is never able to speak with one voice.
There is Advani who in the course of his Rath Yatra talks of Hindu-Muslim
unity in one breath and indulges in the Ayodhya temple rhetoric in
another. Also, a certain Narendra Modi who has started his campaign
deliberately from the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi and taken pot shots at
Begum Sahiba (Sonia Gandhi) and bracketed her with Miyan Musharraf. He has
made it worse by launching very personal attacks on Sonia and Rahul and it
is shocking and frightening to think this man was able to get a resounding
mandate for a second term after the carnage in Gujarat. India, known and
admired across the world for its pluralistic culture stands to lose
greatly if this kind of rabblerousing is allowed to spread. If the BJP is
serious about its secular projections, they have to exercise control over
their party members and keep the right-wingers at bay. The British thrived
on the divide and rule policy but it would be a terrible shame for a
multi-cultural, multi-religious society like India to be factionalized by
its own leaders who really ought to know better.
The Congress Party also has its own share of skeletons, the worst being
the massacre of the Sikhs in Delhi after the assassination of Mrs Gandhi
in 1984. Most of the politicians involved in these riots were acquitted of
the charges (just like the people in power in Gujarat today) resulting in
the rise in Sikh militancy… many of them comprising young lads who had
seen their parents killed during the Delhi riots.
The much talked about third front has turned out to be a non-starter with
the two Janata parties staying disunited and one of them agreeing to form
an alliance with the BJP. Then there is the well-known liquor baron, who
is said to have employed questionable means to get into the Rajya Sabha,
speaking of values and the need to infuse young blood into politics
through his version of the Janata Party. After making his billions on
products that might have driven hundreds of families to despair, ill
health and breaking point, this is perhaps his way of doing prayaschit
(penance)! And if the voting public is left wondering about its choices,
one thing is for sure, with at least half of the electorate still being
angootha chaap (illiterate), the election will finally be won by the party
which is able to appeal to sentiments and emotions the best.
But whatever the cynicism over politicians, vote one must to exercise a
democratic right. At a civil society meeting in Bangalore, an IIM
Professor, Dr. Trilochan Shastri, well known for his extensive campaigning
on voter rights, stressed on the importance of maintaining vigilance with
regard to the records of those contesting the polls. Mr. Jayprakash
Narayan (an IAS officer from Andhra Pradesh, who stepped out of the
services to work on civil rights issues) brought in a note of optimism
when he said that Indian democracy was improving with each election and it
was the responsibility of every voter to demand and choose candidates with
clean records, thereby sending a message to party leaders when it came to
the question of disbursing party tickets. Living in a hard-won democracy
is something to celebrate and in the words of Asma Jehangir, a Pakistani
human rights activist: The most flawed of democracies is preferable to
the most benign of dictatorships.
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