The most remarkable product of this age of instant gratification has been Team Anna and its movement to rid India of corruption. Despite being panned widely for its flawed institutional vision, its political naiveté and the questionable company it sometimes kept, Team Anna struck a chord with a people fed up with governmental corruption and apathy because it promised a readymade solution to corruption in the form of the Jan Lokpal, an all-powerful ombudsman who would potentially instil fear into the hearts and minds of corrupt public servants and cow them into honesty. Not only was this simplistic solution made an article of faith for the movement, but it was also sought to be made actionable through an ultimatum to the government: fail to instantly gratify the movement and risk Anna fasting to death, a rallying call that resonated amongst large sections of India sick of corruption and looking for an instant, no-jhanjhat solution for it.

Several other factors too worked in its favour: a shocking series of scams that the government was directly or indirectly involved in, a string of governmental blunders and miscalculations in dealing with its protests in the initial stages, a Gandhian icon whose personal probity and integrity was an ideal rallying point, and a diverse backroom team comprising a widely respected former judge, two senior lawyers passionately committed to the cause, an astute mass mobiliser and a populist, flag-waving former police officer. But above all it worked because it was a movement which demanded instant gratification from the government: a sentiment that middle-class India could identify with from their daily lives, even if it meant equating ridding the country of corruption with ordering a home-delivered Domino’s pizza when the craving for a change from the roti-sabji routine struck.

Unfortunately, the perils of founding a political movement on instant gratification is that one is subject to the same standards that one expects. Having promised a Jan Lokpal Bill, but after a year of coaxing, debating, arm-twisting and protesting, failing to deliver it meant that Team Anna was unsurprisingly hoist on its own petard. Seeking instant gratification but failing to gratify its supporters instantly (over a year literally) meant that time for Team Anna was always running out. So it was not entirely unexpected that the steady stream of supporters would one day dwindle, the continual tactic of fasts would have to come to an end, internal dissensions within the team would surface and Anna Hazare would return to Ralegan Siddhi as its keeper of virtue. But does this mean that the movement has been a failure as many have suggested? Could it have strategised differently in order to sustain longer?

Those who suggest that the movement has failed and have penned obituaries for it, are unconsciously subject to the same desire for instant gratification that they accuse the movement and its middle class support base of. The protests to have India against Corruption’s Jan Lokpal Bill enacted in Parliament have undoubtedly failed because the fact of the matter is that the Bill has not been enacted. But to infer  from this that the movement itself has failed is entirely fallacious. First, the protests ensured that for the first time a public debate on reforming the CBI has taken place, the need for an anti-corruption ombudsman unanimously accepted and corruption firmly established as a key electoral issue henceforth. More crucially, middle class India has come out of its happy closeted existences to the streets concerning an issue of national interest, a development whose significance cannot be understated. As I wrote at the time,

 “Vast numbers of people coming together in Delhi, even more pledging their solidarity and support by organising their own protests in cities across the world, the chaos, the frenzy, the disagreements about next steps, the patent flaws in the drafted statute, everything about the protest conveys the simple human emotion of standing up for what one thinks is right, without sophistry, nuance, or caveats.”

This promise of an easy solution to corruption, without sophistry, nuance or caveats, in the form of a Jan Lokpal may have been a key spur for such spontaneous protests. I doubt deeply the feasibility of a sophisticated, rationalised protest movement at the time, in terms of both its composition and functioning, being able to galvanise the masses the way in which Team Anna did. Paradoxically however, the recipe for its success—the promise of easy-to-grasp instant results—proved to be its undoing; the solution wasn’t as simple as suggested, and even the suggested solution wasn’t very simply achievable. But, on a balance of factors, that was a risk most definitely worth taking, if not taking it meant that the movement couldn’t be kickstarted in the first place.

Second, the movement against corruption is more than, and must be more than protests about the enactment of a Jan Lokpal Bill. It ought to be a wide-ranging effort directed not just at institutional reform but civic reform as well. It requires a much more clever, sustained and long-drawn out struggle than a year-long protest for a legislative enactment. It’s a struggle that doesn’t promise ready answers or instant solutions. But at the same time it’s a struggle that requires mass participation to succeed. Instant gratification-hungry India must be brought on board the politics of patient struggle. If India against Corruption is serious about this task, the ending of the year-long protests came at the right time. The past provides a perfect prelude that guarantees extensive media coverage, funding sources and a degree of public sympathy, if not support.  Attention now turns to the more serious business of finding constructive ways and means to rid the country of corruption. A task that requires all of us to not just to look at our leaders, but at ourselves. And reserve our desires to be instantly gratified to the local pizza delivery company.

[Cover Picture Attribution: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license from Author Hindustanilanguage].

]]> http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/the-age-of-instant-gratification/feed 0 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/talking-politics-indian-mps-excite-and-frustrate-oxford-audience http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/talking-politics-indian-mps-excite-and-frustrate-oxford-audience#comments Tue, 08 May 2012 22:25:47 +0000 Arghya http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=4909 [A guest post by Anup Surendranath and Dhvani Mehta on a fascinating tete-a-tete with a delegation of visiting Indian MPs in Oxford on 16th April 2012]

Apparently when Devi Lal, the ‘tau’ of Indian politics, was asked why he had made his son, Om Prakash Chautala, the Chief Minister of Haryana on becoming the Deputy Prime Minister of India himself in 1989, he crudely responded  –‘aur kya, Bhajan Lal ke chhore ko banauu?’ That level of arrogance may not inform contemporary Indian politics but responses from a delegation of Indian MPs to a question on dynastic politics indicated that the tau’s ghost might linger for a while.

Responses from Supriya Sule (LS, NCP), Piyush Goyal (RS, BJP) and Deepender Hooda(LS, INC), who were part of a panel that also included Chandan Mitra (RS, BJP), Asaduddin Owaisi (LS, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen), Jayant Chaudhary (LS, RLD) and Rajagopal Lagadapati (LS, INC), made it clear that solving the problem of entry barriers into Indian politics was far from being a priority. Their focus, as has very often been the case on this issue, was on justifying why positions of privilege do not prevent them from being sincere and hardworking MPs. The democratic deficit caused by the entry barriers hardly found any mention in the responses. Supriya Sule’s passionate declaration of the personal sacrifices she was making, Piyush Goyal’s treatment of his political lineage as an advantage and Deepender Hooda’s assertion that election victories (after the first one) were all about individual merit reeked of a power elite determined to hold on to its position of political privilege. Perhaps the question stood no chance given that it was being put to a panel where 6 out of 7 speakers were inheriting the political legacies of their families.

The panelists seemed more willing to introspect when posed a question on the institutional reforms needed to make Parliament functional again. They acknowledged problems with the system, and stated that attempts were being made to forge solutions across party lines. Details however were scant, apart from the mention of a proposal to introduce an annual minimum of parliamentary sittings. Chandan Mitra was of the view that, contrary to public perception, Parliament achieved significant results through consensus in its standing committees.

Given the history of the Third Front in Indian politics, it was surprising to see the degree of optimism amongst non-Congress/BJP panellists about the possibility of such a government in 2014. Perhaps the most enduring account of the problems surrounding the formation of a Third Front government is Devi Lal’s insistence on taking the oath as Deputy Prime Ministerin 1989 despite President Venkataraman’s strong suggestion during the ceremony that the Constitution permitted him to take oath only as a Minister (And well, it took a decision of the Supreme Court to finally resolve the issue). Supriya Sule’s answer, if implemented, might well be a way to counter such deep levels of suspicion and discord – she emphasised the necessity of presenting a pre-poll Common Minimum Programme to the electorate, rather than cobbling together a post-poll alliance. If voted to power, Asaduddin Owaisi was of the view that the economic and foreign policies of a Third Front government would be substantially different from the largely indistinguishable policies of the two national parties. However, Piyush Goyal believed that a government dominated by regional parties might be ill-suited to address national issues. In a polity that is increasingly dominated by regional parties, Deepender Hooda acknowledged the need to address regional aspirations and strengthen leadership in the States.

The responses to a question on whether identity politics impeded or enabled democracy were predictable. Chandan Mitra promptly held up the examples of Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi and their brand of politics as moving away from the fixation with identity. Rebutting the mainstream discourse about Nitish Kumar’s development agenda, Asaduddin Owaisi claimed that the Bihar Chief Minister had merely got his religion and caste permutations right by carving out Maha-Dalits and Most Backward Classes from the Scheduled Castes and OBC categories respectively. While the jury might still be out on the political feasibility of Nitish Kumar’s strategy in other parts of the country, it certainly represents the next level of legal challenges for reservation policies. While courts have been willing to uphold the sub-classification of OBCs along economic lines, the constitutional fate of Nitish Kumar’s reservation policies for Scheduled Castes remains uncertain, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in EV Chinnaiah v State of AP & Ors.

Being rather dismissive of Narendra Modi’s model of development, Asaduddin Owaisi asserted that it was too high a price to pay. He delivered an impassioned justification for identity politics, especially in the context of safeguarding minority rights. The reactions from Mr. Owaisi and other Muslim MPs to the Supreme Court’s observations on the Haj subsidy have been interesting. Neatly capturing the benefits of identity politics, he concluded his remarks with a poetical flourish- ‘phool nahin toh phool ki patti hi sahi’ [if we can’t have the flower, then we may as well have the petals].

If one were to attempt to roughly label the responses, arrogance, predictability, lack of nuance and evasiveness would be good candidates, typical of so much of Indian political discourse. While some of the responses to questions on climate change, reservations based on economic criteria, and the Gujarat riots betrayed the latter two characteristics, other answers on the same issues were certainly more measured and reasoned. When asked whether India could afford not to transition immediately to a low-carbon economy, Piyush Goyal attempted to portray India as the victim in global negotiations and seemed to suggest that development and environmental protection were antithetical. In contrast, Mr Chaudhary remarked that this distinction was counter-productive, and that moves to adopt low-carbon measures ought not to be viewed as a conspiracy of the developed world. Instead, it was in India’s self-interest to move towards sustainable growth particularly in the light of our vulnerability to the effects of climate change.

Supriya Sule also displayed a lack of nuance when she cited the Right to Education Act as an example of affirmative action based on economic criteria without any reference whatsoever to the manner in which various State governments had, under their respective rules, divided up the 25% quota.

This lack of nuance is particularly ironic given that politicians are quick to accuse civil society of failing to appreciate the complexity of political challenges, the India Against Corruption movement being a case in point (Chandan Mitra couldn’t resist a self-congratulatory pat on the back as he reminded the audience of the high quality of parliamentary debate on the Lokpal bill).

The BJP’s defensiveness over Narendra Modi is evident in its reaction to the report submitted by the Supreme Court appointed amicus, Raju Ramachandran, on the Zakia Jafri case. It was also evident when, on being asked whether there would be adverse political consequences if Narendra Modi apologised for his moral culpability (rather than legal) for the Gujarat riots, Chandan Mitra’s initial reaction was a refusal to answer the question. It took him very little provocation to respond when Asaduddin Owaisi responded to a question on whether such an apology would suffice for the Muslim community. He said that Narendra Modi would never apologise because an apology for such an act required a ‘human heart.’ He asserted that all legal proceedings would have to continue, and indicated that a Truth and Reconciliation Commission based on the South African model might be acceptable. This response was sufficient for Chandan Mitra to spout the BJP line on Narendra Modi that there was no question of an apology, since no legal culpability had been established.

The session was a unique opportunity to interact with parliamentarians from across the political spectrum and although several trite responses were duly parroted, there were some well-articulated positions along with encouraging passion for convictions. It gave us a taste of what makes Indian politics exciting and frustrating at the same time.

This is a response to a thought exercise: in light of the protests led by Anna Hazare, what would your advice to the Government of India be?

The Government is undoubtedly losing the PR battle to Anna Hazare. Before I put forth my views on what the Government can do in this situation – I’d like to state my position on the protests led by Anna Hazare. I believe that Hazare has tapped into the increased alienation many sections of society feel from the state, which was exacerbated by recent instances of corruption at the highest levels. However, I disagree with Hazare and his team’s use of these protests to pressurise the Government to introduce and pass the Jan Lokpal Bill in Parliament by September 8, primarily because it is a horrendous draft and also concerns surrounding parliamentary processes. The people on the streets want a strong response to corruption. But Hazare is adamant that the Jan Lokpal Bill is the only solution. I also believe that critical provisions of the Jan Lokpal Bill are unconstitutional and agree with the NCPRI’s critique of the draft.

Coming to the issue of what the Government of India can do right now — the Government’s first step should be to immediately withdraw its Lokpal Bill from Parliament. It must then partially concede to Hazare’s demand and debate the Jan Lokpal Bill in Parliament and call for an extensive debate on it within Parliament. It must refuse to concede to the demand that the Jan Lokpal Bill should necessarily be passed. The Government should then ensure that the debate is conducted with the same rigour, dignity and purpose as we saw in the Rajya Sabha during Justice Soumtira Sen’s impeachment.

If the Government wants to regain control of this situation, it must walk the talk on the critical role of Parliament in Indian democracy. Smart politics, one would assume, demands that Parliament debates the Jan Lokpal Bill rather than the Government’s Lokpal Bill. Reactions from political parties so far make it evident that support for the Jan Lokpal Bill inside Parliament is negligible. Yes, political parties have spoken out strongly against the Government’s response to corruption so far and its arrest of Anna Hazare but there has been hardly any political support for the Jan Lokpal Bill. The Government must seize this narrow window of opportunity to regain some lost ground.

This would also serve as a successful tactic to push the BJP on the defensive. In his response in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley was careful to avoid any reference to the contents of the Jan Lokpal Bill. The BJP has not revealed its hand and yet there are reports of organisations like the ABVP forcing some colleges to shut down (in Bangalore atleast) to facilitate student participation in the protests. Irrespective of the level of BJP’s support for Hazare’s protest, it is doubtful whether it would translate into support for the Jan Lokpal Bill inside Parliament. Even if the BJP does support it, the numbers will not stack up in favour of the Jan Lokpal Bill but there is a fascinating question to consider: will the BJP vote in favour of the Jan Lokpal to capitalize on the current public mood for electoral gains in 2014? Or is 2014 too far away for such a move to pay dividends?

A critical issue that will have to be considered is whether parties must issue a whip for this vote. The Government must push for a vote without a whip being issued by any of the political parties. Issuing a whip and then defeating the Bill would open it up to further accusations of manipulating Parliament. The Government must rely on a robust debate in Parliament to highlight the controversial and unconstitutional aspects of the Jan Lokpal Bill. This is the only way for the Government to take the focus away from itself and direct it towards the deeply flawed Jan Lokpal Bill.

The risk that the Jan Lokpal might become law is a minute one compared to the control the Government will regain on the issue. And the perceived risk, I would assume, is more in the realm of logic rather than realpolitik.

However, the Government needs to ensure that a simultaneous process of formulating a strong Lokpal Bill is initiated. It must form a non-partisan drafting committee of unquestionable integrity involving representatives from various political parties and different voices from civil society. It must send the message that it does not consider Hazare’s team to be the sole representative of civil society and could perhaps ensure that only one of them is on this new drafting committee. The Government must commit itself to supporting this committee’s draft in Parliament.

Dithering on the creation of a strong Lokpal is no longer an option for the Government and we must thank Anna Hazare for that. If there was ever a time for the Government to surprise its opponents, it is now and it must do it by exceeding expectations.

]]> http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/what-should-the-government-of-india-do/feed 1 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/a-second-hand-show http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/a-second-hand-show#comments Wed, 29 Jun 2011 22:21:19 +0000 Arghya http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=3408

Kumar Ketkar thought the Prime Minister was ‘amazingly relaxed’ and ‘extraordinarily confident’. Alok Mehta said that he was ‘not a puppet’. We will have to wait till the papers tomorrow morning to read about the impression that the three remaining editors, selected by the Prime Minister for his press conference today, had of Dr. Singh and his responses. But the question that is uppermost on my mind, as I hear second-hand accounts of views of the Prime Minister on the most contentious issues of the day, expressed publicly for the first time, and read a poorly transcribed report of his initial comments and the Q&A session, pasted inconspicuously on the PMO website, is: Why was this strange method of speaking to the nation through five newspaper editors chosen? Surely, if it were regular questions of government policy, a spokesperson in the PMO could have done the job; if it were something more urgent which necessitated a personal intervention by the Prime Minister, would a more directly accessible medium not have been preferable? By choosing neither, and instead adopting this curious halfway house approach, the Prime Minister today, despite the candour of his answers and forthrightness in taking on diverse questions, has only reinforced the Opposition’s diatribe of a weak Prime Minister, irrespective of what Ketkar may have said. As a result, the attention of the country, instead of being centred on judging the effectiveness of governmental action in dealing with existing problems, is firmly focused on the personal charisma or lack thereof of the Prime Minister, a pointless discussion that has been repeated ad nauseum such that today it only matters only to the BJP.

Confusion Prevails

This is not the first time that the Prime Minister has chosen a press conference to clear the air on issues where his silence had become conspicuous. In February this year, following a spate of scandals, the Prime Minister held a televised conference with senior television editors, where he came clean on corruption scandals, price rise, Telengana and a number of similar thorny issues. He came across as frank and forthright though questions lingered regarding the content of what he said and specifically whether he could have personally done more to prevent or at any rate take action against the corrupt. Contrast that with today’s interaction—a few editors were handpicked by the PMO; the interaction was not televised; the transcript does not read like a verbatim transcript and news items across the electronic media are abuzz with the PM’s demeanour rather than the content of what he said. By choosing this curious medium, the PM has asked more questions than he answered: Why was he reluctant to face the nation? If he was so confident, as media reports of the interaction would have us believe, then why not let the people, including the Opposition see it? Do his own media managers not have confidence in his public speaking ability? In this time of crisis, is the PM hesitant on taking a leadership role and addressing the nation?

A plausible, albeit Machiavellian justification for the press conference could be that this is a deliberate ploy by the government strategists to keep Manmohan Singh, the man, rather than Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister of an UPA government in the spotlight. Anyhow, being a political lightweight on his way out, makes him an ideal candidate to take the blame for, and consequently have to justify, the government’s bungling of several issues. This way, the fact that the government has not really tackled the issues themselves, ranging from the Lokpal Bill to black money abroad, becomes secondary to the purported weakness of the PM, a point that the BJP is particularly happy to debate.

If this is the underlying strategy, I believe it is a political masterstroke. The electronic media, as if running to a script, have carried stories on how the PM is not a lame-duck PM and how he has confidently and self-assuredly fielded questions on his domestic and foreign policies. Little has been reported or discussed about the content of what he actually said. For example, on the Lokpal Bill, the PM controversially said that he supported the inclusion of his own office under the ambit of the Lokpal but would go along with members of his Cabinet who said it would create instability; on FDI in retail, he clearly and purposively said a beginning would have to be made and fears expressed by small traders would have to be challenged head on; on the 2G scam that despite personally deeming an auction as the appropriate means of allocating spectrum and misgivings about the proposed system, he went on Raja’s assurance of utmost transparency and a similar TRAI recommendation. These are issues vital to the governance of the country, where either the PMO has bungled, as in the 2G controversy or the Lokpal drama, or where the government has not clearly a charted a discernible policy course, as on the question of FDI in retail. However, these have been lost in a media frenzy to uncover how the PM came across in his interaction and whether he was feeling confident and self-assured. We might as well be next asking what he had for lunch and what diet he is on. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is the direction in which our media questioning is headed.

Whether intended or not (and I don’t personally believe this was a deliberate strategy by the government to steer the debate elsewhere), it is unfortunate that in the aftermath of the press conference, we are left discussing the manner and method of the PM’s speech and responses rather than their content. While in terms of the former, the PM has undoubtedly come across as weak and unsure, despite (or perhaps because of) his bravado behind closed doors in front of five selected editors, in terms of the latter, I can only hope that a meaningful discussion of governmental action (and inaction) ensues after the initial hullabaloo over the form of the conference subsides.

Halfway across the World

Meanwhile, in Washington, another head of state, facing similar crises at home and abroad, also chose to speak to his people today. Like Dr. Singh, President Obama chose a press conference as his preferred medium. He made opening remarks on the economy, fired a few pointed salvos at the Republicans and then fielded questions from a select group of journalists. All of this was available on live television to the American public. By keeping the interaction simple and the medium traditional, President Obama ensured that the talking points were about the most appropriate means to cut deficits and his views on gay marriage, issues that are at the heart of electoral politics in USA today. History will judge whether the press conference served its ends or not and how the American people react. However by keeping his method simple, and his matter direct, President Obama left no one in any doubt as to what the talking points in the country should be. Now Dr. Singh is no President Obama. Neither does he have the oratory, nor the panache, nor for that matter the age. But what he does have in liberal doses, like President Obama, is the sincerity of a man steering a country through tough times. It is time that he let that sincerity show without hiding behind the counter-productive shrouds of handpicked editors and their ambivalent sound bytes.

Almost as I write this, another Karnataka-related crisis turns up out of nowhere to torment the BJP.

In this case, Sushma Swaraj couldn’t be more wrong about who’s responsible for the rise of the Reddy Brothers. We have pictorial evidence as well.

(c) Outlook Magazine

The story goes something like this.

Circa 1999, in a moment of empty bravado, Sushma Swaraj decided to challenge Sonia Gandhi in the Lok Sabha elections when the latter contested from the hitherto Congress safe seat, Bellary. While the announcement sounded grand and daring, it slowly dawned on the BJP that they risked humiliation for one of their national leaders by letting her contest elections in what was essentially a Congress family fiefdom. She couldn’t obviously back out from this, so a solution had to be found.

Around the same time, the Reddy Brothers (G. Janardhana Reddy and G. Karunakara Reddy) were looking to enter politics in Karnataka, to help expand their growing iron ore mining business. They had been rebuffed by the Congress already, and the Janata Dal really did not have a significant presence in North Karnataka. So, they went for the next best thing. The BJP.

The Reddy Brothers bankrolled Sushma Swaraj’s 1999 election campaign against Sonia Gandhi. It was a losing cause, but the 50,000 vote margin was actually considered respectable given that it was Bellary, Sushma Swaraj was a nobody in Karnataka, and one of the Gandhi family were standing elections. More importantly, the Reddy Brothers had found a way into State politics in Karnataka and they’ve never looked back since. Nor has the BJP. It has since won every election in Bellary, Lok Sabha and State Assembly.

It was no surprise that when the Reddy Brothers sought to rid themselves of BS Yeddyurappa, they went to the friendliest face in Delhi: Sushma Swaraj.

So why did this “crisis” suddenly crop up in the middle of May, with no apparent trigger?

The “trigger” as it were, was actually pushed sometime back, by the Supreme Court of India. This was in fact a delayed reaction, an attempt to minimize losses and a damage-containment exercise on the part of someone who’s being spoken of the next Prime Ministerial candidate of the BJP.

This “crisis” is just another instance of the truism that in politics, success has many parents, but failure is an orphan.

Contrast this though, with something quite the opposite when Yeddyurappa faced a grave threat to his position. As he was summoned to Delhi, ostensibly to be removed as Karnataka’s CM for the corruption charges levelled at him, Yeddyurappa received staunch support, from what would, to the untrained observer, seem like an unlikely quarter; the heads of the Lingayat mathas (pronounced muTT-HA in the singular) or monasteries who came out expressing total confidence in his leadership. Even when it seemed that the RSS itself had washed its hands off one of its own, the Lingayat mathas came out in full strength to back Yeddyurappa.

The message was clear. And it worked.

It is important to understand that the gesture was more than just a symbolic show of support. It was rather, a show of strength and commitment that could not be taken lightly by the mandarins in Delhi. The reasons why lie in the nature of the Lingayat community and the manner in which they have been courted by Yeddyruppa.

Strictly speaking, Lingayats are not a “caste”. They do not fall under any of the four varnas, and are more properly a sect, started by the 12th century socio-religious reformer, Basaveshwara. Veerashaivism (which is the correct technical name for the set of precepts he preached) emerged in opposition to the caste system and was part of the larger Bhakti movement active in various parts of the country then, challenging the rigid, Brahminical view of Hinduism. Basaveshwara’s teachings sought to impress upon his followers the importance of worshipping one God and the equality of all before the one God. His idea of the one God was the ishtalinga or the linga of one’s choice which everyone was free to wear as a mark of devotion, irrespective of caste or for that matter, religion. Mathas were started by his followers across the length and breadth of India to spread the teachings of Veerashaivism and a lot of them grew into influential bodies in their local communities. In that sense, Lingayats tend to belong to a matha, in somewhat the same sense as Christians can be said to belong to a certain parish or diocese.

Part of Yeddyruppa’s strategy in consolidating the Lingayat vote in North Karnataka has been the consistent courting of the Lingayat mathas. Himself a Lingayat, he has also assiduously kept the Mathas happy with generous grants from the coffers of the State and elsewhere. The flow of money from the State Government to the mathas started when Yeddyurappa, as Finance Minister in the ill-fated coalition with the JD(S) in 2007-08, increased the grants made to the mathas manifold. 130 crore rupees was earmarked for the mutts, from the State Government budget last year itself.

Aha! So Yeddyurappa worked his way up by bribing the swamijis of the mathas!

Not quite.

Mathas are not just centres for religious learning and spiritual education but also the providers of vital social needs in communities forgotten by the State. Mathas run schools, colleges, hospitals and nursing homes in the most backward of areas in North Karanataka and the swamijis wield enormous power and influence in the lives of people, not just as religious or spiritual potentates. The mathas are, in effect, a tool to distribute patronage on behalf of the State.

Such caste/religion based distribution is, of course, hugely problematic, but in the context of South India, not unprecedented. Renowned South Indian historian Burton Stein has shown how rulers of all religious persuasions, from Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara to Tipu Sultan of Mysore, routinely donated money to temples and mathas to achieve two goals; firstly to enhance their prestige as rulers who command great wealth, and secondly, to give a boost to the local economy around the temple. (for more details and instances, see Burton Stein’s excellent book on Vijayanagara)

It is important to understand that mathas and temples in South India served many vital secular functions, apart from their religious and spiritual roles, as Burton Stein points out in his work. They were of course, centres of learning and preserving knowledge, but they also functioned as strongholds to keep the treasury in, markets for the exchange of goods over a large area, and as important landlords providing employment, food, and economic security to thousands. Donations to temples were not necessarily in cash, but also included grants of lands that only increased the role of the temple in the local economy. It is not surprising therefore, that the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple in Tirupathi in existence and receiving grants for centuries now, is one of the richest religious bodies in the world.

[An aside: Regulation of the administration of temples by South Indian state Governments (i.e., Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka) has been the subject of litigation and challenge in Constitutional courts and an interesting jurisprudence, Constitutional and statutory, has evolved out of the same. It is a fit subject for a lengthy piece in the Law and Judiciary section, but alas, not in this series.]

To conclude the point, BS Yeddyurappa has followed the path that rulers of South Indian states have done over the last few centuries to build up their strength and consolidate their position; donate to the temples and spruce up the local economy. His strategy has also been to tie up the Lingayat mathas in a network of patronage to consolidate the Lingayat vote in North Karnataka. His support among the community, is not just based on pure identity and socio-economic factors, but a combination of the two that have been adroitly exploited to attain the top post in the State.

**********

Bookanakere Siddalingaiah Yeddyurappa has come to the Chief Minister’s post in Karnataka after twenty years of painstaking effort, make no mistake about it. His path has been anything but smooth, but the progress has been steady. Along the way, he’s picked up friends, enemies and frenemies galore.

I remember distinctly, a few days after he was sworn in as Chief Minister in 2008, a family friend and someone with his ear to the ground on political developments, confidently predicted that Yeddyurappa will not last six months in office as Chief Minister. I disagreed, eyeing BJP’s success in the polls and the disarray in which the opposition Congress and JD(S) found themselves in at that moment. We were both partly right and partly wrong. Yeddyruppa has survived, so far, but not without an attempt being made to remove him from office, every three months or so.

While his weaknesses, namely the Reddy Brothers, corruption allegations, a terrible temper and a poor track record of administration are quite evident for all to see, the sources of his strength, as I’ve tried to make clear in this series of posts, have not always been so obvious, at least to those outside Karnataka.

As of now, the momentum is with BS Yeddyurappa, and by extension, the BJP. Election results at every level from Taluk Panchayat upwards have been good for the BJP and from the looks of it, despite himself, BS Yeddyurappa will complete his first term of five years. If the disarray in the Congress ranks continues, expect a second term as well.

What does this mean for national politics? or, why is an ostensibly regional issue finding so much space in the “National Politics” section of Critical Twenties?

Strong regional leaders are the order of the day in India’s bigger States. Yeddyurappa is just one example. To him, one can add J Jayalalithaa, Mamata Bannerjee, Tarun Gogoi, Narendra Modi, Mayawati, Nitish Kumar, Raman Singh, Naveen Patnaik, SS Chouhan, Sheila Dixit, and till recently, the Late YS Rajashekhara Reddy. The only exception to this seems to be in Maharashtra (I’m not sure either way about Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan.) A different combination of factors have contributed in each of their ascents to power. They are not just leaders of regional parties, but also regional leaders of national parties. Their appeal is non-transferable to any other State. Their success or failure is not determined solely by their relations with Delhi (party High Command or Central Government). In many instances, Delhi’s success depends on their success and support. And not just in the narrow coalition-politics sense. Yeddyurappa is one example of that.

“National politics” (and not just the C20s category!) maybe becoming a bit of a misnomer. We are moving towards a phase in India’s political history when political power at the national level is wielded by those who enjoy the favour of regional satraps, and not the other way around. It is likely that in the next stage in coalition politics, the coalitions are within parties and bottom up, and not just those outside parties and top down, as they are now.

Will it be a good thing or a bad thing?

I could tell you, but my palantir just ran out of battery power, so I guess I’ll have to do what everyone else is going to do:

Wait and see.

Part I | Part II | Part III

In 2010, when the BJP’s campaign to oust Ashok Chavan as Chief Minister of Maharashtra for his role in the Adarsh Society scam was in full swing, a small, potentially embarrassing fact was brought to its notice. It’s own Chief Minister in Karnataka, Yeddyruppa, stood accused in a scam related to land in Bangalore just as large. Hoping not to derail the campaign, an attempt was made, (in true Congress style!) to summon Yeddyurappa to Delhi and have him resign.

It failed. Miserably.

If one were a fly on the wall, in the room where the conversation between the BJP Party Chairman, Nitin Gadkari (NG) and BS Yeddyruppa (BSY) took place, one would have probably heard something to this effect:

NG: “Yeddyruppa-ji, our national campaign against corruption is being derailed by these charges against you! Political mileage will be lost if you don’t resign.”

BSY: “No.”

NG: “No? No to what?”

BSY: “I’m not going to resign.”

NG: “No no please, don’t misunderstand me. This is not an indictment of you. You are very important to our party. We will not abandon you. We will find you an important post in the Central leadership of the party.”

BS: “No. I don’t want it.”

NG: “Not just some post, Yeddyurappa-ji. If you give up your CM-ship, we’ll ensure you’ll have an important say in all six BJP run States. How does an advisory post for the six BJP run states sound?”

BS: “Five.”

NG: “What?”

BS: “If I resign as CM, you will have only five BJP ruled states. Either I stay CM or you can forget about forming another Government in Karnataka for another two decades”

NG: …

Of course, we know the rest. The Central leadership caved in, and BJP’s inglorious attempt at Congress-style High Command politics ended ignominiously.

The reason is not hard to see. Yeddyurappa did have the numbers to carry out his threat. He had sixty MLAs from North Karnataka who would walk out with him if he was removed. The BJP’s two decade plan to become a big player in Karnataka politics would be back to square zero.

Delhi politicians are not used to having regional satraps dictate terms to them. Witness the Congress’ predicament with Jaganmohan Reddy, and contrast it with the way Ashok Chavan was dropped like a hot potato and replaced with whatsisname Chavan in Maharashtra. The BJP too despatched BC Khanduri from the Chief Minister-ship in Uttarakhand due to a local revolt (ostensibly as a scapegoat for Lok Sabha losses), and even the Left indulged in this most recently when they denied VS Achchuthandand a ticket in the recently concluded polls.

Yet, the question remains: How did he do it? How was he able to defy the party bosses in Delhi and hold on to his Chief Minister gaddi?

The answer lies in the manner in which Yeddyruppa built up the BJP in Karnataka, literally from scratch.

Successful politicians (as defined as those who come to hold the highest posts in State and Central Governments) in a multi-party Parliamentary democracy like India seem to follow one of two paths: they either inherit/takeover an existing party political machine, or build their own. (This point is not original, Bertrand Russell made this point as well in his book “Power: A new Social Analysis”). This seems trite and obvious, but the kind of politician who does either is quite different, and part of the difference is explained in the manner of their route to power. An Indira Gandhi or a Naveen Patnaik (or for that matter J Jayalalitha) inherits the party machine, while a Buddhadeb Bhattacharya or a Nitish Kumar takes over an existing party machine. On the other hand, someone like NT Rama Rao (Telugu Desam Party) or MG Ramachandran (Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), create their own. BS Yeddyruppa, in as much as he lacks the obvious charisma (and fan-club network of the two examplars), nevertheless belongs to the latter category.

The success or failure of the “inheritors” depends on how well they can prove their necessity to the party machine while in power. This is done by removing peers and competitors from contention and ingratiating oneself with the base. Indira Gandhi’s first two terms as PM is a classic example.

The success of the “creators” depends on how much they can create the party machine in their “image”. As far as the “creators” are concerned, the party machine is them and they are the party machine. This is usually done by tapping into regional/linguistic/caste/religious/ethnic sentiment (i.e., they are the embodiment of the linguistic aspirations of say, the Telugu speakers or the caste identity of particular castes). In this sense, Yeddyruppa built his machine around the North Karnataka Lingayat vote.

If you are an avid reader of M.N. Srinivas would have instantly recognized the Lingayats as one of the “dominant castes” of Northern Karnataka whom politicians would treat as a vote-bank.
The analysis almost writes itself from here on.
Yeddyruppa, being Lingayat, built the BJP to be the party of the Lingayat aspirations and himself, the saviour of his fellow Lingayats, and successfully playing vote-bank politics, walked into the CM’s seat on the basis of his strong Lingayat vote. So neat and tidy.

So wrong and incomplete.

Actually, not wrong, but definitely incomplete. See, BS Yeddyurappa was only the hundredth or so politician to understand the importance of the Lingayat vote. Long before the letters B, J or P featured on Karnataka’s electoral map, the Congress had had a lockdown on the Lingayat vote. BD Jatti and S Nijalingappa were Lingayat Chief Ministers who also had a strong political following in the community and almost inevitably, delivered the Lingayat vote to the Congress. The importance of the Lingayat vote for the Congress can also be seen in the fact that the next two Chief Ministers, SR Kanthi and Veerendra Patil, were also from North Karnataka

Yet, how did the Congress lose its hold over the Lingayat vote?

Undeniably, one contributing factor was the continued socio-economic stagnation of North Karnataka.

From http://blog.lookindia.in/2010/03/24/demand-for-new-states-in-india/

North Karnataka is not just a geographic description. Karnataka itself was assembled out of bits of five different geographic entities; the only common factor of these areas being the preponderance of Kannada speaking peoples (at least according to the States Reorganization Commission in 1956). In that sense, Karnataka is composed of the erstwhile princely states of Mysore and Coorg, the Kannada speaking districts of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies and the Kannada speaking parts of the erstwhile Princely State of Hyderabad. While the areas under the Mysore state and the Madras Presidency were among the better governed parts, (even Mahatma Gandhi himself called it a “Ramrajya“), Bombay-Karnataka and Hyderabad-Karnataka, specifically the districts of Bidar, Gulbarga, and Raichur were the undeveloped hinterland as far a Bombay Presidency and the Hyderabad State were concerned.

Although North Karnataka has produced some of the finest exponents of Kannada literature and poetry, and was also, arguably, the birthplace of the movement to create a State for Kannada speaking peoples, post-Independence, it continued to lag behind South and Coastal Karnataka in terms of economic development and human development indices. The indicators are stark.

In North Karnataka this was attributed it to the Congress’ efforts to consolidate the Vokkaliga vote in South Karnataka (the other “dominant caste” of Karnataka) in the face of the threat from the Janata Dal in the 80s and 90s. People of North Karnataka in general, and Lingayats in particular, felt betrayed by the party that they had supported wholeheartedly for so long and began to look for other options. The Janata Dal, content in its hold over the Vokkaliga vote because of a strong pantheon of Vokkaliga leaders did not make any serious efforts to tap into this feeling of betrayal and desertion in North Karnataka.

This is where Yeddyurappa stepped in and turned the BJP (of which he was President in 1988) from being a minor player in North Karnataka to the dominant force in Karnataka politics. He pitched the BJP as the party that would remedy the long standing grievances of the people of North Karnataka, and by judiciously courting the Lingayat vote, built up a strong base in North Karnataka. The party, which had something of a presence in North Karnataka, began to expand and throw down deeper roots under Yeddyurappa’s leadership. The aggressive expansion was well under way, and received a dramatic boost from the pockets of the (now infamous) Reddy Brothers when they joined the party fold in 1998. To use a motor racing metaphor, Yeddyurappa was the engine, and the Reddy brothers’ the fuel in the BJP party machine in Karnataka.

Whereas the Congress and the JD (and its myriad split-offs) have had an ever changing roster of leaders in Karnataka, Yeddyurappa has, by far, has been the most dominant face of the BJP in the State for the longest time. It’s true that the BJP has had some local leaders of standing in Karnataka, especially in urban areas, but in terms of influence and support within the State party, Yeddyurappa stands well clear of any of them. When he told Nitin Gadkari and the rest of the BJP Executive Committee that he built the party in the State, he was referring to the twenty or so years of consolidation that the BJP undertook under Yeddyurappa’s leadership in North Karnataka, and it was not something that the party mandarins in Delhi could ill scoff at.

But surely, poor governance, highly criticized flood relief in North Karnataka, and the highly publicized iron ore theft should have seriously dented his image, even in his base right? “Sure, we gave him the chance, and look what he’s done with it” is not a sentiment to be easily dismissed and that should have made Yeddyruppa’s position weaker. A man notorious for his temper and public displays of emotion, he couldn’t have made too many friends in high places and his foes (within and without the party) should have been seriously been able to undermine him by now. MLAs with their ears to the ground would have picked up the sentiment and jumped ship when they had the chance. Yet, he seems stronger than ever.
So what keeps him in place then?

The answer to this lies in the manner in which the Lingayat vote was consolidated, both before coming to power, and upon coming to power.

I will deal with that in the next post.

Part I | Part II | Part III

BS Yeddyruppa (File Photo from the Hindu)

That makes it the 11th such attempt in the last three years. When it comes to staying in the Chief Minister’s gaddi, he’s got the tenacity of a mongoose and the survival skills of a cockroach. How he manages to do it is a wonder. Fevicol’s ad managers would be well advised to sign him up to promote their product while he adheres to his seat against almost all odds (including his own MLAs and party leadership).

The most recent attempt orchestrated by Karnataka Governor (and devout Congressman) HR Bharadwaj was basically D.O.A. Even if the Central Government had gone ahead and imposed President’s Rule under Article 356 of the Constitution, it would have been shot down quickly by the Supreme Court of India and worse, for the UPA, ensured a two-third majority for the BJP in Karnataka on election day. For a party that seems to be entirely on the brink of collapse or breaking, the Karnataka BJP has managed to win almost every election and by-election at all levels from Zilla Panchayat upwards by comfortable margins. Going by the recent electoral track record, it would have been no surprise if the BJP has played the “attack on the Kannada pride” card and got home with a landslide. Yet, cooler heads prevailed at the Centre and the Governor’s report was politely tossed into the bin.

Yeddyurappa:11 Rest of the World:0.

How does he do it?

He can hardly boast of a squeaky clean image ala Nitish Kumar. He’s not even got political pedigree ala Naveen Patnaik. He’s not even a big enough political player that the bigwigs in Delhi kowtow to. What accounts for his survival as Chief Minister of Karnataka against all odds?

In this short series of posts, I’ll try and explain why in light of the political situation in Karnataka and how it came to be so.

*

Karnataka doesn’t always figure in the news headlines in the “Delhi bubble” that traps our major news channels and think tanks, and which is possibly why you won’t find much by way of analysis or explanation from those sources. Karnataka is often reduced, at best, to Bangalore and Mysore, inevitably followed by a ritual invocation of the IT miracle. Only recently, in a political context, has it figured as BJP’s “gateway to the South”; a BJP slogan uncritically repeated in the mainstream media.

A quick look at the other southern States will tell you how laughably stupid that “analysis” is. In recent Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, (in 2009), Tamil Nadu and Kerala (in 2011), accounting for a total of 668 seats, the BJP won exactly 2 seats. It did worse in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections; out of 101 Lok Sabha seats from the other three southern States, the BJP did not win a single one. They don’t have a single ally from the NDA with any significant all-State presence in any of these three States either. Karnataka is therefore, the last post of BJP’s electoral territory and hardly the “gateway”.

Yet, to understand Yeddyruppa’s continued survival one has to grasp how Karnataka, one of the last States to have a non-Congress Government after Independence, has come to be a bastion of the BJP.

For the longest time, Karnataka was Congress territory. Karnataka, like Andhra Pradesh, was a Congress bastion continuously till 1983, and even in the elections immediately after the Emergency in 1977, it was one of the few States to re-elect the Congress in the Assembly elections. By general consensus, this was also in no small measure due to the men who governed Karnataka as Chief Minister with a rare combination of sagacity and wisdom. Kengal Hanumanthaiah, Kadidal Manjappa, S Nijalingappa and Devaraj Urs were giants on the political scene, combining caste arithmetic with fairly progressive land and social reforms.

The only real challenge to the Congress was the Janata Party, which in 1983 became the first non-Congress party to govern the State with Ramakrishna Hegde , its first non-Congress CM.

Over the next twenty years or so, the Congress and the Janata Party (later the Janata Dal) would trade majorities in Karnataka forming the Government with greater or lesser majorities. In the middle of course were some controversial bouts of President’s Rule, one of which led to the famous SR Bommai v Union of India judgment of the Supreme Court of India, which sort of put an end to such things. It was still, essentially, a two horse race, not complicated that much by the periodic splits in the Janata Dal, and less frequently, the Congress. Somewhere in the middle, the Peter Principle applied and HD Deve Gowda wormed his way into the Prime Minister’s post.

It was around the turn of the millennium that a third force started to rise in North Karnataka: the BJP.

The BJP’s start was steady, with 16 seats in the Assembly elections of 1983. It slipped however to 2 in 1985 (following the Rajiv Gandhi wave) and 4 in 1989, but recovered remarkably to 40 in 1994, and 44 in 1999, becoming the second largest party (but by a significant distance) in each instance. It was only in the 2004 elections, the BJP finally confirmed that its position as one of the big players in Karnataka’s polity. It emerged the single largest party with 79 seats (its National Democratic Alliance partner, the Janata Dal (United) had five).

Yet, it could not form the Government. An ostensibly “secular” coalition was formed between the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) to keep the BJP out of power, and N. Dharam Singh became Chief Minister of what would become a fractious, hate-hate relationship between the two.

The reasons for the coalition were not hard to find. While on the surface, much was made of the “secular” nature of the coalition, it would beggar belief to think that the two biggest players of Karnataka politics formed a coalition only for the sake of a principle.

One could perhaps take them for their word. The memories of the 2002 Gujarat pogrom were fresh in the mind, and the BJP’s later track record in this front hasn’t exactly been exemplary.

The major concern dominating this particular “alliance” was how to slow down the BJP’s momentum in the State. With the exception of Uttar Pradesh, in any of India’s major states, there is “political space” for only two parties. Smaller parties tend to coalesce around the two biggest parties in a state and one sees the emergence of two broad alliances as in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The Congress, and more so the JD(S), realized that the rise of the BJP would inevitably push one of them out of the big league in Karnataka. For 20 months this arrangement stood, but ultimately, the mutual hostility and the classic prisoners’ dilemma got the better of the two. After a series of shenanigans for which Karnataka has now become famous for, the collapse of the Dharam Singh Government led to a power-sharing “agreement” between the BJP and the JD(S) where the CM’s post would be shared between HD Kumaraswamy and BS Yeddyurappa for 20 months each.

It was a complete sham.

There was absolutely no reason for the two parties to be in a coalition save for the fact that it was convenient at that moment. The JD(S) was a rapidly weakening force in the State, and the BJP, a growing one. The JD(S) needed the money that comes from being in power to make a decent fist of the next election and the BJP was desperate to have something to show for being the single largest party. Another shotgun wedding ensued. And ended. In a predictable manner.

In the 2008 elections, the BJP played the “betrayal card” to the hilt. The JD(S),was almost universally seen to be the party of the backstabbers, and the Congress was in complete disarray with infighting among its leadership. The BJP managed to form a government on its own, winning 110 seats out of 224, but with the help of 6 Independents, going past the half way mark; it was slender majority (bolstered later by the dubious “Operation Kamala”) and formed the first BJP led Government in the State.

The BJP’s electoral victory in 2008 was no historical accident or numerical freak. It wasn’t won on the basis of one single, hot button issue or a hugely charismatic leader with broad appeal. A survey of the BJP’s assembly election performance in the 80s and 90s leading upto the noughties would show a slow but steady accretion of seats over the years, in both State Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. From being a sub-regional party with something of a base in North Karnataka, it managed to not only sweep North Karnataka, but make significant inroads into Congress bastions in Coastal and Southern Karnataka, especially in cities such as Bangalore, Mysore and Mangalore.

The spread of saffron in Karnataka can be attributed to a curious mix of genuine socio-economic concerns and peculiar religious factors that the BJP (along with the RSS) were able to exploit to come to power in the State.

I’ll elaborate upon this in the next post.

Part I| Part II| Part III

Growing up, a healthy, albeit sometimes excessive sense of realism and the inquisitive spirit that accompanies higher education, have resulted in a far more complex set of emotions on Republic Day. I did not watch the parade this year- a difficult time difference and a waning of my earlier over-enthusiasm were responsible- and instead turned to the newspaper where two shocking stories, one of collector Yashwant Sonawane being burnt alive in Maharashtra for doing his job and the other of the BJP’s farcical ekta yatra to hoist the tricolour in Lal Chowk, Srinagar caught my attention. There is a lot which is right about India today but for me, these two incidents poignantly captured what was wrong, which tempered the remnants of my innocent national pride on Republic Day.

The idea of a republic was not mere symbolic posturing by the powers-that-were in newly independent India. It was the ultimate expression of India’s sovereignty, in choosing to be governed by the Constitution which upheld the rule of law rather than the rule of the king, as had been the colonial practice. Accompanying such a development, it was hoped would be responsible politics, a clearly defined political space for resolving disagreement, forging consensus and acting in concert for the unity and development of the fledgling nation state. Sonawane’s killing and the attempted flag hoisting in Lal Chowk present a direct repudiation of these founding beliefs of the Republic of India.

While one should be wary of drawing generalised conclusions from single instances, the Sonawane killing is representative of a larger trend of ruthless killing of honest officers and citizens attempting to expose corruption. Yogendra Pandey, a road works engineer who paid with his life for cancelling a contract for non-performance; Shanmugham Manjunath, an IndianOil Corporation executive killed for sealing petrol stations selling adulterated fuel, Satyendra Dubey, a National Highways Authority of India officer, killed under mysterious circumstances while attempting to expose high-level corruption in the Golden Quadrilateral Project are recent examples which come to mind. Not only are the murders themselves heinous but the sheer difficulty of meting out justice, not just to the killers themselves but also the corrupt whose misdeeds were sought to be exposed, has meant that the deterrent value of the criminal justice system has diminished abysmally. Apart from illustrating the sorry state in which the lofty constitutional ideal of the rule of law finds itself in India today when an acceptable answer to an inconvenient officer is to kill him.

Largely responsible for this state of affairs is politics in India. Although a number of examples can illustrate the pettiness of Indian politics today, the BJP’s ekta yatra from Calcutta to Srinagar to hoist the tricolour at Lal Chowk is particularly revealing. At a time when the Kashmir valley has shown signs of recovering from the unrest that had brought life to a standstill for most of 2010, the BJP felt it to be an opportune moment to provoke the separatists and perhaps cause a fresh spate of violence. And to ironically term their efforts an ekta yatra. Of course, the BJP is right in claiming that everyone has the right to hoist the tricolour in Kashmir. But that scarcely means that the BJP must do so now, when it has not done so in years, even during the time when an NDA coalition was in power. Further, seeking justification in Shyama Prasad Mukherjee’s march into Jammu & Kashmir in 1953 to protest against the requirement of a permit for all Indians to visit the state is specious. The permit system prevented Indians from entering a part of their own country and hence the protest; there is no analogous restriction over flying flags in the Valley, just a question of prudence in not doing so. Continuing to insist on the right to do so is as Varun writes in his post, belittling the dignity of the flag by making it an object in a political parlour game, ostensibly in the guise of upholding its sanctity.

As these tragic and farcical events compete for space in the front page of the newspaper with preparations for India’s grand celebrations of Republic Day at Raj Path, the disjunct between the reality and the spectacle becomes apparent. There are two Indias here- though not Rahul Gandhi’s rich and poor- but the real and the unreal. And the truth, it must be said, lies somewhere in the middle.

Two sorts of questions are relevant for the BJP going forward. First, relates to the sections of voters the party needs to target to shore up its electoral performance; the second concerns the values embodied by the party and its positioning on the national stage, especially vis-à-vis the Congress.

PART I: IDENTIFYING TARGETS

Turning to the first question, there are broadly three sections of the population which the BJP needs to concentrate on, in the coming years. Though this may amount to an over-simplification, since polls in constituencies are affected by a myriad factors incapable of easy classification, nonetheless some simplification, and consequently generalisation is imperative, if the party is keen on developing a coherent electoral strategy. The first section is the youth. The last elections saw 24% of the electorate comprising youth voters. This number is only set to increase both in terms of absolute numbers as well as in terms of actual participation, given the growing politicization amongst both rural and urban youth. It was not as if the BJP was not cognizant of the importance of catering to the youth in the previous election. But its multi-pronged strategy of a snazzy website for L.K. Advani, an extremely active virtual presence as well as a “Friends of the BJP” organization, representing the intellectual face of the party, bore little fruit. This was unsurprising given that these steps severely under-estimated the political acumen of the youth and the issues which found resonance. A website, Facebook updates and a smattering of young leaders were all salutary, yet superficial measures. A failure to buttress these with saying the things the youth wanted to hear- on religion, on jobs, on building an inclusive India- indicated a deep-rooted disconnect between the party and youth voters. The fundamental realization which eluded and continued to elude the BJP in the aftermath of the successive defeats is that connecting with the youth is not distinct from taking a clear stand on contemporary political issues. With a politically active young population, the key lies not just in superficial measures but in articulating policy positions which represents modern thinking concomitant with an acceptance that certain sleeping dogs—re-writing history textbooks, building temples and demolishing mosques- are best themselves consigned to history. In other words, modernity must be both in what you do and what you believe in.

The second section, overlapping partially with the first, is what I term the “residuary voters”. This section, dominant in upwardly mobile middle class India, attach great value to their vote, yet find little to distinguish between political parties. And it is not difficult to see why. On most key, populist issues, both the BJP and the Congress take largely centrist positions with little to separate the two. While the Congress spews secularist rhetoric to distinguish itself, the BJP often harks back to a golden age before the medieval period, where the country was bountiful and at peace. The options left to such voters in such a situation is either to vote Left, if there is any ideological sympathy, consider a gaggle of caste-based parties, or make a distinction between the Congress and the BJP, where none superficially exists. It is at these times, that more often than not, the residuary vote goes to the Congress. This is unsurprising, given the fact that the Congress represents something to everyone, a party which at one time, speaks in many voices, and therefore attempts to keep everyone in the political spectrum happy. Further, the Congress is a largely tolerant party, accommodating all and sundry under its ever-expanding umbrella of ideological nothingness. Most significantly, it is not prone to any form of religious intolerance and violence, an issue which can immediately deter even the most undecided and dithering voter from voting BJP. This residuary vote is crucial and articulating a vision, policy and programme distinct from the Congress, yet relevant to the current day and age is the pressing concern for the BJP on this front.

The third section, not to be ignored or taken for granted is those whose ideological views concord with the founding principles of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. In an effort to reach out to sections hitherto estranged from the BJP, the party must ensure that its core constituency is satiated and feels no reason to look elsewhere. At this point of time, the core constituency deserting the party is an unlikely scenario. No right wing party of a similar stature exists, nobody articulates the majoritarian cause as well as the BJP does, and few other parties are as trenchant critics of the Congress. Yet, this support must not breed complacency. As the Shiv Sena- MNS squabble in Maharashtra shows, it takes little time for more radical splinter groups to emerge and steal a small yet significant portion of the original party’s thunder. Caution on this front is thus the need of the hour for the BJP.
The strategy to address the concerns of these three sections of the voting population is singular—Articulating a vision for the party which is both principled and pragmatic, securing its core values, yet steering clear of the antiquated shibboleth that has marred its public image and extrapolating that vision on to the country, a dynamically developing yet humane nation representing a harmonious balance of traditional values and modern thinking. Elaborating this vision, breaking down its salient elements into courses of action and underlining certain aspects for specific attention is a task in itself, and one which will be articulated in this column, at an appropriate time.