Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Friday, February 13, 2015
India Legal Kejriwal analysis by Inderjit Badhwar
Enter the Rubber Man
Every time I am at a loss for words—or even for an original
thought process—to describe a socio-political phenomenon, I turn, inevitably to
the prodigious works of one of my cerebral heroes, the late Asoka Mehta, among
the most prolific original thinkers and analysts India has ever produced. As a
socialist (founder of the Praja Socialist Party or PSP), freedom fighter,
mayor, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, head of the National Council
for Applied Economic Research, Congressman, Janata Party activist, this
eclectic intellectual had an original thinking mind capable of probing and
predicting trends on the basis of demonstrable evidence-based historiography
and sociology.
Small wonder that top-class magazines like Foreign Affairs
grabbed and played up his articles. And it was to one of these gems that I
turned, empty of mind, while trying to unravel the mystery of the emergence of
the India Rubber Man (as columnist Chaitanya Kalbagh has dubbed him)—AAP’s
Arvind Kejriwal. The piece titled, “India’s Political Mind” was published in
July 1957 soon after the general elections when Nehru was still alive and
heavily in charge.
With Congress still at the helm of affairs, the
“after-Nehru-who?” debate raged continuously but surreptitiously. Congress
without Nehru was like trying to imagine heaven without God. Some 60 years
later, Congressmen are still stuck in that same groove. Despite the decimation
of the Congress at the national level, and now its ignominious downfall in Delhi,
partymen cannot, in their wildest imagination, think of their organization
bereft of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty even though most of them secretly admit it
has become a pox on their house.
Superstition and voodoo politics just do not seem to yield to
reality or experience. This is the same phenomenon Mehta tackled brilliantly in
1957 in taking head-on the question: What happens to the Congress when Nehru
disappears?
He answered with the examples of up-to-date understanding:
“Recent experience shows that loss of its top leader does not destroy a party.
When the Jan Sangh’s founder, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerji, died, his successor,
Maulichandra Sharma, went over to the Congress; and yet the Jan Sangh increased
its vote from 3.2 to 6.7 million. The president of the Scheduled Castes
Federation, Dr BR Ambedkar, died recently; its general secretary and its two
representatives in the Lok Sabha crossed over to the Congress. The Federation’s
vote despite everything remained stable at 2,500,000. When the PSP’s veteran chairman,
Acharya Narendra Dev, passed away, its top leader, JP Narayan, withdrew from
politics into Bhoodan work and its mercurial and militant ideologue, Dr Lohia,
split the organization. Leaderless, torn by ideological dissensions, the party
yet retained its second position in the country. It seems that Indians who are
so responsive to leaders can also achieve working arrangements with the rank
and file. Perhaps that will be history’s answer to the persistent question,
‘After Nehru what?’”
The brilliance and perspicacity of this observation is
demonstrated today in the Kejriwal phenomenon. A year ago, Kejriwal and his
party appeared to be deader than dodos after his dishonorable exit as Delhi’s
chief minister. Partymen appeared to ditch him. He was reduced to a non-entity.
But the Rubber Man’s resilience proves that even though Kejriwal appeared to be
kaput, the forces that led to his rise were still dynamic and in search of a
leader whose distant drum would again be music to their ears. That he made a comeback
as head of his flock is another matter. But he did.
Mehta observed: “Democracy need not stumble if her economic
development quickens and if it is adequately aided to that end. In
international relations, to befriend India is to strengthen the vital forces
within the country. The political mind of India is neither wholly clear nor
firm. But the elements of hope and strength outweigh those of defeat. If
democracy loses in India, it will be because of the wanton negligence of its
votaries both within and without that ancient land.”
The voting during that period may not have been prodigious
but it was surely a portent of things to come. In round figures, 112,300,000
voters participated in the 1957 General Elections, as against 103,800,000 in
the previous General Elections of 1952. The percentage of voters increased from
44.9 to 49.2. In Rajasthan, one of the politically backward states of the
Indian Union, the votes polled jumped from less than 44 percent to over 57
percent. The Indian voter, wrote Mehta, “has become vote conscious.”
He further said that in a developing economy, next only to
regional tensions, are the tensions between rural and urban areas or between
agriculture on the one hand, and commerce and industry on the other. Once
political parties in a democracy get “set” in these molds, as happened in many
countries of Europe, then either a sensible long-term policy of coalition has
to be worked out, as in the Scandinavian countries, or the result will be
tragic failure, as in the East European countries during the inter-war years.
The question now is, has the geographical distribution of
political forces changed in India? Two years ago, nearly 60 years after Mehta’s
observations, Livemint said, in summary, that demographics and sources of information
may
have changed but the forces and dynamics that drive democracy
and create change through the ballot remain more or
less constant.
One of the common denominators that brought both Modi and
Kejriwal into power was the youth factor—different demographics, different
economics, different aspirations—all expressed through the ballot. Census
figures show that India is young. The population of the country below 35 years
of age is 51.8 percent. Of this, 48.2 percent are women and 51.8 percent are
men, 30.1 percent reside in urban areas and 69.9 percent is based in rural
India. Significantly, the Census numbers estimate the population in the
critical demography category of 18-35 years of age to be 31.3 percent. “Not
only does this demography dominate spending in the rapidly growing consumer
economy,” observed Livemint, but it is also likely to be critical in the
context of future general elections.
The Census data quoted by Livemint would have pleased and
stunned Asoka Mehta: First-time voters, estimated from the Census data and
adjusting for the fact that the survey was conducted in 2011, stacks up to
149.36 million—the Election Commission estimates the total number of voters to
be 725 million. “These first-time voters now have greater access to the Internet
and newer media coupled with a higher literacy rate. There is a high chance
that political parties and leaders that follow a conscious branding strategy
may just make a difference,” Jai Mrug, a Mumbai-based political analyst, said.
Young, first-time
voters tend to fuel anti-incumbency as they want a
change—this is a trend that may be seen in the ensuing elections.
To quote Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of the Centre for
Policy Research, a think-tank: “I think the place where it does make a
difference is that a lot of the old historical examples by which the parties
used to discredit each other probably, for good or bad, no longer have any
resonance. Memories of the Emergency, 1984 (anti-Sikh riots), all of that,
which in a sense defined that ideological space, perhaps even around secularism
and so forth, are not very big for these kids.” Accordingly, Mehta argued that
the present demographic context provided an opportunity for a new discourse.
“So any party that keeps reverting to that old record is likely to be at a
disadvantage.”
At the core of all this is the practice of secularism. Not
the credo or the ideological worship of secularism as an article of faith and
humanistic belief, but the practical realization that without secularism India
is a sitting duck for terrorism, anarchy, violence and dismemberment. It is the
repeated demonstration of secularism as a mass political practice—and not just
theory—that keeps the majority of Muslims wedded to the idea of the fairness
and decency of the Indian state and keeps them alienated from violent
ideologies practiced by the IS and other militant Islamist groups.
Muslim disenchantment with Congress’s wimpish leadership has
never abated since Babri Masjid. Amitabh Kundu, a professor at the New
Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University and chairman of a government committee
which has evaluated the situation of Muslims in India, told Deutsche Welle, a
German broadcaster in April 2014: “Given the very limited performance of the
present government in the last five to six years in the context of improving
the situation of the Muslims in the country, I feel there will be some level of
dissatisfaction because the Muslims certainly expected a lot.” They have the
same expectation as any other Indian aspiring for a better life and education.
The German broadcaster surmised: “The Congress-led
government’s failure to adequately address the aspirations of Muslims is likely
to drive them into the arms of other regional parties, such as the Samajwadi
Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the recently
created new anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party. Indeed the emergence of the AAP
has given an interesting twist to these equations. The polls suggest that it
may be an alternative to both Congress and the BJP in various constituencies.”
That quote is dated a year ago. Asoka Mehta and secular
Indian democracy still retain relevance and dynamism after more than 60 years.
Show disdain for them at your own peril. Do so, and you’ll get more Rubber Men
emerging.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Views On News/IndiaLegal reproduces ProPublica Red Cross Expose
ProPublica's exemplary investigative reporting on Red Cross scandal as it appeared in my mag Views On News https://lnkd.in/e-xi8H8
Inderji Badhwar reproduces Ramesh Menon's tribute to the awesome George Vergehese
Here's Ramesg Menon's tribute to the awesme George Verghese in Views On Newshttps://lnkd.in/ePBgx2d
Hansakl Mehta tells Inderjit Badhwar's Views On News there's no point living without a good fight!
Hansal Mehta tells Views On News, thre's no point living without a good fight!https://lnkd.in/e_P66E3
Inderjit Badhwar's new mag Views On News features FirstPost First Honch R. Jagannathan
Read the link to full Jagannatahn interview in Views On News Read First Post's First Honcho R. Jagannatahan's interview in my new mag Views On News. Fun. https://lnkd.in/eQnYm9s
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
