The national theme

Indians, as the much quoted participants in the world's largest democracy, are immensely qualified to suffer from vote-fatigue. That has not...

Indians, as the much quoted participants in the world8217;s largest democracy, are immensely qualified to suffer from vote-fatigue. That has not happened, despite an overabundance of democracy, despite the ever-increasing frequency of elections. The national immune system is strong enough to withstand any assault of the popular will 8212; politician8217;s will may be more apt. Here, in this age of virtual democracy, power doesn8217;t flow from the angle of a camera. And the ballot boxes hardly endorse the soundbite.

Here issues are too real to be manipulated by the image. Here, the vote-catcher is not a hologram, he is raw and real. And the voter: seasoned democrats, battered democrats, who with stoic determination continues to strike a balance between provincial issues and national big issues. Today the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Mizoram are electing new assemblies. Still, the exercise is being called a 8220;mini general election8221;, a 8220;referendum8221; on the performance of the Vajpayee government.

If so,the defining issues are as big as the size of an onion, as luminous as a nuclear explosion, as frightening as the rape of missionaries, as dark as a summer night in Delhi, and as national as the sum total of all these issues. In the combat of rhetoric, every issue has been reduced to abstractions, as if they are independent of the larger issue of governance, as if they are party-specific.

So, what is at stake? Is it the Vajpayee mystique, or Sonia8217;s marketability? Yes, to some extent. As chief campaigners, both tried to subordinate issues to the leader. This time, it was Prime Minister Vajpayee who was campaigning, not with poetic optimism as it was last time, but with the baggage of power and responsibility. The anticipated right-wing revival has already turned out to be another ballet of coalition contradictions. And the poetry has been repudiated by pragmatism. Today8217;s vote may not 8220;affect my government8221;.

It may slightly affect his mystique. But for Sonia Gandhi, it is a power test. Favourableresults can only consolidate her status as prime minister-in-waiting. Her tone on the stump was: they have made it worse, we8217;ll do better. Today8217;s elections provide her an opportunity to write the script of absolute authority for the party she has inherited.

But the evolution of Indian politics has come to a stage where single-party dominance or single-leader authority can no longer be taken for granted. It is a fractured scenario where the periphery can dictate the movement of the centre. So the Vajpayee-Sonia theme cannot be enlarged beyond a point. The elections can be national8217; and unifying8217; in only one respect: the quality of governance.

Today, neither ideology nor nostalgia is the defining force in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Mizoram. The politician can nationalise the election only at the cost of his own responsibility in a polity where there is no more dead certainties. No matter however mutilated the political map is, good governance makes it easier for the politician as well as thevoter to manage the mutilation, to appreciate the difference betweens the price of onions and the pride of bombs.