Opinion Good news for India
By a funny coincidence,Rahul Gandhi chose to go on one of his rural excursions just before the election results came last week.
By a funny coincidence,Rahul Gandhi chose to go on one of his rural excursions just before the election results came last week. Ever since the crushing defeat that the Congress Party suffered in Bihar,he has been almost reclusive. No nights in village homes,no meals with the low of caste and no midnight escapades. Then suddenly last week he was back in action,riding pillion on a motorcycle to dodge Mayawatis policemen,only to turn up in a village where the atrocities on farmers made him declare that he was ashamed to be an Indian. He tried to blame the government of Uttar Pradesh for bad policies on land acquisition without noticing that the law can only be changed by his own government at the centre. He seems like a sweet,sincere young man,our Rahul baba,but so out of touch with changed political realities. The Indian voter is no longer seduced by hollow histrionics. And,you need more than a pretty face and the right surname to win elections these days.
It seems that Rahul learned nothing from Bihar. After he personally campaigned in seventy districts,his party ended up winning a humiliating four seats and those in districts he did not visit. Nearly all the Congress Partys candidates lost their deposits. It might be worth Rahuls while to take a break from field trips and study the results from Tamil Nadu and West Bengal with the help of a serious political analyst. The lessons from Tamil Nadu are especially important for him as the scion of Indias leading political dynasty.
K Karunanidhi,frail,old and wheelchair bound,tried to ensure that Tamil Nadu was inherited by his children,wives and sundry other relations. To this end,he distributed largesse in the form of television sets,kitchen equipment and other household goods. He thought he could fool voters into overlooking the 2G scandal and his shameless attempt to turn the state of Tamil Nadu into his private estate. He and his family were kicked out lock,stock and barrel as J Jayalalithaa eloquently predicted and not a day too soon. May the same thing happen to the government in Punjab when elections come around and for the same reason. Parkash Singh Badal & Son have made it clear that they consider the state their family property and it is more than time they were booted out just like Lalu Yadav and family were in Bihar.
Nothing better could happen for Indian democracy than for powerful political dynasties to be trashed trough the ballot box. Only when this happens,will people with better political credentials than the right surname get a chance to participate in the increasingly cloistered world that electoral politics has unfortunately become. So pervasive is hereditary democracy that even lowly village officials try to pass their humble positions on to their kith and kin. In nearly every case the reason for this is the same: politics has become the easiest way to make money in India.
For me personally,the results from West Bengal were as heartening as those that came from Tamil Nadu. Having grown up in socialist times when Leftist political thought was so ascendant that if you disagreed you would be labelled a CIA agent,I am happy to see the last Leftist bastion crumble. Had it happened ten years ago,West Bengal may perhaps have counted among our most prosperous states. It has every reason to be rich and booming. If it has fallen behind,it has been because in the Stalinist vision of the communists who ruled for nearly forty years,it was enough to give people the barest rural minimum. Anyone who dared to dream of bigger things left Bengal. And,Kolkata,which as Calcutta was once the grandest city,fell to pieces before our eyes. Even if Mamata Banerjee can do no more than sell Bengalis a bigger dream,it will be more than they have had for a long,long time.
If looked at superficially,last weeks results seem good for the Congress Party. It has won Assam for a third time,won back Kerala and Mamata is their ally in West Bengal. But,a closer examination of the results may indicate that the foundations of our oldest political party are beginning to shake. Hereditary democracy and Leftist economy policies are two of the Congress Partys central pillars and it seems that Indian voters are beginning to be sick of both.
This is not good news for Congress and the family that controls it but it is very good news for India. It is hard to think of two things that have been more harmful than hereditary democracy and Leftist economic policies. When voters start rejecting these two very bad ideas,there are signs of light on the political horizon.
Follow Tavleen Singh on Twitter @ tavleen_singh
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