INCUMBENTS AND ANTI-INCUMBENCY
Dr. Jai Maharaj
By K P S Gill
Editorial
The Pioneer
Friday, April 30, 2004
The controversial anglophile Nirad C Chaudhuri often
wrote rather contemptuously of Indian culture as nothing
more than an amalgam of foreign influences which,
imported into India's enervating soil, inevitably
festered and decayed into inferior forms and
manifestations. This thesis has, of course, been hotly
and widely contested, and it is certainly not one that
would easily be accepted by most Indians. In the sphere
of our understanding and practice of democracy, however,
there is abundant reason to discover a trajectory that
mimics Chaudhuri's thesis on culture.
We have grafted the forms and processes of an electoral
democracy from alien models and, over the decades,
transferred onto India's insalubrious soil, these have
systematically declined to become things that bear little
resemblance to the original, and reflect nothing of the
ideas and ideologies that inspired the Founding Fathers
great experiment on the threshold of Independence.
This is brought relentlessly home to us with each new
election, and the current exercise is no exception. One
thing that is abundantly clear is that no single
political formation today represents anything by way of
an identifiable agenda, and all campaigns rely
increasingly on gimmicks and on the unsubstantial. Past
elections have given a central and permanent place to
criminals and the most unsavory elements in the country.
The present election has brought the entertainment
industry - in its widest conception - to the centrestage,
and parties enlist actors, actresses, wrestlers,
cricketers and sundry others from the celebrity circuit
to shore up electioneering that is, otherwise, entirely
devoid of interest for the electorate. Where celebrity is
not exploited, dynasty prevails, and the present election
must surely have more undeserving inheritors seeking
privileged access to Parliament than ever before.
The sad truth is, most of these assorted opportunists
will, in fact, succeed in their quest for a seat in
Parliament, or an increasingly visible role in future
political adventures. It matters little that those who
have, in the past, been catapulted into the nation's
legislature from similar backgrounds, and on similar
consideration, have contributed little, if anything, to
the proceedings of that august body, or to the general
welfare of the nation. Absent the basic ingredients of
policies and governance, political parties today can do
little more than reduce the democratic process to a grand
tamasha.
Indian politicians today are in a state of total cerebral
bankruptcy and, as the poet said, "intellectual disgrace
stares from every face". And it stares at us more
relentlessly than every before, as an unending procession
of political "heavyweights" settles into to what appears
to be permanent residence on television.
But the discourse is entirely trivial, devoid of content
or significant concern for, even awareness of, critical
national issues, and of the gravitas appropriate to
political purpose. Politicians appear to have nothing of
significance to say, and whatever they do say, they say
badly.
The general population of flatterers and self-servers
among the political classes has grown so greatly,
moreover, that politicians have lost all grips over
grassroots reality. No single leader relies on party
cadres, even in the rare cases where these still exist.
It is petty coteries that invent false realities that are
the source of all "political intelligence" - till the
harsh realities of an election bring fruitless
disillusionment.
Unreliable though the recent exit polls may be, they have
shocked the ruling coalition into the realization that
India is somewhat larger than the little pools of light
where it appears to be "shining".
The result has been a desperate last minute scramble to
salvage the possibilities of a government, with a frantic
scraping of the bottom of the ideological barrel for
coalition partners.
The circumstances in the States are no different. Any
casual visitor travelling through Andhra Pradesh with his
eyes open over the past years, could have predicted
Chandrababu Naidu's fall. Mr Naidu has been the Chief
Minister, not of Andhra Pradesh, but of Hyderabad-
Secunderabad.
Yet, surrounded by toadies and an uncritical Press, he
remained delusional to the end, believing that his
achievement in a miniscule Information Technology sector
could guarantee electoral success in a State where the
countryside has been allowed to lapse into complete
destitution over the past decade.
On the other hand we have leaders like Mr Laloo Prasad
Yadav, whose party does not even pretend to make an offer
of governance or development to the people of Bihar, but
whose manipulation of the lowest common denominators of
social mobilisation - caste and communal polarities -have
guaranteed his repeated success.
Worse still, parties with great pretensions to
nationalism and noble political lineage have not only
failed altogether to create a credible alternative to
Bihar's current anarchy, but have in fact been eager to
forge the most unprincipled alliances with the party that
has brought the State to its present condition as the
epitome of the most abject misery and lawlessness.
There are already signs that the present election will
produce regimes that can give little hope of efficiency
or governance to the people of the country. Already, we
are confronted with the saddening spectacle of desperate
efforts to cobble together coalitions between
ideologically incompatible, indeed, irreducible, parties
in a naked and unprincipled quest for power in the States
and at the Centre. Such a process cannot establish
democratic governments in any meaningful sense of the
term; it can, at best, install a new kleptocracy to
replace the old.
Unfortunately, India's political leadership appears
entirely uneducable. Instead of accepting the basic
reality that the people are asking for alternatives and
for effective governance, it has invented the thesis that
the present age is an "age of coalitions", and that the
present and unprincipled alliances somehow represent the
diversity of the "aspirations of the people". No party or
political formation, consequently, is "untouchable". This
is an entirely dishonest line of reasoning and serves no
interests other than those of a power-hungry and corrupt
political elite.
All this does not augur well for Indian democracy, or for
India's future. The present elections will install a new
coalition at the Centre, and new governments in some of
the States, most of which, like the majority of recent
regimes, will prove to be non-performers, and will fail
to come to grips with the basic problems that confront
the nation.
The new incumbents - whatever their structure and
constitution - will start with heady propaganda about the
grand transformations they plan for the nation; but will
fail to effectively implement most of what they promise.
Nevertheless, they will project a false propaganda of
fictional achievements, which they will eventually begin
to believe themselves. Till the acid test of the next
election brings transient disillusionment.
More at:
http://www.dailypioneer.com
Jai Maharaj
http://www.mantra.com/jai
Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
The terrorist mission of Jesus stated in the Christian bible:
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth:
I came not so send peace, but a sword.
"For I am come to set a man at variance against his
father, and the daughter against her mother, and the
daughter in law against her mother in law.
"And a man's foes shall be they of his own
household.
- Matthew 10:34-36.
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the
educational purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of
this post may not have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent
the opinion of the poster. The contents are protected by copyright law
and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name,
current e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others
are not necessarily those of the poster.
Sham Kashyap
right now.
1. My inability to change the following things
2. Loosing ideology completely in politics (sharad pawar supporting
congress when the first reason he separated from them was sonia gandi)
3. left parties supporting congress while they fight them in kerala.
apparently when they want, they never agree on anything. but when they
want power, everything else dissappears.
4. janata dal's numerous parts separating when they want and uniting
when they see power..
5. when politicians do not accept that if their party is not the
majority, it means in democracy, they SHOULD NOT be allowed to rule, in
the process making a mockery of the worlds largest democracy.
6. animals are better. when they see their prey, they fight for it and
if they do not get it, they die (atleast with honor) .. but today,
politicians share the nation like a prey that was hunted down.
7. Sensible people like Sangma being ditched by every other politician
8. For choosing sonia just because she happenes to be a widow of the
gandhi family(which is ridiculous because maneka gandhi would be a
better choice than sonia any day). Why don't we select laloo prasad's
wife as the PM? why does not she make a good PM? why not select a random
person and make him/her the PM
Tenali Rama
#6 is a good observation. I believe politicians are like a group of
wolves. Very persistent, no rules whatsoever. They might even kill
their own kids/kins to get to power.
Sham Kashyap
go to these stinking politicians to get their influence in getting our
work done even when we are aware about their background.
Aren't we the most hypocritic bunch of all