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“You
may fool all the people some of the time, you can even
fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot
fool all of the people all the time.” -Abraham Lincoln
Elections provide a kaleidoscopic view of the India and
the kind of world views entertained by the people at
large and those who seek to lead the nation. And the
variety is fascinating, puzzling, frightening,
frustrating and at times entertaining as in a circus.
There were hilarious moments like when Mulayam Singh
Yadav of the Samajwadi Party came out with a manifesto
that vowed to work against the use of English in
education, and computers in new projects.
There is some substance in the arguments of those who
call India's democracy a fraud. On an average only 50
per cent of the people vote and of them at least 60 per
cent are illiterate. Choices of the voters are
influenced by caste, money or wine and seldom by the
merits of the contestants. And then those elected to
Parliament play their own power games unconcerned about
the goals of the people they represent. Instead of being
people's servants, they behave as Lords and masters!
This time we had a crop of prime ministerial aspirants
who kept chanting in the manner of the great Mohammad
Ali, 'I am the greatest!' The craze for power was
brazenly displayed in their speeches and manipulations.
Advani, the man who undertook the Rath yatra to
consolidate Hindu votes and yearning to be the prime
minister learnt the hard way that divisive and sectarian
ways will not take him closer to power.
The election should be considered a setback to the BJP
and particularly its minority hating tradition. Its
ultra patriotic call for hanging Afzal, the Pakistan
terrorist in prison did not stir up emotions in the
voters; nor its promise to build the Ram temple cut much
ice with the majority community. The Rath yatra style
passion rousing efforts proved a damp squib this time.
Mayawati , the most hopeful among prime ministerial
aspirants because of her numerical strength in the
largest state and as a saviour of the Dalits had been
trumpeting her entitlement for the PM's post. She had
set up huge statues of her along with those of other
Dalit leaders like Dr Ambedkar but such self
glorification, it seems, did not impress Dalit voters.
'A Dalit ki Beti in South Block!' was probably the most
emotive slogan of electioneering by her party, the BSP.
“Manmohan singh is from Punjab and L K Advani is from
Gujarat. But I am from UP, the biggest state in the
country. I am the daughter of a Dalit , the daughter of
India. So I should be the PM.” So ran her argument.
Her talk of social engineering, while seemingly
laudable, was just a ruse to capture power. The election
results have dampened her ambitions, bringing home the
point that she has to go a long way before she can
capture power at the centre. It is unfortunate that the
Dalits and the oppressed do not have a champion
untouched by selfish ambition.
The leftists ideologues, particularly Prakash Karat who
kept threatening to bring down the earlier UPA
government on the issue of the Nuclear deal with the
United States, seems to have single handedly contributed
much to the decimation of his own party. Arrogance,
which was the hall mark of his speeches, An example of
attempts at caste consolidation was presented by the
alliance of Lalu Prasad Yadav , Mulayam Singh Yadav and
Ram Bilas Paswan. Driven by power hunger, they unhinged
themselves from the Congress led UPA; but their
opportunism did not yield dividends. Yet it can not
still be said that voting pattern is detached from caste
formulations. Caste is still a factor that affects the
outcome of voting.
But muscle power and money power are no longer decisive
elements in winning elections. 'Gangsters rapped in
Hindi heartland' screamed one of the newspaper headlines
pointing to the defeat of many criminal dons in UP and
Bihar elections. Some of the tainted characters
undergoing imprisonment had fielded their kith and kin
as candidates; they too failed to hoodwink the voters.
Two Gandhis have created quite a stir during
electioneering. Rahul Gandhi, son of Mrs Sonia Gandhi,
and Varun Gandhi, both grandsons of Jawaharlal Nehru.
They seem to represent two streams of thoughts or two
mindsets in the majority community: Varun, the poster
boy of the BJP seeks identity on the basis of ethnic,
religious and caste characteristics and so promotes
confrontation, hatred and a vengeful spirit. Rahul,
general secretary of the Congress, on the other hand,
stands for secularism, tolerance, reconciliation and
coexistence. Varun won from his constituency of Pilibhit
in UP, proving his influence. Rahul rejuvenated the
Congress party at the national level making it more
democratic and injecting fresh blood into the old
organization.
Among the political outfits, the Congress promises to
abide by the Constitution and values represented by it.
People seem to have voted for stability, secularism and
communal harmony. It looks as though the Congress is set
to regain its old glory through the activisation of the
youth brigade under the leadership of Rahul.
These two ideological positions, as Gautam Adhikari puts
it, are contesting for the soul of India. Which will
prevail? The democratic spirit ensuring equality,
justice and freedom is yet to take roots in the hearts
of the people. The latest religious riots in Punjab, in
the wake of two sections of Sikhs in far away Vienna is
just another example of the madness that exists in the
human mind. Humanity still has to go a long way in being
really free.
Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in
having the right to do what we ought', wrote Pope John
Paul II. It is not any political party, but the
Constitution and the true democratic spirit that ensure
our freedom to live happily and at peace. Yet we
witnessed in our land such events as the Gujarat
massacres of Muslims, the demolition of the Babri Masjid
in Ayodhya, the anti Sikh riots in the wake of the
assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi and recently the
atrocities on Christians in Orissa and Karnataka.
Peace can be guaranteed only when a sense of
righteousness and justice takes root in the collective
consciousness of the people. For this, the civil society
needs to be strengthened to raise voice against
violators of the law. The majority community and the
minorities together need to remain vigilant to ensure
every body's freedom to do what he/she ought.' There is
raging a battle for the mind of India between the forces
of intolerance, hegemony and hatred on the one side and
forces of tolerance, reconciliation and peace on the
other. It would seem the people have voted rightly. Now
it is the duty of the elected representatives to ensure
that the mandate is carried out in real terms. They need
our prayer.
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