as Jerry Maguire tells Dorothy Boyd in that eponymous movie. Some personal developments, technology issues and sheer laziness have held me back. But with elections round the corner in India, I am tempted to keep recording my two bits on these polls. About time too given that the first phase of polling is just two days away.
First of all I was hunting around for some good sources of election coverage. Starting with newspapers, I found DNA's coverage thin on substance. Indian Express does in depth stories but probably doesn't have resources for wider coverage. The Times of India may be making a decent fist of it but I view the whole Bennett Coleman group as peddlers of superficial material and so I frankly don't know. The Hindu as ever offers a wide, in depth coverage and analysis of the elections. Another useful source on the net is Outlook blogs which does a good job of picking up stories from elsewhere and linking to them. I also found the Global Voices blog post listing a variety of sources, both mainstream and new age. I rely on The Hindu, Outlook and of course Google News.
So what about the issues in this election? It might be a cliche to say that this is an issue free election but cliches exist because there is some truth to them. India has seen elections in the past dominated by wars (1971, 1999), political assassination (1984), overreach of power (1977, 1989). Even a few months ago, one would have thought that the 26/11 Bombay attacks would define this election. But blame it on the fact that terrorism is now a global reality or the fact that rural areas which house the majority of constituencies have not been touched by 26/11 in a way the urban areas have been. It may also be reflective of the fact that Parliamentary elections in India are an aggregation of state elections (did LK Advani say so?) and hence local issues and identity politics dominate. That doesn't mean that economic development or terrorism are not significant issues but there will be a strong local flavour to which of these issues dominate. There is however no single issue or agenda that is dictating the national political mood.
This has not been for want of trying on the part of the major political formations or more precisely the two largest national parties - the Congress and the BJP. The Congress has been harping on the secular vs communal distinction while the BJP has been focussing on the leadership issue. In what should be seen as a minor victory for the BJP, the debate has coalesced around the leadership credentials of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and BJP's 'PM-in-waiting' Lal Krishna Advani. The usually soft spoken PM has joined the battle with gusto and i must say has scored some hits with his latest thrust on the Kandahar hijack and the Babri Masjid demolition. The BJP has of course kept up the rhetoric against the PM and have been steadfast in their demand for a television debate between LK Advani and the PM. I have some sympathy with the PMs' contention that the BJP had no right to ask for a public debate after repeatedly thwarting his attempts to speak in the Parliament over the last five years. Indeed the BJP and other opposition parties didn't allow the PM to reply to the debate on the Confidence Motion last year.
Beyond this double standard on the part of BJP of disrupting debates in Parliament and asking for debates outside, this whole idea of TV debates is puzzling. In the US, the TV debates serve an important function in an election which is essentially a contest between two individuals, who are contesting to occupy an executive position. A quick digression here. Note that, even in the US constitution the President does not enjoy unfettered powers and the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary are three branches of power with in built checks and balances to prevent any one arm from overreaching. It is regrettable that politics of personality has led to concentration of excessive powers in the Presidency. After the Watergate scandal in the seventies, this imbalance was rectified, however W. and Dick Cheney presided over the swing of the pendulum in the other direction. Somehow in the euphoria over the ascension of BHO, this fundamental aspect of US constitution has not got much attention.
What of India then? We follow the Westminster system of Parliamentary democracy where the Parliament is supreme among the three branches. The Prime Minister is only a first among equals in the Union Cabinet. It is another matter though that the towering personality of our first Prime Minister, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, infused the office of PM with unwanted symbolism and grandeur. And subsequent PMs like Mrs. Indira Gandhi did their best to maintain this sense of exaggerated importance and actively conspired to overreach for power. So the BJP's attempt to turn the election into a US Presidential style contest smacks of ignorance of our system of governance or a deep rooted conspiracy to further advance the executive overreach. Couple with the party's anti-minority worldview this is a dangerous development for Indian democracy.
Besides issues of constitutional propriety in making this election into a referendum on Prime Ministership, the BJP seems to have forgotten some home truths. Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, BJP's PM in 1998-2004 ended his stay in office with high public approval and an enhanced image as a statesman. However go back to the BJP/NDA's first term in office in 1998-99 and the Vajpayee that turns up in stories of the day comes across as weak, ineffective and not in control of his own government. Hobbled by a coalition partner in Ms. Jayalalitha of the AIADMK, who could start an ego clash even if she is locked up alone in a room on the one hand and the antediluvian Sangh Parivar offshoots on the other hand (Swadeshi Jagran Manch anyone?), Vajpayee just about managed to survive for a year in office. Then Kargil happened and the BJP/NDA happily got rid of Jaya's AIADMK for Mr. Karunanidhi's DMK and the rest is history. The lesson is that in an era of coalition governments a PM or a government is as strong or effective as its allies allow it to be. Secondly, about fifteen years ago, when the Shiv Sena-BJP government took office in Maharashtra, the government was led by Manohar Joshi and later Narayan Rane, both of whom cheerfully admitted that the government was controlled by Bal Thackeray, the Sena chieftain. Thackeray himself proclaimed that he held the government's 'remote control'. The BJP had no problems in acquiescing to such a rule by proxy in Maharashtra, but obviously they see it differently when it comes to the Congress. I must hasten to add that qualitatively the relationship between the Manmohan Singh government and Congress President, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi is much different from the subservient role played by the Shiv Sena Chief Ministers in front of Bal Thackeray.
All said and done, in a largely issue or theme free election, BJP's attempt to foist a debate on the role of Prime Minister seems ill-judged and desperate. The BJP might have won a minor victory in getting the PM to join the debate but it may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory if Manmohan Singh succeeds in denting LK Advani's much hyped image as a strong leader.
