Autocrat, who?

Fortified people are mostly prone to script strategies, which end in self-goals. 

Uniqueness of 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, running into over two months, is about too many self-goals by the Congress. And, if a self-goal is scored in the very beginning of a game, most likely players become panicky to run helter-skelter thereafter.

And first such self-goal came off in unleashing of a propaganda campaign by Congress to target Narendra Modi as an autocrat and dictator. That came off first from Union minister Jairam Ramesh, who is a key member of "war room" of the Congress and also in-charge of manifesto making committee.

Jairam Ramesh

Ramesh would tell to all ears tuned in to him, that "Modi is a Hitler and that Yashwant Sinha has told him, that he would not be part of Union Cabinet if Gujrat CM became PM". Some journalists fell for the propaganda, who would later say in hushed voices: "Boss, even Hitler ran a very successful campaign to rise to power in Germany."

Propaganda by its very nature impacts minds. And some of them last for decades and some for centuries.  

If not for successful British and American propaganda, history may have recorded Adolf Hitler as a warmonger, who was drunk on colonial envy, and as a megalomaniac and a racist. But the world knows him as a dictator and autocrat. 

Incidentally, dictators seek to prolong their rules even at the cost of national interests. They do not gamble with wars, which could eclipse them. And, Hitler was clearly a gambler, who used people as pawn to play the war game of chess with the British and French colonial powers.  

Arguably, Modi's comparison and even an attempt to bracket him with Hitler should have been dismissed by matured minds as deeds of idiots of the worst order. But, hold and behold, this outrageous propaganda was latched on by the Congress leaders with electric speed. And that laid bare the bankruptcy of ideas in the "war room" of the Congress.

Incidentally, world history has seen most autocrats in the African continent. That clearly reveals a linkage between extreme poverty and authoritarian rule. Some came up in West Asia where power flows from the oil wells. And China is a story of an institutionalized one party rule, which sprang up also because of excessive poverty in the rural areas.

But India does not fit into any of the above mentioned pattern to produce autocrats. Indian culture is too strong a bulwark to allow any such autocrats to gain foothold in the highly fertile lands nourished by so many rivers, that poverty of the kind seen in Africa could be here. That gives an ideological framework to India, which, incidentally, is the most vibrant democracy in the world.

Authoritarian and authoritative are words with contrasting meanings. And Indian political system did produce leaders who were or are authoritative in nature. Two contemporary examples will suffice to explain the subject.

First is that the BSP chief Mayawati. The last press conference of Mayawati was held in her majestic bungalow in New Delhi. Before she came into the conference hall, two men in blue blazers roamed around to see all arrangements were perfect. They were Satish Chandra Mishra and Dara Singh Chouhan (leader of the party in Lok Sabha). 

Mishra would tell camera persons of TV channels to remove the wires attached to loud-speakers, because "Behen ji's sandle could get stuck in". Chouhan also did similar things. While Mayawati spoke for an hour, these two men stood besides reporters as guards. That's the style of functioning of Mayawati, which one can term as that of an authoritative leader.

Second is that of Mamata Banerjee, the mercurial and gutsy leader, who ended 34 long years of Left rule in West Bengal. When Parliament is in session, she is glued to TV channels to keep a watch on performances of her MPs in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

Bhartruhari Mahatab

While Lok Sabha was discussing Lokpal Bill, Banerjee was glued to TV channels in her office

in Kolkata. Her party was supporting Lokpal Bill. Then she heard Bhartruhari Mahatab, a learned MP of Biju Janata Dal (BJD), punching holes in the Lokpal Bill by highlighting the adverse impact on federal structure. She found merits in his arguments. 

And, so, she rang up Ratan Mukherjee, her pointsman, to connect her to Kalyan Banerjee. But he could not do so, as Lok Sabha was in session and thus the message was not passed, that there was a change of heart in Kolkata. And to her dismay, Kalyan Banerjee passionately Lokpal Bill. But in the evening all hell broke against Kalyan Banerjee. 

The next day when Lokpal Bill was taken up in Rajya Sabha, Ms Banerjee's command was followed by her MPs, who most viciously opposed the legislative proposal. 

Interestingly, Ratan Mukherjee (Ratan Da for Bengali reporters), who had been man-friday of Mamata for over a decade, could not survive mood swings of his leader and is now virtually out of the power equation and staying in New Delhi.  

The first one has never won elections in Uttar Pradesh in succession and the second is struggling to keep her popularity intact just after three years of historic win in West Bengal.

But Modi has won three elections in succession. And, majority of the six crore Gujrati voters are quite educated and well off to elect an "autocrat" for the past 15 years. 

Autocrats can not be popular. Popularity inherently demands appeal among the followers. And people in democracy punishes arrogant politicians with quite ease. That also explains why Nitish Kumar even after delivering reasonably well for first six years of his rule in Bihar seems to have lost the favour of the people in the state. But Modi by all accounts remain a popular leader of Gujrat even after 15 years at the helm of the affairs. 

Flag-bearer of BJP at Buxar

Indians, who take fluency in English for their status symbol, also happens to be most abusive when it comes to usages of words. And, we use terms like "dictator", "Hitler", "autocrat" in a manner as if none other than us know English. 

The 2014 election campaign is seemingly turning out to be the most engaging electoral exercise in India's democratic history. And there will surely be lessons for all of us, besides the Congress and its fortified strategists.