Assembly elections: Identity slingshot

Democracy by all accounts is India's greatest sociopolitical leveler. Electorate in Maharashtra and Haryana reassured all that India isn't on a course to turn into a ruthless one party politico-administrative Chinese system. That people have least appetite for vindictive politics has also been loudly told. Drum beating and cult worship aren't essentially preferences of the Indian electorate. The popular verdict in Maharashtra and Haryana is laced with clear message for the Opposition -- Believe in your strengths.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would stay in power in Maharashtra and Haryana. Yet, the outfit isn't exultant. Faces of party leaders turned long, after the full import of the verdict in the two states became clear. It evidently dawned upon BJP leaders that the party cannot dictate the agenda to the people. Democracy is all about the vice versa -- people dictating agenda to parties. 

The BJP essentially drummed being the sole custodian of the spirit of nationalism. Dissenting voices on even procedural matters were hurriedly branded anti-national. Leading voices of the BJP displayed penchant to ask for certificate of nationalism from Opposition leaders. The BJP campaign was all about commanding electorate to cast their votes to party's nominees since rivals had suspect nationalistic credentials. 

The electorate had grown bored of nationalism shrill. The neighbourhood shops weren't selling enough goods. Youth came home after losing contractual jobs. Farmers still sold produces at one tenths of the market prices. Elders watched over the idling youth spend days and nights staring at mobile phone screens with earplugs stuck in perennial entertainment trance. 

Economy has fallen flat. Spin doctors seek succor in food delivery boys running around. A few start ups create "Wows". Policy mandarins in Narendra Modi dispensation talk like business honchos. For them, India is all about a few metropolitan cities. The BJP has to bear the slingshot pain.

Victories mostly sober politicians. V P Singh hadn't sent Rajiv Gandhi to Tihar jail after the 1989 win. Atal Bihari Vajpayee also hadn't shown cells of Tihar jail to the Opposition leaders. But the 2019 Lok Sabha verdict opened the floodgate of vindictive politics. The pack of enforcement directorate (ED), CBI and others were sent on hunting grounds against Opposition leaders. Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar talked ED in his whirlwind rallies, and people said enough is enough. Same goes for Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Dushyant Choutala in Haryana. 

Identity politics has demonstratively made a strong comeback in Indian politics. The Lok Sabha verdict had spurred obituaries for identity politics. Politics in regions identified with dominant castes. Smaller castes rode piggyback to partake in the game of power. The BJP's poll mascot Narendra Modi sought to challenge this set political template. The party worked for consolidation of other castes. The ploy paid rich electoral dividends. It turned the political social engineering of a number of regional outfits on its head. But that worked when national narrative found resonance with the electorate. 

Tangible gains with welfarism push had cheered the vulnerable. Dominant castes, though, had nothing to gain from Modinomics, which is nothing but targetted delivery of subsidies. They became aware that they are staring at the prospects of a lost decade, with wealth being knocked away and income drying. Dominant castes sought to regain the lost political space. The BJP, indeed, co-opted them. But they were slotted to supporting roles. They, however, sought centrestage.  

The Congress stays in defeatist mode. The grand old party of India is yet to come to terms with the political erosion of the clout of the Gandhi family. With Sonia Gandhi back in the saddle, the reigns in regions are slowly being restored to old warhorses. That has been the Congress' political character. But that was also sought to be undone by the Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi. The Maharashtra and Haryana poll verdict makes it evident that the electorate want the Opposition to believe in their strengths and shun their doubting Thomases.

Jats in Haryana and Maratha in Maharashtra backed their trusted parties to the hilt. They have sent signals to Yadavs in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to flock to caste outfits in the two states. The economic slide may loosen smaller castes from the BJP glue. And that could open up the prospects for revival of regional outfits. 

Snails' test for Sino-India ties

MODERN world often seeks succor in ancient glories. Bridge, if, not laid for centuries to cement links between ancient and modern only leaves momentary jubilation. Hopes fall with thud on hard surface of reality. Mammalpuram or Mahabalipuram near Chennai could well take pride in being China's spiritual Guru -- once upon a time. The seventh century Pallava dynasty sired Bodhi Dharma who sparked spiritual renaissance in China and other east Asian countries. But India's glory of ancient past was sucked in the dark tunnel of medieval period when fear reigned with the advent of murderous Muslim rulers. India subsequently became doubtful and uncertain of own strength. China embarked on contrasting path.  Now, gap is too large for trust for two diametrically opposite political systems. Mammalpuram is, thus, a break for Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping to breath in moisture laden sea side air to count missed opportunities.

Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had taken a giant step to open the shut doors on China in 1988. That was a year before he vacated office after a popular negative vote. For more than two decades, India had conducted her world affairs in which China had no space. That was because of the Chinese betrayal in 1962 in which love and affection of New Delhi were paid by Beijing spilling bloods of Indian soldiers and annexing vast tracts of India's landmass. India's popular psyche knows China as a treacherous country. 

Beijing hasn't walked even an inch to regain India's trust. India has, however, shown eagerness to forget the past. New Delhi's zeal has always met with Chinese realism. Post-1988, accounts abound to show China as India's numero uno stumbling block on the world affairs. They merit no retelling.

CHINA by all accounts is a brute imperialist, spreading tentacles all around. Beijing has been exploiting her deep pocket to gain economic slavery in African and South Asian countries. China's no holds barred exploitation of human capital to produce goods at unbeatable prices has for long tilted the trade balance in her favour at the cost of other humane and democratic societies. No civilized country in the world, practicing free speech, democracy, liberalism and fair play, can ever compete with China's trade thuggery. 

Wearing the facade of Communism, China is essentially a military totalitarian state. And, so Beijing's compulsive imperialism has seen China being the global trespasser, with none of her neighbouring country being exception. India has seen China's economic and geographic imperialism in worst forms, and there's no let down in Beijing's compulsive streak.        

Deep pocket has seemingly allowed China to make huge intellectual investment across the world, including the US. India's borrowed economic intellectual wealth from the US, thus, have sought in the past three decades to steer policy directions in Beijing's favour. Lately, Arvind Panagaria, the first vice-chairman of NITI Aayog, was evidently a "China awe-struck policy wonk". During his stint, which coincided with Narendra Modi's first four years, Panagaria tried to open the floodgates for Chinese trade.   

In 2014-15, India exported goods and services worth $11.9 billion to China. Import in contrast was $60.4 billion, with the resultant trade deficit of $48.5 billion. In 2017-18, India export rather dipped to $10.3 billion, while Chinese import ballooned to $63.2 billion, with consequent deficit of $52.9 billion. The deficit in 2018-19 was $53.5 billion. 

Indian eagerness to forget China's treacherous past has truly been fodder for Chinese imperialism. In contrast, India's insistence on resolution of border disputes has only seen the high Chinese wall. Despite scores of talks, with escalation of the seniority of interlocutors, there has hardly been any headway to talk about. On the contrary, no year goes by without the Chinese trespassing into Indian territories across the length of the Himalayan border.     

There shouldn't be any misgivings that India-China relations haven't kept pace with even snails on core Indian interests. 

FORMER Prime Minister P V Narsimha was more prescient than Rajiv Gandhi. Rao didn't bother about China. He looked East. Under Rao's stewardship, India found depth in relations and confidence in conduct with deepening of ties with Asean (Association of South-east Asian nations). That paid rich dividends. New Delhi can count on a few friends.

India and China cannot be natural friends as long as Beijing is ruled by a military totalitarian regime. Rest is delusion.

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Diplomatic expert and senior journalist Ramananda Sengupta had this to ask the blogger after reading the above article: "If India cannot be a natural friend with a totalitarian China, then how does New Delhi have good ties with a few similar regimes in Arab and Africa."

The blogger responded: "With Africa and Arab world, India has politico-economic scales to steer diplomatic ties to serve core interests. This is missing in the case of China."  

Missing E-factor

THREE months have gone by since the new government was elected with an unprecedented mandate in the recent years. World's largest democracy, arguably, also has the most costliest electoral exercise. Actual spending is seen dwarfing the official ceiling on expenses by candidates. The first three months after the 2009 and 2014 had shown economy spurting seemingly on the back of asteroid doses of the largess splurged by political parties in the length and breadth of the country. Yet, 2019 strikes a discordant note.

Dismissing a strategy meeting weeks ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP chief Amit Shah was seemingly exasperated. To a question on going big on media blitzkrieg, Shah blurted out to a fellow party leaders -- "First, let Arun ji and Piyush settle their quarrel".  

In the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, all knew that the contest would be unequal. Not that the BJP had the greatest of the poll mascot, but for the fact that others had hugely depleted coffers. Loss of key states had, arguably, bled the Congress treasury white. Regional parties weren't better off. The BJP treasury, however, was in its prime pink. It was evidently clear that one political outfit would take the pole position in election spending to swing the outcome of the poll. Others will be bystanders.

The BJP, thus, was deliberating "how and where" to unloosen the fat purse. "Arun Jaitley was firm that the party should give more money in the hands of the block and district level functionaries. Piyush Goyal argued that the BJP should spend more on media blitzkrieg. There was no common ground," said a functionary, who attended such strategy meetings at the BJP headquarters.

Jaitley had been ailing. He seemed fragile. His muscles had loosened. Yet, he stayed put at the BJP headquarters to man his mandate -- strategizing and perception management. "The BJP spent 42 per cent less on media advertisements in 2014 Lok Sabha elections in comparison to 2009 general polls. Jaitley's prescription was accepted, that more funds would go in the hands of foot soldiers of the party across the country than being spent on media and other publicity platforms," added the functionary.   

That media is currently bleeding in an affirmation to the changed tack of the political outfit with the most bloated moneybag. 

THE 2008-09 financial year was one of the worst for Indian economy. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had slumped to 3.09 per cent on 2011-12 baseline (6.72 per cent under the 2004-05 baseline). The Manmohan Singh led UPA had retained power at the Centre. The Congress ruled in a large number of states. The Congress coffer must have been spilling over the brim. The money was well spent by the party. The 2009-10 fiscal clocked 7.86 per cent GDP growth as per the 2011-12 baseline (8.59 under the 2004-05 series).

Electioneering splurge had seemingly knocked off the slowdown fangs to release adrenaline in the lifeline of the economy. The story re-ran the script in 2014 also with much greater intensity. The first quarter clocked GDP growth of 8.02 per cent under the revised 2011-12 series only to ascend steeply to 8.70 per cent in the second quarter, mapping the first three months after the election results. 

The first quarter of the 2019-20 fiscal delivered a fiver for the GDP growth. Five per cent for India is by all accounts a commentary of the economy in the worst health. The first three months of the Narendra Modi government in the second tenure would report the second quarterly growth. That the economy is gasping for breath is affirmed indisputably with the government finally waking up to the deep structural reforms covered by disinvestment.    

Dissonance between electioneering largess in the form of arming foot soldiers with party funds and the economy crying erosion of demand is palpable.

The BJP and allies, indeed, put the money in the pockets of the foot soldiers. But the money didn't spread out as intended to a significant extent. The BJP workers are full of tales about their peers pocketing the money but not passing on to the targets. They did so, because they were confident that victory in the elections was already on their side. That they became thrift with the large flow of money in their hands was also on account that Modi was winning them elections. 

THE money in place of being in circulation got stuck. And that possibly explains the missing E-factor of the economy. Electioneering splurge too failed to wake up the animal spirits of demands. That the printing of high denomination Rs 2000 currency is no more being printed could also be an after-effect of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The government in an RTI reply has admitted that the Rs 2000 currency hasn't been printed yet in the current financial year. The ATMs running dry in elections times has been pos-2017 phenomenon. Did the availability of Rs 2000 notes help push the cash flow to the electoral agents who in turn sat over the pile of cash to unleash demand depression in the economy? Circumstantial evidences suggest a fair correlation.

Mahatma Gandhi: Talismanic hypocrisy

Albert Einstein was most prophetic in his one-liner tribute to Mahatma Gandhi. Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth, Einstein had to say on Gandhi. Seventy one years after Gandhi departed, it's indeed a tall order to believe that such a soul led India's greatest ever political movement, with the velvet touch of empathy and simplicity. That within a few decades his political heirs sanctified Gandhi and turned him into oratorical rituals to spread tentacles of the Gandhian anti-thesis is, indubitably, India's monstrous hypocrisy.  

There's a certain deluge of commentary on Mahatma Gandhi. That India's commemorating the 150th birth anniversary of the icon befits the occasion. That the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is in the midst of a process to attain lethal perfection in politics of mass mobilisation makes Gandhi the most convenient icon to bank on. And also for the fact that transportation of a ritual deity to the centre stage of the political discourse perfectly suits the dispensation which seeks to send dynastic demigods into oblivion.

The Mahatma plunged in the Indian freedom movement at a stage when the polity was fragmented. There were scores of streams within the polity and outside against the British rule. Millions of people died of hunger and epidemics. The British lords stayed enmeshed in crony capitalism. Sporadic reprisals amidst episodic bravery marked India's restlessness to throw the foreign yokes. Gandhi weaved magical spell to spearhead a coherent political agitation under the banner of the Congress. Rest is history.

Gandhi has been largely depicted by historians as the man with Midas touch for mass movements. He deftly sought definitive behavioural changes from the masses. He stayed away from power. Yet, he served a talisman to the new elites taking positions of power lest they lost their ways to wilderness.

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you're in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test -- Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj (freedom) for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away," Gandhi read out the moral political mantra to his ardent disciples when they assumed high offices.

The mantra arguably electrified the political class for the first two decades. Afterward, memory of the poorest and weakest started becoming fainter. The convenient escape route for the political class from the moral stigma of failing the Gandhian test was to pass the onus to the children. The Gandhian talisman found its resting place with the NCERT books.

In another one decade, the self in place of melting away was cast in stone for the leading lights of Indian politics, the principal instrument to free the spiritually starving millions. The Congress turned dynastic. Indian polity went into a meltdown. The after effects in the next two decades coalesced into caste based family enterprises. The Gandhian talisman was knocked off of its moral anchor.

The Mahatma practically became distant for the political class. His name didn't fetch votes. In place, Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Ram Manohar Lohiya, Karpoori Thakur, E V Ramasami (Periyar) and a few others became potent political icons who helped their worshipers fetch votes in truck loads.     

The Gandhian talisman proved a burden for the policy makers. The poorest and weakest were seen roadblocks to India's "earnest desire to become a developed country like the US". So, ways were (and are being) invented to chase them away from forests, islands, farms to herd the teeming millions into ghettos. The sub-human ghettos proved huge political investments for heirs of Gandhi.

Two-third of the population stays dependent on agriculture. Vast majority of the political class is land owning "agriculturists" after the residual generations of leaders educated professionals were edged out by their anti-thesis. To protect their own interests and milk government doles, the new political class pushed farmers to a never ending poverty. 

For Gandhi, Swaraj meant the economic self-sufficiency in such a manner that majority of the needs of the people could be served by enterprises within their surroundings. Now, most of the needs of the people are served by enterprises in China.   

The Gandhian talisman by all accounts has been stripped off all the moral and ethical weights. 

The ruling elites when they swear by Gandhi, and they do it more often, invite being condemned as bunch of hypocrites. The hypocrisy, sadly, has now acquired monstrous proportions.