Elections Postscript

Unexpected margin of victory for the incumbents and a slap in the face for the BJP. Firstly, congratulations to the UPA and its supporters but I won't count myself amongst them. As I mentioned earlier, it is reflective of the leadership vacuum at BJP's top rung that Congress was voted back to power after five years of sleep walking through the government and leading the country into a mire.
Although knowledgeable people all over the world are lauding the return to significance of nationalist parties and marginalisation of regional ones, I wouldn't hold out my breath for this trend(if it is one). The cumulative vote share of Congres, BJP and CPI(M) (which are the three parties to hold nationalist aspirations) has remained close to 48% where it was even in 2004. In addition, the vote share of Congress improved by 1.99% overall, which puts to rest the theories that voters voted enmasse for a "stable government at center".
During the elections, there was a chorus of opinion that this election was less a national election and more a cumulative of 543 mini elections. Although the results don't point to that, I still stand by that theory. On a cumulative note, Congress deserved to lose this election, but BJP deserved to lose it just as well. So, it came down to individual constituencies. A bunch of factors like Chiranjeevi's PRP cutting into 16% of vote share in A.P(which might have gone to TDP+ otherwise), Mulayam Singh's connection to Kalyan Singh in the U.P which led to shifting of anti-BJP vote to Congress, riots in Orissa and Varun Gandhi's mad ramblings leading to a (welcome) feedback agains the BJP, to mention nothing of the incoherence and infighting within the BJP ranks all led to a significant decrease in the voteshare of BJP to a tune of 4.5%.

All these are legitimate and welcome trends in exercise of franchise, yet one aspect still gets my goat. The crown prince who was derided until the results came out suddenly became a genius. "Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan." His pathetic stumbling at the press conference, failure in first attempts at diplomacy all lay forgotten and his "masterstroke" of going it alone in U.P is suddenly his ticket to the seat at the top. Here is a more complete dissection of the selective amnesia.

Unfortunately, I believe that this attitude of servitude and obsequious fawning in wait of a Hero to deliver us from the ills of the world is common to all around the world(Oba-mania anyone?). The trouble with Indians is the continued importance of familial ties and inheritance of profession (Engineer's son being anything other than engineer is a shame, similarly politician's son has to be a politician etc.)

Why were the exit polls off by such a big margin then? I would like to propose a new effect along the lines of "Bradley effect." In India, infatuation with the "first" family is a guilty pleasure. So, people won't admit that they are going to vote for the family, yet secretly do so. The sample space is extremely limited, but I believe that there IS a correlation. I will leave it to the interested or the jobless to prove or disprove this theory.

What lies ahead for the parties? As M.J.Akbar points out, "India is a secular country not because the Indian muslims(minorities) want it to be secular, but because the Indian Hindus want it to be secular" (italics mine.) BJP should realize this and give up on the fanatical elements amongst its ranks. They shouldn't be worried about losing the support of these factions as they can't vote for anyone else anyway. A cursory look at some of the rants by these factions is enough to put off many centrist votes which would've gone BJP's way had it tempered its voice.
And it IS important that BJP gets its message across effectively. Modi, Advani have been making the right sounds for ages, (one unbiased listen to any of their speeches or interviews ought to make this clear) but it is not emulated by the rest.
For the Congress: They must not count this as a verdict for populist measures and against reforms. Kamal Nath already is on record as having stated, "We've done enough reforms." If that doesn't send the alarm bells ringing to our media lapdogs, I wonder what will. If five years of soporific ramblings and somniatic perambulations are enough to win them 200 seats, they should see the potential in five years of good governance to win them 300.
For the CPI(M)/CPI: I'm glad that they've lost, but realistically, we are far from discarding their defeatist ideologies yet. In case we forget, it was Mamata Banerjee and her coterie who caused the eviction of Nano project from Bengal. The UDF in kerala isn't that different to the LDF in terms of policies. In other words, it was a replacement of like for like. I eagerly await the day when their ideas will be put to rest in the sewers where they belong, but it may be empty hope.

PS: I am still ambivalent about Congress/UPA. Yet, Chidambaram as the Home Minister, Pranab Da as the EA minister did a decent job and if the sycophants like Arjun Singh and Shivraj Patil and unscrupulous devils like A.Raja(Telecom ministry) are kept out, I think we have a decent chance at some redemption in the next five years.

MP v Party

In an ideal scenario, the contestants would all be decent chaps(or equally vile) with only differences being in ideologies. In that case, it is very easy to choose, vote for the party whose ideology you believe in (or atleast whose ideology you find less disagreeable). But, in a democracy such as ours, voting is a Morton's fork.

Things become clearer when you consider the 1985 Anti defection law.

One possible answer is the Tenth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. Popularly known as the Anti-Defection Law, the Tenth Schedule was written into the Constitution by the government of Rajiv Gandhi in 1985. The schedule mandates the disqualification from parliament of any member who votes against his party’s whip. Supported by many Indians, this law was originally conceived to control rampant defections by members of India’s parliament and state assemblies in order to save or bring down governments.

With the backbencher debate culture lacking, it doesn't matter whether your MP is the most honourable or has the best work ethic, that will only affect in limiting the corruption under his wing. Know that while it does come under their jurisdiction, MLAs and municipal councils are more directly responsible for the administrative state of affairs in each constituency. The role of the MP(as I see it) is more of a representative in making national policies and bargaining for a share of pie at the national table.

Therefore, I believe that one should vote for the party and not the MP. Ofcourse, there are exceptions. If you are given a choice between a criminal from a party whose ideology you believe in, but an honest politician from a party whose views you may not agree with, you should vote to punish the party that put up a criminal. This will ensure enough feedback to the system that criminals may not be fielded in the future. (Tytler is a case in point)

Democratic Face-off

Will someone kindly tell these chaps that democracy includes "rule of law," but not thuggery by mobs?

Owaisi on Saturday alleged: "Mohanty has a perverted mind. He is trying to be brave in uniform. Let him shed his uniform, come in open and face us in a democratic manner."

And whatever does he mean by "face us in democratic manner"? This is really rich, coming from the same Owaisi who backed the physical attack on Naslima Tasreen by his MLAs.

On coalition governments

Mr.Venkatesan Vembu argues over at DNA that Shaky coalitions make for good economies:

For starters, it's no coincidence that the time-cycle of India's move into a higher orbit of economic growth matches pretty closely the period when coalition arrangements have come to occupy centre-stage at the Central level.

Virtually all the economic opening up and reform programs that enabled this speedier growth were carried out when motley, multi-party coalitions were in power: this is just as true of Congress-led arrangements as of those led by the BJP or the extremely nebulous and politically malleable "United Front".

But Mr.Vembu doesn't explore the reason behind this counterintuitive (seemingly) occurence.

Leglislatives tend to be mammoth inert beasts. So any "reform" is naturally difficult- be it positive or negative. The advantage with unstable coalitions is that, a single party may not have the power to inflict serious damage to the economy. In Henry David Thoreau's words, "No government is better than a bad government."

Compared to the motley crew assembled at the center in the last four parliaments, the INC led government of 91-96 had a fairly stable constitution. Although Dr.Manmohan Singh or Mr.P.V.Narsimha Rao may claim the credit for liberalisation and thereby kick starting the deteriorating economy, it is a fact that situation forced their hand. The governments following '96 didn't have to shift radically from the set precedent.

Unfortunately, of late the parties seem to have discovered a new formula. Where as at one time they might have tried to stop the attempts by the other parties to introduce legislation, now by scratching each others' backs they are able to side step competition and force through policies whose (harmful) effects leave no corner of the country untouched. Thankfully, their teamwork skills are just as deficient as their other skills.

Recent growth of regional parties is also a welcome step in the direction of decentralization of power. If the "national" parties had empowered the individual by having in place a system of consistent feedback with a strong ground level cadre, they might not have suffered this fate.

In this context, I find our Prime minister's laments like "independents are spoilers" and "Regional parties are like tax barriers" laughable. Sir, they are not tax barriers or spoilers but competing suppliers and you just fear competition like any other supplier because it will benefit the consumer at your cost. By saying that, you are either being dishonest or have a suspect understanding of very basic economics.

It remains to be seen if we can grow in spite of the erroneous policies and a fractured polity incorporated into our state or if circumstances force our hand once again in the future.

PS: The arguments were made for organised dilution of power through the organisational hierarchy ultimately translating into empowerment of the individual. This is not the same as dilution of power by setting up an extra-constitutional towers of power.

Sunday Levity

SP wants to ban computers and English - the two factors that led our growth post '99. Of course, it backtracks spectacularly calling for "protection" of jobs against computers. Irony(and Tragedy) is that few people see the similarity between SP's ridiculous posturing, and an equally paleolithic "Protection of small-traders" by banning entry of FDI into retail business, supported by all political parties.

Advani walks out (or should I say runs away) from the Devil's advocate. Is it the same man Thapar praised as being one of the most difficult people to interview? Well, atleast Neera Yadav was denied the ticket, close on the heels of Tytler and Sajjan.

Arun Jaitley v Kapil Sibal

At last a debate. Arun Jaitley for BJP taking on Kapil Sibal from Congress. Four major issues debated were Governance, Stability, Security and Economy. Hosted by Rajdeep Sardesai of the CNN-IBN, it was mostly a fair debate.
This is how I saw the debate go, followed by my comments on the substance of the debate:

1) Governance : Sibal 1-0 Jaitley:
2) Security : Sibal 0-1 Jaitley
3) Stability : Sibal 0-1 Jaitley
4) Economy: Sibal 0-1 Jaitley

Sibal scores on the Governance front with the record of 8.5% growth rate supporting his claims. Unfortunately, I would disagree with any government that claims to be responsible for economic growth. Government will only hinder growth by placing artificial barriers like Trade duties, Taxes etc. When they do cut the taxes, they aren't making a "great economic decision" per se, but handing people back what was rightfully theirs. Just as the NDA was taking undue credit for the growth in economy in 2004, UPA is now taking undue credit for the economic growth in '04-'08. The best a government can do (especially in a poor country like ours) is to get out of the way and empower the poor. The poor don't need dole-outs as much as opportunities.

I do applaud the UPA for passing the RTI act, but the rest of claims made on governance are good old fashioned bull. Regarding the infrastructure etc, Sibal may claim that they have begun a plethora of programs, but most of these programs have been allocated funds but grossly abused and mismanaged the typical malaise of a corrupt bureacratic machinery backed by an immoral power structure.

On the issue of security, Sibal might as well have given up the round even before it began: The pathetic and unprecedented record on terror - not only of the Pakistani/Bangladeshi origin, but also of the Maoist origins, speaks for itself. Yet, he did put up a good fight bringing up the issue of Parliament attacks ( a miserable intelligence failure doubtless - But when our RAW cannot tail a civil journalist without being captured, it is a tall order expecting it to gather any substantial information). The counter by Jaitley about the response is well taken. Police reforms are long overdue yet none of the parties have mentioned anything concrete and our response after Mumbai attacks goes to show how badly equipped our police forces really are to handle security threats. Although audience was responsive to Sibal's statements like "We donot send out invitations to terrorists", I wasn't impressed. They were just straw men raised to skirt the issue.

On Economy, a thumbs up to Jaitley on two counts : BJP's positioning itself as a right of center party with greater emphasis on empowerment of people is the right way forward, Hence Tax and interest rate cuts. And secondly, because Sibal's statistics were pulled out of the air. As a commentator put it - "WTF? Is Kapil Sibal crazy? 50% retrenchment means 70 million lost jobs--considering size of American workforce. The actual unemployment rate is close to 8%."
Sibal may tout NREGA as UPA's poster boy, but NREGA was derided and strongly criticised by many organisations including the IMF. Throw in the Rs.60,000 crore loan waiver, and you have a perfect recipe of injecting paper money without any increase in production - in other words inflation. The danger of running a fiscal deficit of over 10% seems to be lost on Sibal and INC/UPA.

I disagree with both Jaitley and Sibbal on the role of Government in an economy, but that is only to be expected from a country where the constitution requires all parties to pray at the altar of socialism. Sibal also seems to be unaware of the Laffer curve effect, which tends to make up for the loss in tax revenue due to tax cuts by increased economic activity.

Stability would have been a tie(with both UPA and NDA losing allies), but for the recent RJD/SP split from UPA which presented Jaitley with a lot of ammunition. Sibal couldn't counter the arguments of the fighting between the Congress and its allies - NCP, RJD, SP being the primary culprits.

On the issue of Leadership, I have to reluctantly agree with BJP's anointing of Dr.Manmohan Singh as the weakest Prime Minister. I might have retained a neutral view in the elections if Pranab Mukherjee was the Prime Ministerial candidate. However, it is obvious to one and all that Sonia Gandhi pulled the strings from Janpath 10, against Pranab Mukherjee so that the PMO is not occupied by a strong leader who might jeopardise the chances of Rahul Gandhi leading the charge next time around. Although the argument that "educated men are needed" is often made, the education counts for nothing if this education doesn't make a contribution towards shaping the policy. Here Arun Shourie talks about incidents with Dr.Manmohan Singh in foreign policy. (Please watch the video, confirm the claims made and then make a judgment on his competence)

PS: Overall a nice debate and although my deep mistrust towards all politicians and Governments continues, I'd much rather not see the same bunch of thugs occupying power for consecutive terms - instincts of damage control.

Hate-Speech and Electioneering

It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

I had earlier called for the ousting of Varun Gandhi from the BJP candidates list. This despite there being no clear verdict one way or another.(Remember that in judicial issues, accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty.) I maintain that NSA and subsequent choking of his freedom to speech was ridiculous. Where are the advocates of free speech today ? The answer to issues of free speech is more free speech, not less. I don't believe in the concepts of offensive or Hate speech, speech should only be free.

Let me add, however, that it is not just Varun Gandhi, A whole bunch of others including Kagodu Thimmappa, Lalu prasad Yadav, D.Srinivas must be removed. But that still doesn't justify shutting them up. If anything, we want the idiots to speak up so that we know who is the idiot and who isn't one. The performance of our media in the backdrop of this issue however, has convinced me of the very heavy left-liberal bias in our media. All our "leaders" should be held to the same standards whether they be from the "communal" or the "secular" front.

At the same time, I feel perplexed at Ms.Sagarika Ghosh's rants over at CNN-IBN. She laments the fact that EC has slapped notices on Politicians who were seen distributing cash for votes. Coming from a network that covered up the biggest "Cash for votes" scam in our citadel of democracy - it is not a big surprise.

Mr.Sardesai's defense at that time, " we have chosen not to telecast the story yet because we did not feel that the story was complete," rings as hollow as does Ms.Ghosh's whines about the loss of a tradition.

Discussion, Debate and Democracy

Debate, dialogue and democracy are considered cornerstones to establish people's will. Why then is the Congress candidate for Prime Minister's post shirking away from all three - He has refused to debate Advani, refused to take part in the Lok Sabha elections, and time and again refuses to address the public directly.

Mrs.Sonia Gandhi may well be within her rights to voice her opinion that "Disrespect of PM is disrespect of the nation", but let me correct her mistaken notion. It is not disrespect of the nation to criticise the person holding the post, it is a disrespect to the nation indeed when respect is not accorded to the post of Prime Minister. By his non-participation in debate, dialogue and democracy - Dr.Manmohan Singh and Congress have done precisely that.

Mr.Rajiv Dogra writes in The Pioneer:

Among the many splendours of his public discourse, Mr Amartya Sen’s The Argumentative Indian shines through. The image that it evokes is not that of a quarrelsome Indian, but of an enquiring, engaging and a questioning people. Mr Sen maintains that democracy flourishes amid a tradition of dispute, discussion and debate. And to cap his argument he quotes Ram Mohan Roy: “Just consider how terrible the day of your death will be, others will go on speaking, and you will not be able to argue back.” .... Mr Singh can still engage in debate with Mr LK Advani. People will then have the satisfaction of having judged them both, before casting their votes.

I agree wholeheartedly and find it amusing the same media which went into orgasmic frenzy over Mr.Modi's withdrawal from Devil's advocate is now refusing to press for a debate of the Prime Ministerial candidates. Just the TRPs such an event would generate should be enough to send all channels scurrying, unless there is a greater agenda.

While at the issue of criticism of Congress, let me add another point - Repeated reference to the shameful capitulation of Indian Government in the 1999 Kandahar hijack case. Is the media that amnesiac or simply devious? Even as a 14 year old, I remember following with distinct sense of unease, the public outrage orchestrated by the media in trying to get the Government to release the terrorists. Here's Kanchan Gupta on the crisis and its resolution:

“We want our relatives back. What difference does it make to us what you have to give the hijackers?” a man shouted. “We don’t care if you have to give away Kashmir,” a woman screamed and others took up the refrain, chanting: “Kashmir de do, kuchh bhi de do, hamare logon ko ghar wapas lao.” Another woman sobbed, “Mera beta… hai mera beta…” and made a great show of fainting of grief.
To his credit, Mr Jaswant Singh made bold to suggest that the Government had to keep the nation’s interest in mind, that we could not be seen to be giving in to the hijackers, or words to that effect, in chaste Hindi. That fetched him abuse and rebuke. “Bhaand me jaaye desh aur bhaand me jaaye desh ka hit. (To hell with the country and national interest),” many in the crowd shouted back. Stumped by the response, Mr Jaswant Singh could merely promise that the Government would do everything possible

(Read the entire article.)The only ones afraid to discuss an issue are the ones afraid of truth emerging from it. By skirting the issue and not engaging in direct debate, Congress is playing a dangerous game at undermining democracy and I believe it must pay the price.

PS: I hope this will be the only post taking up such a strong position against one particular party regarding the elections.

Democracy is passé

Just as any other idea is, when it needs the conservatives to prop it up. We're not just talking about India and other fledgling democratic countries, but of the supposed torchbearers of modern democratic movements.


Also see some rather brilliant exhibits here, here and here (The last one in particular is going viral these days - We can replace Brown and UK with Manmohan singh and India and the indictment is still valid.)

of Civilization and violence

It is perhaps a romantic notion and very fashionable for the "psuedo-libertarian" group to diss the institution of police and state. But, as Dr.Pinker demonstrates in this talk, contrary to popular idea, we are living in the most peaceful of times.

That means that we are doing "something" right. It is important that we discuss the ills of our society as it exists today and strive to improve. However, that is not the same as the thoughtless nihilism being exhibited by some in the name of "libertarianism"