A Newbie Voter Whines
*silence*
But I'm going to leave Varun Gandhi alone (for now). He has enough on his plate: a disapproving BJP leadership and a particularly strong-minded Election Commission.
Oh, and angry Muslims of course.
What I'm *really* interested in is the incredibly motley array of political behaviour that suddenly manifests a few months before the elections of which Varun Gandhi's comments are just small part off. It's almost surreal. It follows no conceivable set of rules or laws. You switch on the television and you see things like Lalu Prasad Yadav giving Ram Vilas Paswan a bear hug with an indecipherable smirk on his face. You see an educated, refined, polished, English-speaking Varun Gandhi explain to reporters that the he believes that the CD that was given to the EC was doctored right after you see the same Varun Gandhi (in the same clothes) deliver a fiery, incredibly irresponsible hate-speech in Hindi. We've had two trust votes in the last week itself, one of which was won by a 'voice vote'. I repeat: a 'voice vote'! Turn on any news channel at 9 and you will, more often then not, see two or more spokespeople from as many parties answer every question with a: "Our party believes this. Their party believe that. Vote for us." And our journalists. Our beloved, over-zealous, drunk with power journalists. What shall we do with you? Or without, for that matter.
Truth be told, this is the first Indian election I've followed so closely. It is also the first Indian election I will have the privilege of taking part in. And I catch myself wondering every once in a while if what I'm going to be taking part in is even democracy to begin with.
Take for example, seat-sharing. Two or more parties entering into a wonderful little agreement that essentially deprives the voter of democratic choice. What really disturbs me is the logic behind seat-sharing: I'm pretty damn sure I'm going to win this constituency because our party's been winning here since, well, hell, since forever so, hey, since we're friends why don't you lay off this one and I'll lay off a constituency where you have a similar advantage.
And then we have India's infamous vote-bank politics. L.K. Advani, in his blog (I'm not going to promote it because I vote Congress. =P), talks about how Gujjars in a particular constituency would all vote BJP because the incumbent MP was Gujjar and non-Gujjars would also vote BJP because, knowing that the Gujjar vote would probably bring the BJP MP into power, they didn't want to waste their vote. To hell with election manifestos. Let's vote for someone with the same surname. Or someone who looks like he/she's winning.
On some level, it makes sense. It's hard for someone like me to digest, but it makes sense. Seat-sharing represents the new-era of coalition politics, where parties that are somewhat similar club themselves together into shoddy but working alliances. Coalition politics takes the idea of checks and balances to a new level. A few days ago, at the release of the CPM election manifesto, Karat shared how in the four years the Left was part of the UPA, it blocked several decisions that (Karat claims) have prevented the global economic downturn from devastating India. Karat may be right or wrong, and that really isn't my concern, but he raises an interesting point. Don't politically diverse alliances ensure that all sides of an argument are adequately explored before decisions are taken? Commie-bashers repeatedly bring up the issue of the Left slowing down the Indo-US nuclear deal. But what about the Left's blockage of bills that would've have increased FDI inflow to our insurance companies a few years ago? A bill, that if passed, would've have dragged us (or at least our insurance companies) into the mire of today's economic mess.
And vote-bank politics. As undemocratic as it may seem at face-value (and to people like me who are used to keeping tabs on American politics), in a representative system of democracy, it's completely valid. Take Mayawati for example. The world was inspired when Barack Obama became President of the United States. A black man, a member of a community that a little over forty years ago couldn't even vote, becoming one of the most powerful men in the world. It had an almost fairy-tale allure to it. Mayawati, and I make this comparison very carefully, is almost an Indian Barack Obama. A Dalit, she comes from a community oppressed for not decades, not centuries, but millennia. She is currently serving her fourth term as the chief minister of a state that has a population roughly half the size of the US. Her party holds absolute majority in the state's legislative assembly (a rare occurrence in Indian politics) And she has her eyes set on the prime ministership. Now, for a person like me, that's a little too hard to swallow. And it's not even a caste-issue. It's the issue of a non-English speaking, unrefined (according, of course, to what I consider 'refined') person taking charge of this country's future for five years.
Roughly 16% of India's population, however, would beg to differ. Along with the millions of others that go through the same struggles that Dalit's go through and can relate more wholly to a person like Mayawati then to a person like, say, Sonia Gandhi. Mayawati's rise of to power is partly based on the BSP's successful manipulation of vote-bank politics. And, again, it's incredibly hard for me to digest but to millions of Dalits in UP and around India, voting in a Dalit just because he/she is a Dalit is how democracy works for them. It's their chance to vote for someone that understands the intricacies of their existence and to claim their place in India's destiny as a democracy.
Honestly, the Indian democratic exercise makes my head spin. And hopefully, in elections to come, it'll make more sense. I often imagine how our forefathers, 62 years ago, felt on the midnight of Independence. How frightening and exciting and uncertain it must have felt to suddenly realize that you were in charge of your own destiny. And today, through all the noise and riff-raff, the Bollywood-ish twists and turns and spins of Indian politics, I believe there's a little bit of that fright and excitement that remains when every voter goes to the polls. And a little bit of that uncertainty. Collectively, we're still a nation trying to find our feet as a democracy, evolving election by election. In a country so diverse our national language is only spoken by roughly 40% of our population, the setting in of a concrete system of democracy that truly represents all Indians will take time and a lot of trial and error. And that gives the newbie voter/spectator a little solace.
Ah hell, it'll probably do more damage than good: http://blog.lkadvani.in/
