Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
M. L. Kotru
The Modimaniacs have won. So we have been told by (who else) the TV channels three days before even the ballots had been counted. And if that was not impressive enough, I caught some 30 odd minutes of News X channel on Wednesday giving us a clinical break-up of how the six or seven Lok Sabha seats in Mumbai city had voted. The anchor couldn’t stop congratulating himself on this unique achievement. To repeat, the counting was to be taken up two days later. How prescient.
Yes, his channel was the “first” once again; we tell you here and now (Wednesday) that Milind Deora has lost, that Shiv Sena has done extremely well in its alliance with the BJP in all Mumbai seats.
Why inflict a tiring, expensive election on a nation which most channels have told us is one of the most poor and poorly managed nations in the world; why not all or some of the channels instead be empanelled to tell us which man or party is to rule us for the next five years? It would spare the voters the agonizing pain of choosing between the tweedledums and tweedledees inhabiting the Indian political scene. And it would be no surprise if the Election Commission too was persuaded to accept the TV polls for the real thing. The Commission could have appointed observers to watch political analysts and party spokespersons engaging in those no-brainer harangues which were passed on to us, poor viewers as the gospel, testified for its authenticity by TV anchors who love to call themselves the voice of the nation. That would obviate all that non-sense about appointing electoral officers booth managers and more importantly the massive security bandobast. And the results, coming after due discussions on the idiot box and verified as such by the Commission, would have spared the nation of the customary hoo ha of a campaign cutting across the length and breadth of the country. Have I gone crazy you might well ask, but, truth to tell the jokers from the world of TV seem to have made a mockery of our democratic process.
Be that as it may Mr. Modi by all indications is the winner of the 2014 Indian sweepstakes, even as the votes are yet to be counted and you are reading this before the results have officially been declared.
Fortunately our laws continue to require a certificate issued by the electoral authorities under the People’s Representation Act. The TV channels will have to work harder, and honestly for sure, before arrogating to themselves the right of certification of winning candidates.
The Arnab Goswamis, Barkha Dutts, the Sardesais and assorted other shouters and screamers from another dozen or so vernacular channels, may have to wait for some years more to realize their dream of “electing” India’s future rulers right there from their air-conditioned studio rooms.
Watching this campaign, though, didn’t take long to establish which party had marshaled its resources well. That Mr. Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister-elect, was miles ahead of others was clear as day light right from the start. The RSS Prachara- turned Gujarat Chief Minister, had built a machine which the Congress Party and the others put together could not match. His “prashansaks” (admirers) including some Indians from the US and UK, had made his war room something to contend with. Equipped with most modern communications gimmickry (the use of the social media was phenomenal), some of it imported directly from the Obama re-election campaign of two years ago. And, it was unbeatable.
Add to that Modi’s own bravado, his braggadocio and his capacity to recklessly cite “facts” and “figures”, some wide off the mark but always impactful. The bull in the China shop of the earlier part of the campaign suitably altered his image, now tempered by a calculated mellowness.
Frankly, Rahul Gandhi didn’t have a chance in the face of the no holds barred style owned by Modi. The Gujarat CM did try hard to sound like a Vajpayee – the voice modulation which he often attempted – but he was no Vajpayee. He was at his best when demolishing. Shades of Hitler, Mussolini, and Goebbels may be, but very effectively put to use. Rahul could only fret and fume.
It is hard to tell if Modi’s campaign style, very personalized, much like a US Presidential campaign, was really suited to our form of governance, and our temper as a multilingual, multicultural, multi-religious country, essentially a divided society, full of diversities and contradictions. By turning these polls into a US Presidential election show, Modi will have done irreparable damage to party politics and competition. Ever since the eclipse of the Rajiv Indira era India has witnessed much democratic consolidation, despite the instability and the coarseness of claims, mainly because India’s politics was not dominated by a national saviour.
Modi’s campaign has altered the situation. Nearly three decades after Indira Gandhi fought her last election, a campaign was woven by Modi around the ability of one leader, not only to get votes but to sort out all the problems faced by the country. Modi has gone a step further. Indira Gandhi had sycophants who screamed “India is Indira”, “Indira is India”, but even that did not convert her into a comic-book superhero, which Modi has already been turned into.
This has already assured Modi that there will no competition for him within his party. Modi’s projection as saviour precedes his ascension to full popularity. The rise of the personality cult has already ensured that none dared challenge his authority from within his parivar, except the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, his ‘asli’ parivar, whom he will be reluctant to annoy. Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriweal were projected by the TV networks as his likely opponents, but Modi had more than got their measure halfway through the campaign and made both a butt of his jokes.
His campaign may have touched new lows in the history of Indian elections but he did manage to score. A whimper of protest from either of the two rivals would be met by an abusive avalanche. In the consequent clash of personalities and the images created by the media, the casualty undoubtedly was the party system, political parties as the main vehicles of politics in our country.
The Congress did indeed have its own failures to live with. Rahul, sadly showed himself up as a horribly poor speaker. His grandmother Indira too was initially considered a poor speaker, provoking the great Nehru-baiter of the day, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia to describe her in the Lok Sabha as ‘goongi gudiya’ but she picked up as she moved on. Rahul is no greenhorn, he has been active in the party for the past ten years.
The man must indeed rank among the poorest of communicators in the business of politics in India. The age of “we gave you mobile, we gave you RTI, MANREGA, Right to Food….. his punch line it was. And, it got him nowhere. Who was ‘we’ it was asked. The answer often was “meri dadi, mere pita, aur hamari sarkar”.
The last phase of his campaigning, when he met smaller groups in many parts of the country, was a non-starter; at each and every such sitting Rahul would inevitably end up by saying “yeh (the grievance voiced by that group) hum apne manifesto mein dalenge”. Hardly a solution to the problems just projected. His fight was indeed against heavy odds. The stigma of corruption, price rise, and unyielding inflation would never leave him or his party. An additional input was the Gandhi family preoccupation with sycophancy which cost them dearly. Many have drifted away elsewhere and those that did not either chose not to contest or simply hung around. Too early though to write an obituary of the Congress party. The nation needs this party if only for its an-Indian presence. Rahul surely is not the one to revive it.
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