World watch's Indian Election

The Verdict : India votes for

stability, the world salutes

The world’s largest democracy has just concluded a free, fair and peaceful election, and the world is applauding.

International newspapers praised the complex process of conducting the elections and noted that Indians had rejected Right and Left parties and voted for middle path politics. “The governing coalition led by the Indian National Congress sailed to a surprisingly decisive victory in India’s grueling parliamentary elections, vaulting Manmohan Singh, a soft-spoken economic reformer, to a second term as Prime Minister, and sweeping away the prospect of political instability in the world’s most populous democracy,” said the New York Times on May 16.
The Times, London, said the election results would help in consensus and unity. “That means the ruling coalition should face fewer internal divisions over reforms desperately needed to stimulate growth and spread its benefits to the 880 million Indians who live on less than 2 dollars a day," it said.
“Congress wins election, Singh to remain PM: India votes for hope; rejects religion, caste”, said the headline of Daily Times, the Pakistani newspaper, on May 17.

Has this election result boosted India's image abroad? CNN-IBN’s Sagarika Ghose asked this to Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, and Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP and former UN undersecretary general.
“This is a very, very significant moment for India,” said Zakaria. “China’s coming-out party was the Beijing Olympics. India’s coming-out party as a great power may well turn out to be these elections.”
India had till now been “hamstrung” from playing its appropriate role on the world stage because its government had never been able to mobilise national power.
“There always has been a sense that India is divided, decentralized, defused between castes and regions, classes and parties. For the first time in many years you have sense of a government that has a national coalition behind it that is purposeful,” said Zakaria. “If that happens I think you will see a very different reception India will get on world stage.”

India, America, and the world
The Western media has commented that the clear verdict would allow Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to push for economic reforms. Will Singh’s test be his ability to implement reforms?
“The government has demonstrated the capacity to reconcile policies that encourage growth with policies that are attentive to the need of the dispossessed and marginalised,” said Tharoor. “We should not do anything for anybody’s approval. We do what is right for us.”
US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are the two “most erudite” chief executives in the world, said Zakaria. “The key issue is does have the energy to play a responsible world role--without being hobbled by fears of being seen as pro-American or being seen as part of the capitalist world.”
The election result gives Singh the opportunity he always sought in foreign policy. “This allows him to move forward, and I think the Obama people will be very willing partners,” said Zakaria.
Tharoor believed the new government, with a clear mandate in its favour, had the opportunity to pursue a foreign policy guided by India’s interests and not dogma.
“If a Indo-US nuclear deal achieves national goals you don’t worry if that makes you look non-aligned. You are being empirical--you are looking at what the world offers you; what is needed by your people and then you proceed,” he said.


What next for BJP
The BJP has gone into a shell after its electoral defeat but it is the country’s main Opposition party. What does it need to revive itself?
“In almost all parts of the world where you have democracy there is a backlash against globalization and against modernization that takes the form of nationalism or some form of Hindutva,” said Zakaria.
Zakaria believed Hindutva-like ideologies had no answers for the modern world. “The BJP has got to recognise that it can no longer prey on people’s fears or scratch their hatreds or incite them. They have to answers to the modern world.
“Unless they can embrace the agenda of modernity rather than the agenda of resentment I think they are going to have a tough time. They say their ideology is not for sale or change, but I think they are not going to walk alone.”
The BJP calls secularism “pseudo-secularism, tokenism and minority appeasement.” What will the Manmohan Singh government be doing to prove that its secularism is genuine?
“Opportunities must be extended to all (minorities) because it is not in the interest of India for any segment of the population to feel that somehow their opportunities are less because of a fact of birth,” said Tharoor.
Zakaria’s final comment: “I think Manmohan Singh is the most intelligent decent, incorruptible Prime Minister India has had since Nehru. He should do what is in his heart and in his mind.
“He knows what India needs. Just go for it, don’t worry about the short-term political costs. This is your moment; this is the chance to take India to a whole different stage. Don’t hesitate now because you probably won’t get this opportunity again.”

SMS poll on ‘has this election result boosted India's image abroad?’
Yes : 96 per cent, No : 4 per cent.

THE NATIONAL PICTURE

Congress-led UPA has been projected to have an edge over NDA
The curtains came down on the staggered Lok Sabha elections on Wednesday with millions of Indians voting peacefully in the fifth and last round covering 86 constituencies, and the first exit polls putting the Congress-led coalition on top of a fractured verdict.
Even as both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claimed they would finish as the number one, an India TV exit poll telecast after balloting ended said the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) could end up with 195-201 seats in the 545-member Lok Sabha.
This tally could go up to 227-237 if the seats bagged by estranged allies such as Rashtriya Janata Dal and Samajwadi Party were to be included. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was tipped to bag 189-195 seats and the Third Front 113-121 seats, it said.
But political leaders and analysts kept their fingers tightly crossed, with the expected cliffhanger verdict forcing both the Congress and BJP -- the two main contenders for power -- desperately scouting for new allies. As the voting progressed, some parties switched loyalties, making it one of the most difficult electoral battles to predict.
"It seems to be a very complex political situation. It is the complexity that makes it difficult to make any predictions," Kerala-based political analyst NP Chekutty told IANS, reflecting an opinion widely held in the world's largest democracy.
Election officials estimated that some 55 per cent of the 714 million electorate - which is more than the combined population of Russia and the US - had voted over five phases starting April 16. The result will be known on Saturday.
Wednesday's polling was overwhelmingly peaceful but for the murder of a political worker in Tamil Nadu and clashes in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, two key states whose outcome will have a bearing on government formation in New Delhi.
The exercise involved all 39 seats of Tamil Nadu, all four seats of Himachal Pradesh and all five seats of Uttarakhand besides two in Jammu and Kashmir, nine in Punjab, 11 in West Bengal and 14 in Uttar Pradesh besides one each in Chandigarh and Pondicherry.
The most notable of the 1,432 candidates included Home Minister P Chidambaram of the Congress (Sivaganga, Tamil Nadu) and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee (South Kolkata). Fearing uncertain times, Indian markets turned edgy on Wednesday, with a key index losing 138 points from its last closing figure at end of trade. The 30-scrip sensitive index of the Bombay Stock Exchange opened at 12,201.93 points and fell 138.38 points or 1.14 per cent from Tuesday's close.
"I'm fully confident that a BJP-led government will be formed at the centre. We will get new partners (after the polls)," BJP president Rajnath Singh said confidently. Within hours, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh asserted that his party would occupy the number one slot.
Not to be left behind, the Third Front - made up of the Communists and regional parties - announced they would meet in New Delhi Monday to decide the future course of action. The meeting would be attended by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which is widely expected to win around 40 seats, said Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and a key mover behind the Third Front.
With neither the UPA nor NDA expected to cross the magic figure of 272 in the Lok Sabha, the Congress and BJP tried to outsmart one another in order to woo leaders of smaller and regional parties.
AIADMK chief and former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha, a key Third Front partner, said in Chennai: "There are feelers from many places. I am not responding to them now. Everything depends on the results. If the results are as expected, then I will go to Delhi."
Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who in 2004 pulled off a coup by most unexpectedly worsting the BJP-led alliance in general elections, Wednesday telephoned estranged ally Ram Vilas Paswan after a fire in his house which adjoins her own in the heart of New Delhi.

It’s Badals vs. Patiala royals in Punjab

Four constituencies in the State go to polls in the first phase

V for victory: Shiromani Akali Dal leader and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal with his son and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and daughter-in-law Harsimrat Kaur Badal, who is contesting from the Bhatinda parliamentary constituency, at a public meeting in the constituency on Tuesday.

K. V. Prasad

SANGRUR: Punjab is getting ready to go to the polls in the first phase on Thursday and the battle opener in the four constituencies of Patiala, Bhatinda, Sangrur and Ferozepur can set the pace for the main political rivals – the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Congress party.
While the Akali leader and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal may claim that the contest is between parties, the buzz among party workers is that this election is a direct duel between the two big political families of the State -- the Badals and the Patiala royals represented by former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh; his wife and Congress MP from Patiala Parneet Kaur who is now seeking a third term in the Lok Sabha; and their son Raninder Singh, a candidate from Bhatinda.
Deputy Chief Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal, who has taken over command of the campaign, has made the contest a matter of prestige by fielding his wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal in Bhatinda, considered an Akali stronghold. She also hails from another prominent Majitha family with her brother Bikaramjit Singh serving as a powerful Minister in the Badal Government.
On the other hand, Raninder Singh has been nursing the constituency for the past few years and is credited to be the architect behind the Congress winning the maximum seats in the Malwa region when it faced a rout in Majha and Doaba, the other two regions of Punjab, in the 2007 State Assembly polls. The stakes are high for both sides.
Yet one factor, the call by the influential Dera Sacha Sauda sect to vote for the Congress two years ago enabling the party to buck the anti-incumbency trend against the Amarinder Singh Government, is missing. Having faced turbulence and criminal cases against its chief, the Dera has preferred to advise its followers spread across Punjab and Haryana to vote according to local “consensus”.
Elsewhere the Congress has fielded former MP and strongman Jagmeet Singh Brar from Ferozepur while in Sangrur, former State Youth Congress chief Vijay Inder Singla is engaged in a tight contest with sitting MP and former Union Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa.
Mr. Singla may be a rookie in poll politics but being the son of former State Minister and former MP Sant Ram Singla he has the blessings of the Patiala palace.
Adding to it is the talk that he is among the four youth candidates handpicked by Rahul Gandhi in the State where he initiated the process of internal democracy in the State Youth Congress to elect its leaders.

Taking on a feudal mindset

by Sarabjit Pandher from Bathinda

PARTY: Shiromani Akali Dal
CONSTITUENCY: Bathinda
STATE: Punjab

MISSION STATEMENT

Roll back female foeticide and halt denudation of Punjab’s green cover
Born into Amritsar’s Majithia family, and trained as a textile designer, Harsimrat Kaur is married into one of the most powerful political families of Punjab, the Badals of Muktsar.
Daughter-in-law of Sardar Parkash Singh Badal, who has been Punjab’s Chief Minister four times, she is the Shiromani Akali Dal’s candidate from Bathinda, where she faces the Congress’s Raninder Singh, son of the former Chief Minister , Amarinder Singh and a scion of the Patiala royal family.
Both Bathinda and Harsimrat Kaur have been in news for different reasons. Bathinda and Mansa districts, which are part of this constituency, were among the 10 districts of the country to report the worst sex ratios. Apart from being Punjab’s cotton belt, the region has a high incidence of diseases .
Ms. Harsimrat Kaur has launched a programme “Nanhi Chhan” (the elfin shade), to project her struggle against female foeticide and denudation of Punjab’s green cover.
“Nanhi Chhan is my politics,” asserts Harsimrat as in her public meetings where she makes her voters realise that a tree and a mother are the embodiments of nurturing. However in Punjab, the number of girl children aged 0-6 has dwindled fast as has forest cover, from 33 per cent to a pathetic six per cent. She accepts that her programme is a struggle to liberate Punjab from the vicious grip of the feudal patriarchy, which has also led to various socio-economic problems.
In January, when her husband, Sukhbir Singh Badal, was sworn in as Punjab’s Deputy Chief Minister, she saw the opportunity to use political power to spread her programme.
Though she was initially quite reluctant to plunge into active politics, Ms. Harsimrat Kaur hopes that she will be able to take her programme to the next level if she gains entry into Parliament. She is optimistic that being an MP will help her get support to change a mindset that is heavily biased against the girl child.
So far, she has involved a pharmaceutical major, religious leaders, the SGPC, social activists and the forest department in the distribution of the “Buta Prasad” (saplings).
Her target is to distribute about 12 lakh saplings of neem, ber, mango, guava and other fruit trees as well as medicinal plants. The programme, which was launched from the Golden Temple last year, has attracted appreciation even from her political opponents. Her electoral rival, Mr. Raninder Singh, says he would like to promote the project.
As she appeals for votes, Ms. Harsimrat Kaur seeks to draw the attention of women to a rare opportunity to enjoy the fruits of “shakti” (political power).
“If you elect me, you get a Chief Minister, a deputy Chief Minister and a Finance Minister as free,” she says.

What forced Cong hand on Tytler, Sajjan

'Jutta Factor'

RAMESH VINAYAK

Even as the Congress has attempted to cut its political losses by withdrawing the Lok Sabha candidature of 1984 anti-Sikh riot-tainted Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), a key NDA ally, is showing no sign of piping down. Instead, in tandem with radical Sikh organisations, it appears intent on keeping the issue alive as high stake elections draw nearer. Two days after the shoe-hurling episode by a Sikh journalist catapulted the political row over the tickets to the duo into an expression of collective anger of the Sikhs, Congress president Sonia Gandhi moved decisively by asking both beleaguered leaders to opt out of the electoral arena. What ostensibly forced the high command’s hand was the blunt feedback from Punjab that any delay in dropping Tytler and Sajjan would seriously undermine the Congress’s poll prospects. Former CM Amarinder Singh amplified the party’s nervousness saying the resurrection of the riots issue had aroused the sentiments of the Sikh youth, and that allowing Akalis to stoke the emotive issue would make the going much tougher for three GenNext candidates handpicked by Rahul Gandhi. The Gandhi scion had ensured tickets to Ravneet Singh Bittu (Anandpur Sahib), Sukhwinder Singh Danny (Faridkot-reserve) and Vijay Inder Singla (Sangrur). However, a palpable pro-Congress groundswell across Punjab suddenly seemed to swing into antagonism for the party riding on anti-incumbency sentiment against the SAD-BJP rule until last week.While the Congress has reason to heave a sigh of comfort, all of a sudden SAD, which was staring at grim poll prospects and was rattled by a spate of defections to the Congress, has spring in its feet. “At stake is not tickets to the accused, but the core issue of punishment of the guilty and the CBI’s dubious role,” said Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.Implicit in the SAD’s game plan to throw the Congress off balance is its move of pitching the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee — the apex Sikh religious body controlled by SAD – as the spearhead of a shrill tirade pegged to the riots. The Akalis have another reason to milk the issue. A running animosity between Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda, with a sizable following in the Malwa, and the Sikhs has cast a shadow on SAD poll prospects. In the 2007 Assembly elections, the Dera openly supported the Congress, leading to the SAD rout in its turf. Clearly despite the Congress backing off, the election heat in Punjab is poised to rise.

Shoe hits home after two days, Tytler, Sajjan out of poll race
Journalist Jarnail Singh’s size-9 Reebok shoe may have missed P. Chidambaram on Tuesday, but two days later, it brought down two Delhi political heavyweights, Congress MPs and candidates Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar.“Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar will not be the Congress candidates in the Lok Sabha elections,” announced Congress general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi on Thursday. Here is what he didn’t say: they had been asked to step down.But that was later in the evening. The day began with the run up to a Delhi court case on allegations of Tytler’s involvement in the 1984 riots. It was postponed to another date, amid protests and burning of effigies outside court premises.Outside courts again, claims and counterclaims flew thick. Protestors alleged being pushed around by Tytler’s men and the Congress leader alleged he was being targeted. News channels had a busy day.Later in the afternoon Tytler told a news conference at his house, “In my heart I know this incident has embarrassed my party and me and I would not like to contest the elections.” That was the first indication of things to come.

And then the Congress leader said he was leaving it to his party. His party, however, was not forthcoming immediately. Its leaders had been in a huddle for the last two days starting with the shoe throwing at its head office on Tuesday.The party had taken the position that its president would decide after she returned from campaigning down south. She returned Wednesday night, and consultations began in earnest. They had to close the issue quickly.“Sonia had assiduously built bridges with the Sikh community over the last few years,” said a source not authorised to speak to reporters, adding, “she was anxious to protect this relationship from further damage.”Something had to give here.The Punjab unit of the party chipped in, telling the central leader very bluntly: get rid of Tytler and Kumar. The party is likely to do well here in the elections and let’s please not do anything to spoil our chances. Former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh, who is spearheading the Punjab campaign panel, told Delhi the resurrection of 1984 had upset the Sikh youth, who form roughly 65 per cent of the electorate in the state.If they dumped the Congress, Singh argued, it would be difficult to ensure the victory of the three GenNext candidates handpicked by Rahul Gandhi — Ravneet Singh Bittu, Sukhwinder Singh Danny and Vijay Inder Singla.Singh was not exaggerating. Desperately fighting anti-incumbency, the ruling Akali Dal had very quickly latched on to the shoe throwing incident -- deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal was almost constantly on news channels talking up the issue.Party seniors didn’t need any more convincing now. Foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee and political secretary Ahmad Patel were entrusted with the task of talking to Tytler and Sajjan Kumar.While the shoe-thrower was protesting CBI’s clean chit to Tytler, Sajjan Kumar got pulled in because of allegations of involvement in the riots against him. “Mukherjee and Patel conveyed to them Sonia’s anxiety,” said a source.Kumar didn’t make any public statements, but Tytler did, saying he was leaving it to the party. And then later qualified it by saying his heart tells him not to contest. And he will not.Their replacements will be named shortly.

CBI clears Tytler in 1984 anti-Sikh riots case

New Delhi: Congress leader and former union minister Jagdish Tytler was on Thursday given a clean chit by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a case registered against him for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. De-sealing its final report in the case in a court in the Capital, the CBI pleaded that the case against Tytler be cancelled. The CBI is also hoping to quash the FIR in the 1984 riots case. Counsel for the 1984 riots' accused H S Phoolka said, "The CBI has given the benefit to Tytler as he is contesting polls this time. There might be serious flaws in their report therefore the CBI does not want the report to be shown." In an affidavit filed before the Karkardooma court in New Delhi last year, the CBI said: "We don't have any evidence or witness to file a case against Jagdish Tytler."
This echoed the Government's stand that Tytler cannot be prosecuted due to insufficient concrete evidence. The Nanavati Commission - probing the case - had stated that there was 'credible evidence' against Tytler, and that he 'very probably' was one of those responsible for orchestrating the attacks. Tytler had responded that the evidence in question was unreliable because it was a matter of mistaken identity. Speaking to CNN-IBN on Thursday, Jagdish Tytler said that he had been suffering for so long for no fault of his. "I have suffered enough now. I just want to be left alone. Let those who oppose me say whatever they want. I will continue to serve the people of the country," he stated. "The truth has now finally come out aided by the CBI," he added. The BJP has lashed out at the CBI saying that it is not the Central Bureau of Investigation but the Congress Bureau of Investigation. "To give a clean chit to a man who is in serious trouble shows the political convenience of the Congress. The Congress is bent upon destroying all institutions in India and is now trying to influence the judiciary," said BJP Spokesperson, Prakash Javadekar.

Varun Plays The BJP’s Communal Card

Method in madness

Amulya Ganguli

Despite Varun Gandhi’s lineage, he is still a minor figure in politics. In fact, but for his genealogy, he would have been an even more insignificant person. His immediate background, too, is less exalted than that of the other members of the family. He belongs to a branch which can hardly claim to be the true heirs of the Nehru-Gandhi legacy. The reason is that Varun’s father, Sanjay Gandhi, the “wayward, uneducated, inexperienced boy”, in the words of his uncle, BK Nehru, is hardly a much admired person in Indian politics. Instead, the role of this enfant terrible was widely believed to be responsible for Indira Gandhi’s defeat in 1977 after two years of the Emergency.

Since Sanjay Gandhi’s fascistic tendencies were evident during this period, it isn’t surprising that both his wife, Maneka, and Varun, found refuge in the BJP which, too, exhibits similar traits. So has one of Sanjay Gandhi’s henchmen, Jagmohan. Sanjay Gandhi’s stint at the top was too brief to reveal his anti-Muslim sentiments although members of this community suffered the most during the sterilization drives as a part of his family planning initiatives. As a result, they turned resolutely against the Congress in 1977, especially in UP and Bihar from where the Congress, astonishingly, did not win a single Lok Sabha seat.

Stridently pro-Hindu

Since Maneka Gandhi, too, did not show any overt anti-minority feelings during her political career perhaps because she is a Sikh, it is difficult to say from where Varun has acquired his stridently pro-Hindu outlook, which has been disowned by his own party. It is possible that he sees his aggressive anti-minority posturing as the only way to make his presence felt. Besides, as the support extended to him by the Shiv Sena and at least two contributors to the saffron newspaper, The Pioneer, shows, his combativeness will have admirers even if, like Pramod Muthalik of the Ram Sene, he falls foul of the law. But illegality can yield dividends, especially in a party and a parivar where there are any number of hardliners ~ from Narendra Modi to Ashok Singhal ~ who make no secret of their antipathy towards what a saffron scribe called “non-nationalists”. It is not impossible that it is in the company of these hawks that the “inexperienced” Varun’s anti-minority sentiments were honed. After all, the essence of the Sangh Parivar’s worldview is what Varun said in his speeches in his constituency, Pilibhit ~ that the Hindus are under pressure from the unpatriotic Muslims, who invaded the country in medieval times, divided it in 1947 and now pose a demographic threat because of their increasing numbers. To buttress this last point, Modi coined the slogan, hum panch, hamare pachis, to underline the practice of the Muslims having four wives and not observing family planning. Varun’s supposedly doctored CD is not the only one which has drawn attention to the BJP’s venomous propaganda.

A similar CD was in circulation before the UP assembly elections of 2007. It was a typical potpourri of the BJP’s and the saffron brotherhood’s hate campaign. It features a saffron “masterji” saying that the BJP “is a party which thinks about the country, it thinks about the Hindu religion. The other parties are all agents of the Muslims”. There are scenes of slaughtered cows, of a Hindu girl being deceived into marrying a Muslim and a speech by a “social worker” who says that “the day is not far away when we will be afraid to even call ourselves Hindus and soon you will never be able to find a Sohanlal, Mohanlal, Atmaram or Radhakrishnan … we will only see Abbas, Naqvi, Rizvi and Maulvi”. The BJP, of course, disowned the CD even though it was released at a public function by Lalji Tandon, a prominent leader of the party in the state. The tactical retreat was not unlike its present ploy of distancing itself from Varun or from Pramod Muthalik earlier. The party with a difference has become a party of dissociation from its firebrands. There may be a method, however, behind this madness. Notwithstanding these subsequent denials, the BJP’s purpose is served by such CDs and speeches. They tell its core constituency that its heart remains uncontaminated by its tactical dalliance with “secular” allies of the NDA like the Janata Dal (United), which has predictably expressed outrage over Varun’s speeches.

Golwalkar’s view

As long as the central point of the BJP’s and the parivar’s remains Golwalkar’s perception of Muslims and Christians as Internal Threats Nos. 1 and 2 along with Savarkar’s view of these two communities as essentially alien, such inflammatory audio-visual means of propaganda and speeches by individuals like Varun will continue to be a feature of Hindutva politics. Even while pretending that it had nothing to do with such outpourings, the BJP cannot but note with satisfaction the voices of support not only from members of the extended parivar like the Shiv Sena, but also from those who express themselves, often in an offensive manner, on the Internet. To give one example, a contributor has said that “there is no question that Hindus are lambasted by the minority community in their own country. How else could an Italian head this huge nation? All because the selfish and egotistical founding fathers wrote a Constitution that benefited themselves and not the majority community. That was blatantly unfair. Varun (like I feel myself) has given vent to it”. Such comments probably act as a whiff of oxygen to the BJP and the parivar, sustaining their illusion that they are basically on the right track and that the only obstacle is the constitutional arrangement which prevents India’s conversion into a theocracy.

The writer is a former Assistant Editor, The Statesman.