I have no option but to start this
piece with a disclaimer that, the author has no affiliations to any political
party whatsoever, and is writing this piece in curious pursuit of the case for
a quasi presidential election in India. And why I emphasize upon this
disclaimer, will increasingly become clear as we move further into this piece.
So what is the 2014 general election all about…..an answer simple enough will
be Narendra Modi v/s Rahul Gandhi, an icon of development v/s the icon of the
youth. When was such an election fought the last time; who among our previous
Prime Ministers were either icon of governance and/or icon of the youth. Some
interesting and non-obvious names do come to my mind; I K Gujral, HD Devegowda,
Chandrasekhar, V P Singh, P V Narasimha Rao, etc. If you add the Gandhis and
Shastri and Vajpayee to the list, still no one would qualify. So the question
remains, what is special about these two gentlemen and/or what is special about
the 2014 general elections. As Swapan Dasgupta (a senior Indian journalist)
says, this is going to be a landmark election (1977 elections after emergency
was one landmark election when the historical trends went for a toss and the
post independence rule of the Congress came to an end) and all facts of historical
significance will be rendered useless. And Narendra Modi is going to be the man
to watch out for in these landmark elections.
Let us understand the how of this
phenomenon. This election is supposed to be different from all post independent
elections so far, in a manner that, this is not to be a contest between two largest
political parties, rather, it is to be a contest between the two leaders of
these political parties. Parallel can be drawn to the Presidential elections of
the United States, wherein the elections are fought between the Presidential
candidates of the Republicans and the Democrats. A careful observation will
also bring out several other parallels with the United States, such as the campaign by non-political
actors(Ajay Devgan and Salman Khan sharing public space with Narendra Modi),
invitation for a public debate from Narendra Modi, record use of Social Media
for campaigning, reaching out to different voter segments through specific
channels (chai pe charcha and addressing students in University auditoriums)
and an over emphasis on the Modi v/s Rahul contest consistently through a
variety of communication. I am not a Narendra Modi antagonist, but
I do have a view point against this serious effort to Americanize the Indian
political process.
Officially, some 300 odd crores have
gone into this effort. To begin with, let us try and analyze the net effect of
such a magnanimous effort. Of all things that were taught to me in the school,
one thing that I retain the most is that, in India lies unity in diversity. Not
to say that the entire country will unify to elect one individual to fight the
perils of the society. Rather, the entire country will unify to acknowledge the
problems facing the society (corruption, governance, development, etc.), and
will respond in their unique ways to the same. These unique ways may include
the Jayalalithas, the Mamatas, the Mayawatis, the Mulayams, the Naveen Patnaiks
and so on. Needless to say that the fabric of this country is too diverse to be
stitched in a saffron thread only.
This effort is primarily targeted to
capture the collective conscious of the country. But the truth remains that,
there is indeed no such collective conscious. Unlike the United States, the
Indian society is rather a collection of many such collective conscious. Hence,
it becomes very difficult for any single leader, issue or incident to have an
appeal of the magnitude Mr Modi is trying to achieve. Even the issue of
Pakistan looses steam to the south of Maharastra and similarly, Mumbai terror
attack looses steam to the east of Madhya Pradesh. And I am sure Narendra Modi is
historically much less a turning point than many others.
A classical antidote to this
phenomenon exists in this election itself. The Aam Aadmi Party which created its anti-establishment space by targeting the Congress in the Delhi elections, was
very quick to realize that there is no Congress any more. The AAP barrels are
now clearly pointing towards Narendra Modi, for they have realized that this is
the next so called establishment. AAP quickly realized that, what got them to
the Delhi assembly will not get them to the Parliament, for the country is
diverse in its problems, in its solutions, in its voters, in its lineage, etc. Even
the Congress did really well by not playing it to the hands of Narendra Modi.
They did not name the apparent heir as the heir, and decided to go into the
elections as the Congress party. Rahul Gandhi did ensure no individual attacks
on the Modi persona. But the BJP seems too rigid to amend strategies and is risking putting all
its eggs in the Modi basket.
Unlike few months ago, Rahul Gandhi's existence is far more questionable today, and Narendra Modi has lost his most
glorified opponent even before the elections. On the contrary, the situation is
something like this today – Narendra Modi v/s Nitish Kumar in Bihar, Narendra
Modi v/s Naveen Pattnaik in Orissa, Narendra Modi v/s Mamata Bannerjee in West
Bengal, Narendra Modi v/s Omar Abdullah in J&K, Narendra Modi v/s
Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu, etc. The situation is anything but a quasi
presidential election.
Most exit polls predict BJP to be
the single largest party after the elections, and the bookie favorite to form
the Government. And some of his opportunistic opponents (understandably so) might
also rally behind Narendra Modi to help him reach the magical 272 number. But
the truth remains that, the BJP would have been better off had it not focused all its energy on trying to manufacture a quasi presidential election in world’s
largest and most diverse democracy.
