Dynasty Revival ... But Can The Gandhis Deliver?
A decisive win for the BJP may have seemed a sure thing, writes Nick Meo in Delhi, but at grassroots, change was on the cards.
Back in January when the general election was called, there was no real doubt Atal Bihari Vajpayee would return in triumph to steer a booming India towards superpower status.
The poet prime minister was a highly respected elder statesman desperate to secure his place in the history books by reaching a peace deal with Pakistan, and had weaned his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from its extremist past to a modern future, with its role as the natural party of government about to be confirmed at the polls.
The young BJP hotshots were confident they could sell the new moderate, middle-class image, and Vajpayee called the election six months earlier than necessary to take advantage of the excitement over new call centres, stock- market confidence and bullish economic indicators.
The BJP was bursting with optimism and spoiling for a fight. In the Congress Party camp, optimism was in short supply, along with attractive policies, high-profile candidates and campaign funds.
Since Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991, the party that had ruled India for 44 of the years since independence in 1947 had been a shadow of its former self – stuck in the past and wedded to failed statist economic policies in contrast with the BJP’s record of economic privatisation.
Congress was led by Sonia Gandhi – and nobody was even sure she wanted to be there. She was shy and uninspiring, and Vajpayee’s strategists were confident they had nothing to fear in the personality contest.
The BJP kicked off in storming style, using an arsenal of tricks never seen before in Indian politics: text messages, personalised negative campaigning, and the now-notorious India Shining campaign.
TV viewers and magazine readers were treated to images of smiling old men in turbans on mobile phones and happy families cramming into their new cars. The ad men loved it.
The English-language newspapers and commentators on India’s new satellite channels got carried away with excitement and predicted victory was in the bag for the BJP.
Congress seemed to be staring into the abyss. A poor result was predicted, and the pundits wondered whether the party’s grumbling ranks would then fragment.
But although the editorial lines were firmly behind the BJP, some of India’s political hacks grumbled privately that the establishment was getting it all wrong.
“Where is India shining?” asked one veteran newspaperman at a New Delhi cocktail party just after the starter’s whistle had blown.
“Here in the political bubble everyone may be under the BJP’s spell, but when you get out of town you can sense the unhappiness. Jobs are a big issue and the BJP isn’t talking about that.”
But the BJP’s young political warriors were dazzled by their new communications tools and carried away by their own hype.
At the party’s grassroots it was a different picture. The formidable campaign machine which relied on cadres from Hindu extremist organisations, some of them very dubious, was not turning out. These people didn’t like the moderate message, and they didn’t like Vajpayee’s attempts to woo Muslims, key voters in around 130 of the 545 national constituencies. The big city papers weren’t noticing, but the disillusioned core BJP support was staying at home.
Congress, meanwhile, lumbered into battle in its traditional chaotic style. Neither party was inspiring the voters much. After nearly 60 years of elections, Indians approach their political process with a strange mix of cynicism and hope, despairing of criminal candidates, caste-based vote banks, and rampant corruption, but still believing in the power of the ballot box.
Despite all its faults and the incredible size and complexity of the process – 650 million are eligible to vote for a bewildering array of parties alongside the big two – somehow India delivers a democracy that works.
But it wasn’t looking like that during a campaign universally considered dull. After weeks of sparring, battle commenced. And the nation hardly noticed.
The long campaign, with no great policy differences between the parties, was a localised affair, thousands of small battles fought out in towns and villages across India on local issues by local personalities. Nationally, nothing much happened. There were no real issues and few incidents for political reporters to get their teeth into.
A tragedy in the prime minister’s constituency where women voters were crushed to death in a stampede to get free saris, a horribly symbolic insight into both election corruption and the reality behind the India Shining façade, was almost the only big story.
Otherwise, it had all been seen before. Indian news-papers were full of cartoons showing candidates landing in helicopters and dusting off the same promises they made five years ago.
Even when the three-week rolling vote started, the foreign correspondents desperate for stories grumbled and wrote about ballot boxes being delivered by elephant or Bollywood stars running for office.
The only time it got really exciting was when Gandhi’s children, Rahul and Priyanka, entered the fray. But quietly, away from the media glare, something profound was happening in India’s villages and slums that the political and media elite were completely missing. They still have not understood it fully and they may never do.
Too late, the BJP started to realise they had a problem. Then TV exit polls detected a major swing against them. Party strategists weren’t too worried. There were potential new coalition partners among the regional parties and the BJP’s fixers would sort things out. But on Thursday, as national results came through rapidly thanks to the new electronic voting system, the BJP’s dreams suffered a quick and traumatic death.
By midday, BJP men who had strutted their way through the campaign were struggling to understand what had gone wrong in front of live TV cameras.
The impossible had happened – Sonia Gandhi was emerging as prime minister.
Her success, backed by communists who are lukewarm at best about economic reforms, has depressed many middle-class Indians.
“That woman will be a disaster,” said Delhi BJP supporter Ravi Sharma. “Just as everything was starting to go well with India after years of backwardness, she’s going to drag us back into the past.”
Although the upset was blamed on the angry poor, an anti-incumbency mood which Indian voters have shown before seems to have been at work. For Congress‚ victory has not been greeted with great popular enthusiasm – a political earthquake it may have been, but nobody expects massive change.
The BJP, meanwhile, faces a massive setback. Vajpayee is a decent man with a good record, but the rejection must be bitter and his political career looks finished. Without Vajpayee the BJP’s right-wing coalition could fragment.
Already fears are growing of a grassroots push for a return to Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), although that movement’s time has probably passed with the electorate.
The new prime minister, meanwhile, has a lot of promises to keep. The Indian voter who put her there, in his slum or village, can enjoy quiet satisfaction at putting his old masters out; and hope the new ones will provide him with the clean water, electricity and job he has waited for since 1947.
Nick Meo
Article republished, courtesy of the Sunday Herald http://www.sundayherald.com
Please also see:
After India's Election, the Unspoken B Word
By J. Sri Raman
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/051504D.shtml
Political earthquake in India
Hindu supremacist BJP falls from power
By Keith Jones
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/ind-m15.shtml
Concerns Rise Over Treatment of Indians in Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/051104F.shtml
A decisive win for the BJP may have seemed a sure thing, writes Nick Meo in Delhi, but at grassroots, change was on the cards.
Back in January when the general election was called, there was no real doubt Atal Bihari Vajpayee would return in triumph to steer a booming India towards superpower status.
The poet prime minister was a highly respected elder statesman desperate to secure his place in the history books by reaching a peace deal with Pakistan, and had weaned his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from its extremist past to a modern future, with its role as the natural party of government about to be confirmed at the polls.
The young BJP hotshots were confident they could sell the new moderate, middle-class image, and Vajpayee called the election six months earlier than necessary to take advantage of the excitement over new call centres, stock- market confidence and bullish economic indicators.
The BJP was bursting with optimism and spoiling for a fight. In the Congress Party camp, optimism was in short supply, along with attractive policies, high-profile candidates and campaign funds.
Since Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991, the party that had ruled India for 44 of the years since independence in 1947 had been a shadow of its former self – stuck in the past and wedded to failed statist economic policies in contrast with the BJP’s record of economic privatisation.
Congress was led by Sonia Gandhi – and nobody was even sure she wanted to be there. She was shy and uninspiring, and Vajpayee’s strategists were confident they had nothing to fear in the personality contest.
The BJP kicked off in storming style, using an arsenal of tricks never seen before in Indian politics: text messages, personalised negative campaigning, and the now-notorious India Shining campaign.
TV viewers and magazine readers were treated to images of smiling old men in turbans on mobile phones and happy families cramming into their new cars. The ad men loved it.
The English-language newspapers and commentators on India’s new satellite channels got carried away with excitement and predicted victory was in the bag for the BJP.
Congress seemed to be staring into the abyss. A poor result was predicted, and the pundits wondered whether the party’s grumbling ranks would then fragment.
But although the editorial lines were firmly behind the BJP, some of India’s political hacks grumbled privately that the establishment was getting it all wrong.
“Where is India shining?” asked one veteran newspaperman at a New Delhi cocktail party just after the starter’s whistle had blown.
“Here in the political bubble everyone may be under the BJP’s spell, but when you get out of town you can sense the unhappiness. Jobs are a big issue and the BJP isn’t talking about that.”
But the BJP’s young political warriors were dazzled by their new communications tools and carried away by their own hype.
At the party’s grassroots it was a different picture. The formidable campaign machine which relied on cadres from Hindu extremist organisations, some of them very dubious, was not turning out. These people didn’t like the moderate message, and they didn’t like Vajpayee’s attempts to woo Muslims, key voters in around 130 of the 545 national constituencies. The big city papers weren’t noticing, but the disillusioned core BJP support was staying at home.
Congress, meanwhile, lumbered into battle in its traditional chaotic style. Neither party was inspiring the voters much. After nearly 60 years of elections, Indians approach their political process with a strange mix of cynicism and hope, despairing of criminal candidates, caste-based vote banks, and rampant corruption, but still believing in the power of the ballot box.
Despite all its faults and the incredible size and complexity of the process – 650 million are eligible to vote for a bewildering array of parties alongside the big two – somehow India delivers a democracy that works.
But it wasn’t looking like that during a campaign universally considered dull. After weeks of sparring, battle commenced. And the nation hardly noticed.
The long campaign, with no great policy differences between the parties, was a localised affair, thousands of small battles fought out in towns and villages across India on local issues by local personalities. Nationally, nothing much happened. There were no real issues and few incidents for political reporters to get their teeth into.
A tragedy in the prime minister’s constituency where women voters were crushed to death in a stampede to get free saris, a horribly symbolic insight into both election corruption and the reality behind the India Shining façade, was almost the only big story.
Otherwise, it had all been seen before. Indian news-papers were full of cartoons showing candidates landing in helicopters and dusting off the same promises they made five years ago.
Even when the three-week rolling vote started, the foreign correspondents desperate for stories grumbled and wrote about ballot boxes being delivered by elephant or Bollywood stars running for office.
The only time it got really exciting was when Gandhi’s children, Rahul and Priyanka, entered the fray. But quietly, away from the media glare, something profound was happening in India’s villages and slums that the political and media elite were completely missing. They still have not understood it fully and they may never do.
Too late, the BJP started to realise they had a problem. Then TV exit polls detected a major swing against them. Party strategists weren’t too worried. There were potential new coalition partners among the regional parties and the BJP’s fixers would sort things out. But on Thursday, as national results came through rapidly thanks to the new electronic voting system, the BJP’s dreams suffered a quick and traumatic death.
By midday, BJP men who had strutted their way through the campaign were struggling to understand what had gone wrong in front of live TV cameras.
The impossible had happened – Sonia Gandhi was emerging as prime minister.
Her success, backed by communists who are lukewarm at best about economic reforms, has depressed many middle-class Indians.
“That woman will be a disaster,” said Delhi BJP supporter Ravi Sharma. “Just as everything was starting to go well with India after years of backwardness, she’s going to drag us back into the past.”
Although the upset was blamed on the angry poor, an anti-incumbency mood which Indian voters have shown before seems to have been at work. For Congress‚ victory has not been greeted with great popular enthusiasm – a political earthquake it may have been, but nobody expects massive change.
The BJP, meanwhile, faces a massive setback. Vajpayee is a decent man with a good record, but the rejection must be bitter and his political career looks finished. Without Vajpayee the BJP’s right-wing coalition could fragment.
Already fears are growing of a grassroots push for a return to Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), although that movement’s time has probably passed with the electorate.
The new prime minister, meanwhile, has a lot of promises to keep. The Indian voter who put her there, in his slum or village, can enjoy quiet satisfaction at putting his old masters out; and hope the new ones will provide him with the clean water, electricity and job he has waited for since 1947.
Nick Meo
Article republished, courtesy of the Sunday Herald http://www.sundayherald.com
Please also see:
After India's Election, the Unspoken B Word
By J. Sri Raman
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/051504D.shtml
Political earthquake in India
Hindu supremacist BJP falls from power
By Keith Jones
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/ind-m15.shtml
Concerns Rise Over Treatment of Indians in Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/051104F.shtml