Assembly
elections are upon us. Universal
suffrage is one of the great gifts of our constitution and the elections are
our opportunity for making a choice; if we do not make a correct choice then we
would have to suffer the consequences of the ineptness of our choice. So we must choose wisely! We have been fed on this diet for so long
that I have come to believe that this bit of wisdom has welled up from within
me; it is immanent, self-evident and without the need of proof. But I am wondering whether voting is a
privilege or a punishment?
My
diffidence stems from a variety of reasons.
To start with, the high power but subtle canvassing by the media, by way
of surveys and opinion polls, has already narrowed the choice of acceptable
alternatives to the two major political alliances. The oracular wisdom is that the third front
is a mishmash coalition of non-serious contenders, which in some situations
will act like red herrings.
This time
round the daggers are out in the open. Votes
are being boldly solicited, even by reasonable men, in the name of caste or
religion. According to the current ethic,
members of the same caste must share the same electoral preference. I belong to a marginal constituency of
voters; my caste men are thinly spread all over the state, not concentrated in
any place to make us count. My
individual vote is of no consequence. Where
does that leave people like us? Maybe
the Election Commission will designate a separate category for sundries. Or would it transfer my name to a constituency
where one of my caste men is seeking election?
Or shall I be disenfranchised by default?
The fact
that I am thoroughly confused as to the character and worth of the leadership
of the two competing groups is another cause for my reluctance. Like it happens in a wife-swapping community,
each one of our leaders has slept with the other. At one time or the other they have been
allies and have now split. Only the
other day the current alliance partners had draped each other in a set of
threadbare attributions - calling each other thugs, frauds, backstabbers,
communal - and now they are recommending each other as leaders full of
political virtue who would take Bihar out of the valley of tears. Reminded of their earlier opinions, equally
copious volumes of contradictions, refutations rebuttals, and revision of
opinions are offered. Were they lying
yesterday or are they being truthful today?
What irreconcilable difference kept them implacably hostile for decades
and if they have come together what was the factor for this moistening of the
soul? Sheer opportunism kept them glued
together and vaulting ambition made them part company. The voters of Bihar were not even distantly
on their agenda. Given their long
history of association, betrayal, homecoming there is no reason to trust them
now. I am not sure that those whom I
choose will not end up on the other side.
There are
other weightier reasons: even though they offer themselves as alternatives to
each other both the alliances hew in to the same logic of power; even though
they claim to be as different from each other, their agendas seem to be
informed of the same concerns. We look
for political manifestos that chart routes to a better and more prosperous
future but both the alliances are by habit preoccupied with the past. They both present a vision of an alternative
social order; a social order in which full reparation has been made for the
iniquities and injustices suffered in historical times. In the popular debate it has been termed as
Mandal Vs Kamandal.
For the
Grand Alliance, reservation of jobs in government services - with plans to
extend it to private enterprise - by the affirmative action of reservation is
the essence of social justice. Since reservation
is an open ended scheme with no time-frame or cap, there are fears in some
quarters that in the end it will put in place another system of privileges and
exclusion. Unborn generations of certain
social groups come to this world in debt to the disadvantaged groups; they must
pay for the putative sins of their ancestors.
In the new jurisprudence, one can be punished not for what you have done
but for who you are. This poses huge
difficulties for the system: because there must be an affective nexus between
guilt and punishment. But under the pressure
of the majority the system is forced to violate its own rule; when reminded of
the premise or the promise of the constitution it refuses to enter into a
debate. The much reviled pre-modern
Manuvadi system can now be achieved by parliamentary and democratic processes. Hardik Patel’s agitation for wholly
unfeasible demands, which are impossible to meet, flows from the irrefutable
logic that those with sufficient numbers and political clout can get
reservation. The complexity of the
politics of reservation must be evident to all but immediate gains are what
matters; the devil can take the hindmost.
The
Kamandal brigade claims to be both the self-appointed guardian of the interest
of all the Hindus as well as the custodian of their racial memory. It cites the same rationale of the
reconciliation of a large generalized grievance of victimisation in historical
times at the hands of the foreign Muslim invaders. Their task is equally open ended, loosely
defined and amorphous but there is no doubt that the aims are reactionary,
retrograde, and revanchist. Political
theologian of social justice and philosophers of Hindutva when in power apply
the same criteria for determining “who
does and who does not belong to a given civic community. ”
Facts of
biology become the determinant for entitlement.
We have not yet forgotten the militaristic slogan BHURA BAL SAF KARO
(Bhu – Bhumihar, Ra- Rajput, Ba- Brahmin, L- Lala, and Kayasth) that emerged as
an agendum in an earlier regime, and was voiced quite openly in speeches and
street rallies. A crazy idea that police
should withdraw to let the Hindus wreak their vengeance was allegedly
articulated and practiced in Gujarat. I
am sure it must have equally shaken those at the receiving end of it. Both the BHURA BAL and Gujarat have become
part of our sense of time and place. Disagreement
should not invite peril in a democracy. Fear
is the characteristic of totalitarian regimes.
So whichever way I vote it will be for an essentially pre-modern,
sectarian regime capable of inducing fear of persecution and discrimination in
a sizeable section of my fellow citizens.
Whoever comes will be fighting yesterday’s wars today, and our todays will
have become yesterdays for nothing.
The reasons
for disenchantment are many more. The
electoral arena is crowded with the heirs of political dynasties who bring
nothing to the table except that they are the sons of their fathers. Exempt from the compulsion of earning a
living, they roll in unbelievable luxury and bide their time to stake claims
for a slice of the cake of political
power. Chances are that many of them
will be elected, and we would have helped the creation of a new aristocracy, a
new feudal class. Again the irony of the
situation is that the new feudalism will draw its sustenance from the
democratic processes that we cherish so much and the results are achieved with
remarkable economy of effort. There are
no violent upheavals; the electoral mechanism, the jewel in the crown of
parliamentary state form is retained and the facade of our precious democratic
form is maintained in all particulars. It
is our version of the “velvet revolution” with retrograde and reactionary aims.
Power is
tested on the touchstone of legitimacy and in a democracy it is the electoral
fray where the claims of legitimacy are interrogated, denied or granted. The Midas touch of the people’s mandate has
become the ultimate test of political virtue.
Every election ritually consecrates history sheeters of yore, murderers,
kidnappers, thugs, extortionists as our leaders.
This
election is no different. No wonder
political discourse is conducted in the lingo of street brawls- maa ka doodh piya hai, chaati phad denge etc. In fact one our venerable leaders openly
threatened a serving CM on prime time TV.
What could be more tragic, farcical or absurd that the fight within the
terrain of national politics is now confined to a ridiculously tiny number of
jobs that are available with the government, or renaming of roads and alleys?
Meanwhile,
in Bihar, development issues are left to the ingenuity of the statistics
department and captive intellectuals of government funded think tanks who tote
up figures indicating a meteoric rise of the state in every sphere, but urgent
problems of poverty, insanitation, education, health care, and the catastrophic
erosion of democratic infrastructure stare us in the face every day.
On my table
diary 28th October the D-Day, the date for polling in Patna, is
marked in admonitory red, but with every passing day I feel less and less sure
of my ability to choose rightly.
