Each time India votes, analysts marvel how its predominantly poor voters, an embarrassingly large number of whom are illiterate, make up their minds. With its history of sectarian strife and regional disparities, it seems a miracle to many that such a multi-everything country has a unified view about how it should be governed for the next five years.
And yet it happens, each time. Before the elections, the odds of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance returning to power seemed slim. In recent years, India lost more lives to terror attacks than any other country except Iraq, a fact largely unacknowledged in the global conversation about terrorism. The attacks on Mumbai in Nov. 26 last year are still fresh. Its economy was expected to slow to a growth rate of 6%, down from 9%, only partly due to the global slowdown - some of it was because of its own sluggish bureaucracy. And disenchantment with the two alliances – UPA on one hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance on the other – was pointing towards a fractured verdict, in which nobody would gain a majority. And regional leaders thought if they could amass 30-40 Members of Parliament, they could end up being the Prime Minister, however briefly. Many nurtured illusions of grandeur. Markets were underwhelmed. The Communists, who had enjoyed four years of power without responsibility, were also flexing their muscles.
In the end, none of that happened. In a polity where no single party has won the majority since 1984 (when the Congress, under Rajiv Gandhi, swept to an unprecedented majority after Indira Gandhi’s assassination), the shy, soft-spoken, innately decent and modest economist, Manmohan Singh, defied history. He became the first prime minister since 1961 to return to power after completing a full term.
What happened? Analyzing the decisions of some 700 million voters is not for the faint-hearted: All generalizations about India are wrong, because the opposite is also true. And yet there is a common pattern, a recurrent thread, which is this: in the end, Indian voters settle for the middle path. They abhor extremes. To paraphrase what V.S. Naipaul wrote in another context, Indians find their center. That center can be boring, predictable, and dull; but in a country where people must be prepared for all sorts of uncertainties (and then blame the adversities on karma) stability provides assurance. But this is not the kind of stability Indonesia's Golkar, or Malaysia's UMNO, or Singapore's People's Action Party, champion: ruling parties have often lost elections in India. Indians prefer the stability where MPs do not steer the country too far from its central ethos.
And that ethos is synthesis. Indians like to absorb differences, and shun extremes. This may seem counter-intuitive: The controversial chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, keeps getting re-elected in Gujarat (as is the Left, in West Bengal) and this time too he has ensured the BJP retained its hold in his state, which in 2002 witnessed some of the worst religious rioting in India since Independence. Nearly 1,000 people died then, two-thirds of them Muslims. Mr Modi, who has won praise from the business community for his administrative competence, was singularly inept in controlling those riots – indeed, a special investigations team is examining his possible complicity in those riots. And yet, he continued to win big in Gujarat. His supporters even promoted him as a potential prime ministerial candidate half-way through the current campaign, casting doubts about the leadership of their standard-bearer, Lal Krishna Advani.
And yet, despite Mr. Modi campaigning for the Hindu nationalist cause in many parts of the country, he failed to sway voters outside his state. Another candidate – Varun Feroze Gandhi, the estranged cousin of Rahul Gandhi – incited crowds with an inflammatory speech against Muslims. He won in his constituency, but he made many Indians who were unhappy with the Congress recoil, and lost more votes for the BJP all over India. It seems the BJP didn’t learn its lesson of 2004, when it won big in Gujarat, but its stalwarts who had adopted a more fundamentalist Hindu stance all lost. Mr. Modi strutted around like a comissar; the unflappable Dr. Singh was the calm Yogi. This is a point not lost on Sharad Yadav, the national convenor of the NDA, who believes BJP's hardline Hindu agenda and Mr. Modi's campaigning hurt the NDA elsewhere in India.
The leftist parties fared no better. After record gains in 2004 which brought the Communists within striking distance of power – and the opportunity to shape the national agenda – they squandered it by derailing India’s economic liberalization. They curbed further deregulation, opposed moves to make labor market more flexible, and prevented privatization. At the same time, with characteristic hypocrisy, in the states the Left ruled – West Bengal and Kerala – they wooed foreign investment, and when local interests opposed, used tactics borrowed from Beijing’s textbook - brute force - to try to contain protests. The Left’s unprincipled opposition to laws clearly in Indian interests – including the nuclear deal with the United States – didn’t go unnoticed. The Left has survived, but is a shrunken image of itself.
And so it was with the leaders of the so-called Third Front – an alliance so flexible, nobody knew who the partners of such a coalition would be, if it came close to power. Various leaders projected themselves as potential Prime Ministers, including Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, who seemed to think that being a dalit and a woman automatically made her India’s equivalent of a revolutionary candidate, like Barack Obama in the United States.
Indian voters are much misunderstood, but usually wise – they saw through this. They were appalled by the Left’s double standards, bemused by the ambition of the Third Front, and dismayed by the anti-minority rhetoric of the BJP. And they found their center. Which is the Congress, despite all its flaws - obsession with dynasties, its record of socialism which kept India poor, its interpretation of secularism which is at odds with its European meaning, and some leaders who have yet to account for complicity in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984.
But the Congress has been tried and tested, like that Ambassador car: ungainly, but it works on India’s tough roads. Its driver, Dr. Singh, may listen too much to the passengers in the back seat, but he has negotiated tough roads before. He steered India through the abyss of 1991 when the car was almost running on empty. And, most important, he is a man of integrity.
And this time, he does not have to ask for directions from pedestrians on the Left. He can afford to floor it, because the car he is driving is probably no longer an Ambassador. And tomorrow is a different country.
Salil Tripathi is a free-lance writer based in London and a former correspondent of the REVIEW.
Comment:
Posted May 17, 2009
Each time India votes, analysts marvel how its predominantly poor voters, an embarrassingly large number of whom are illiterate, make up their minds. With its history of sectarian strife and regional disparities, it seems a miracle to many that such a multi-everything country has a unified view about how it should be governed for the next five years.
And yet it happens, each time. Before the elections, the odds of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance returning to power seemed slim. In recent years, India lost more lives to terror attacks than any other country except Iraq, a fact largely unacknowledged in the global conversation about terrorism. The attacks on Mumbai in Nov. 26 last year are still fresh. Its economy was expected to slow to a growth rate of 6%, down from 9%, only partly due to the global slowdown - some of it was because of its own sluggish bureaucracy. And disenchantment with the two alliances – UPA on one hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance on the other – was pointing towards a fractured verdict, in which nobody would gain a majority. And regional leaders thought if they could amass 30-40 Members of Parliament, they could end up being the Prime Minister, however briefly. Many nurtured illusions of grandeur. Markets were underwhelmed. The Communists, who had enjoyed four years of power without responsibility, were also flexing their muscles.
In the end, none of that happened. In a polity where no single party has won the majority since 1984 (when the Congress, under Rajiv Gandhi, swept to an unprecedented majority after Indira Gandhi’s assassination), the shy, soft-spoken, innately decent and modest economist, Manmohan Singh, defied history. He became the first prime minister since 1961 to return to power after completing a full term.
What happened? Analyzing the decisions of some 700 million voters is not for the faint-hearted: All generalizations about India are wrong, because the opposite is also true. And yet there is a common pattern, a recurrent thread, which is this: in the end, Indian voters settle for the middle path. They abhor extremes. To paraphrase what V.S. Naipaul wrote in another context, Indians find their center. That center can be boring, predictable, and dull; but in a country where people must be prepared for all sorts of uncertainties (and then blame the adversities on karma) stability provides assurance. But this is not the kind of stability Indonesia's Golkar, or Malaysia's UMNO, or Singapore's People's Action Party, champion: ruling parties have often lost elections in India. Indians prefer the stability where MPs do not steer the country too far from its central ethos.
And that ethos is synthesis. Indians like to absorb differences, and shun extremes. This may seem counter-intuitive: The controversial chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, keeps getting re-elected in Gujarat (as is the Left, in West Bengal) and this time too he has ensured the BJP retained its hold in his state, which in 2002 witnessed some of the worst religious rioting in India since Independence. Nearly 1,000 people died then, two-thirds of them Muslims. Mr Modi, who has won praise from the business community for his administrative competence, was singularly inept in controlling those riots – indeed, a special investigations team is examining his possible complicity in those riots. And yet, he continued to win big in Gujarat. His supporters even promoted him as a potential prime ministerial candidate half-way through the current campaign, casting doubts about the leadership of their standard-bearer, Lal Krishna Advani.
And yet, despite Mr. Modi campaigning for the Hindu nationalist cause in many parts of the country, he failed to sway voters outside his state. Another candidate – Varun Feroze Gandhi, the estranged cousin of Rahul Gandhi – incited crowds with an inflammatory speech against Muslims. He won in his constituency, but he made many Indians who were unhappy with the Congress recoil, and lost more votes for the BJP all over India. It seems the BJP didn’t learn its lesson of 2004, when it won big in Gujarat, but its stalwarts who had adopted a more fundamentalist Hindu stance all lost. Mr. Modi strutted around like a comissar; the unflappable Dr. Singh was the calm Yogi. This is a point not lost on Sharad Yadav, the national convenor of the NDA, who believes BJP's hardline Hindu agenda and Mr. Modi's campaigning hurt the NDA elsewhere in India.
The leftist parties fared no better. After record gains in 2004 which brought the Communists within striking distance of power – and the opportunity to shape the national agenda – they squandered it by derailing India’s economic liberalization. They curbed further deregulation, opposed moves to make labor market more flexible, and prevented privatization. At the same time, with characteristic hypocrisy, in the states the Left ruled – West Bengal and Kerala – they wooed foreign investment, and when local interests opposed, used tactics borrowed from Beijing’s textbook - brute force - to try to contain protests. The Left’s unprincipled opposition to laws clearly in Indian interests – including the nuclear deal with the United States – didn’t go unnoticed. The Left has survived, but is a shrunken image of itself.
And so it was with the leaders of the so-called Third Front – an alliance so flexible, nobody knew who the partners of such a coalition would be, if it came close to power. Various leaders projected themselves as potential Prime Ministers, including Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, who seemed to think that being a dalit and a woman automatically made her India’s equivalent of a revolutionary candidate, like Barack Obama in the United States.
Indian voters are much misunderstood, but usually wise – they saw through this. They were appalled by the Left’s double standards, bemused by the ambition of the Third Front, and dismayed by the anti-minority rhetoric of the BJP. And they found their center. Which is the Congress, despite all its flaws - obsession with dynasties, its record of socialism which kept India poor, its interpretation of secularism which is at odds with its European meaning, and some leaders who have yet to account for complicity in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984.
But the Congress has been tried and tested, like that Ambassador car: ungainly, but it works on India’s tough roads. Its driver, Dr. Singh, may listen too much to the passengers in the back seat, but he has negotiated tough roads before. He steered India through the abyss of 1991 when the car was almost running on empty. And, most important, he is a man of integrity.
And this time, he does not have to ask for directions from pedestrians on the Left. He can afford to floor it, because the car he is driving is probably no longer an Ambassador. And tomorrow is a different country.
Salil Tripathi is a free-lance writer based in London and a former correspondent of the REVIEW.
Comment:
Posted May 17, 2009
Each time India votes, analysts marvel how its predominantly poor voters, an embarrassingly large number of whom are illiterate, make up their minds. With its history of sectarian strife and regional disparities, it seems a miracle to many that such a multi-everything country has a unified view about how it should be governed for the next five years.
And yet it happens, each time. Before the elections, the odds of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance returning to power seemed slim. In recent years, India lost more lives to terror attacks than any other country except Iraq, a fact largely unacknowledged in the global conversation about terrorism. The attacks on Mumbai in Nov. 26 last year are still fresh. Its economy was expected to slow to a growth rate of 6%, down from 9%, only partly due to the global slowdown - some of it was because of its own sluggish bureaucracy. And disenchantment with the two alliances – UPA on one hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance on the other – was pointing towards a fractured verdict, in which nobody would gain a majority. And regional leaders thought if they could amass 30-40 Members of Parliament, they could end up being the Prime Minister, however briefly. Many nurtured illusions of grandeur. Markets were underwhelmed. The Communists, who had enjoyed four years of power without responsibility, were also flexing their muscles.
In the end, none of that happened. In a polity where no single party has won the majority since 1984 (when the Congress, under Rajiv Gandhi, swept to an unprecedented majority after Indira Gandhi’s assassination), the shy, soft-spoken, innately decent and modest economist, Manmohan Singh, defied history. He became the first prime minister since 1961 to return to power after completing a full term.
What happened? Analyzing the decisions of some 700 million voters is not for the faint-hearted: All generalizations about India are wrong, because the opposite is also true. And yet there is a common pattern, a recurrent thread, which is this: in the end, Indian voters settle for the middle path. They abhor extremes. To paraphrase what V.S. Naipaul wrote in another context, Indians find their center. That center can be boring, predictable, and dull; but in a country where people must be prepared for all sorts of uncertainties (and then blame the adversities on karma) stability provides assurance. But this is not the kind of stability Indonesia's Golkar, or Malaysia's UMNO, or Singapore's People's Action Party, champion: ruling parties have often lost elections in India. Indians prefer the stability where MPs do not steer the country too far from its central ethos.
And that ethos is synthesis. Indians like to absorb differences, and shun extremes. This may seem counter-intuitive: The controversial chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, keeps getting re-elected in Gujarat (as is the Left, in West Bengal) and this time too he has ensured the BJP retained its hold in his state, which in 2002 witnessed some of the worst religious rioting in India since Independence. Nearly 1,000 people died then, two-thirds of them Muslims. Mr Modi, who has won praise from the business community for his administrative competence, was singularly inept in controlling those riots – indeed, a special investigations team is examining his possible complicity in those riots. And yet, he continued to win big in Gujarat. His supporters even promoted him as a potential prime ministerial candidate half-way through the current campaign, casting doubts about the leadership of their standard-bearer, Lal Krishna Advani.
And yet, despite Mr. Modi campaigning for the Hindu nationalist cause in many parts of the country, he failed to sway voters outside his state. Another candidate – Varun Feroze Gandhi, the estranged cousin of Rahul Gandhi – incited crowds with an inflammatory speech against Muslims. He won in his constituency, but he made many Indians who were unhappy with the Congress recoil, and lost more votes for the BJP all over India. It seems the BJP didn’t learn its lesson of 2004, when it won big in Gujarat, but its stalwarts who had adopted a more fundamentalist Hindu stance all lost. Mr. Modi strutted around like a comissar; the unflappable Dr. Singh was the calm Yogi. This is a point not lost on Sharad Yadav, the national convenor of the NDA, who believes BJP's hardline Hindu agenda and Mr. Modi's campaigning hurt the NDA elsewhere in India.
The leftist parties fared no better. After record gains in 2004 which brought the Communists within striking distance of power – and the opportunity to shape the national agenda – they squandered it by derailing India’s economic liberalization. They curbed further deregulation, opposed moves to make labor market more flexible, and prevented privatization. At the same time, with characteristic hypocrisy, in the states the Left ruled – West Bengal and Kerala – they wooed foreign investment, and when local interests opposed, used tactics borrowed from Beijing’s textbook - brute force - to try to contain protests. The Left’s unprincipled opposition to laws clearly in Indian interests – including the nuclear deal with the United States – didn’t go unnoticed. The Left has survived, but is a shrunken image of itself.
And so it was with the leaders of the so-called Third Front – an alliance so flexible, nobody knew who the partners of such a coalition would be, if it came close to power. Various leaders projected themselves as potential Prime Ministers, including Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, who seemed to think that being a dalit and a woman automatically made her India’s equivalent of a revolutionary candidate, like Barack Obama in the United States.
Indian voters are much misunderstood, but usually wise – they saw through this. They were appalled by the Left’s double standards, bemused by the ambition of the Third Front, and dismayed by the anti-minority rhetoric of the BJP. And they found their center. Which is the Congress, despite all its flaws - obsession with dynasties, its record of socialism which kept India poor, its interpretation of secularism which is at odds with its European meaning, and some leaders who have yet to account for complicity in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984.
But the Congress has been tried and tested, like that Ambassador car: ungainly, but it works on India’s tough roads. Its driver, Dr. Singh, may listen too much to the passengers in the back seat, but he has negotiated tough roads before. He steered India through the abyss of 1991 when the car was almost running on empty. And, most important, he is a man of integrity.
And this time, he does not have to ask for directions from pedestrians on the Left. He can afford to floor it, because the car he is driving is probably no longer an Ambassador. And tomorrow is a different country.
Salil Tripathi is a free-lance writer based in London and a former correspondent of the REVIEW.
Comment:
Posted May 17, 2009
Each time India votes, analysts marvel how its predominantly poor voters, an embarrassingly large number of whom are illiterate, make up their minds. With its history of sectarian strife and regional disparities, it seems a miracle to many that such a multi-everything country has a unified view about how it should be governed for the next five years.
And yet it happens, each time. Before the elections, the odds of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance returning to power seemed slim. In recent years, India lost more lives to terror attacks than any other country except Iraq, a fact largely unacknowledged in the global conversation about terrorism. The attacks on Mumbai in Nov. 26 last year are still fresh. Its economy was expected to slow to a growth rate of 6%, down from 9%, only partly due to the global slowdown - some of it was because of its own sluggish bureaucracy. And disenchantment with the two alliances – UPA on one hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance on the other – was pointing towards a fractured verdict, in which nobody would gain a majority. And regional leaders thought if they could amass 30-40 Members of Parliament, they could end up being the Prime Minister, however briefly. Many nurtured illusions of grandeur. Markets were underwhelmed. The Communists, who had enjoyed four years of power without responsibility, were also flexing their muscles.
In the end, none of that happened. In a polity where no single party has won the majority since 1984 (when the Congress, under Rajiv Gandhi, swept to an unprecedented majority after Indira Gandhi’s assassination), the shy, soft-spoken, innately decent and modest economist, Manmohan Singh, defied history. He became the first prime minister since 1961 to return to power after completing a full term.
What happened? Analyzing the decisions of some 700 million voters is not for the faint-hearted: All generalizations about India are wrong, because the opposite is also true. And yet there is a common pattern, a recurrent thread, which is this: in the end, Indian voters settle for the middle path. They abhor extremes. To paraphrase what V.S. Naipaul wrote in another context, Indians find their center. That center can be boring, predictable, and dull; but in a country where people must be prepared for all sorts of uncertainties (and then blame the adversities on karma) stability provides assurance. But this is not the kind of stability Indonesia's Golkar, or Malaysia's UMNO, or Singapore's People's Action Party, champion: ruling parties have often lost elections in India. Indians prefer the stability where MPs do not steer the country too far from its central ethos.
And that ethos is synthesis. Indians like to absorb differences, and shun extremes. This may seem counter-intuitive: The controversial chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, keeps getting re-elected in Gujarat (as is the Left, in West Bengal) and this time too he has ensured the BJP retained its hold in his state, which in 2002 witnessed some of the worst religious rioting in India since Independence. Nearly 1,000 people died then, two-thirds of them Muslims. Mr Modi, who has won praise from the business community for his administrative competence, was singularly inept in controlling those riots – indeed, a special investigations team is examining his possible complicity in those riots. And yet, he continued to win big in Gujarat. His supporters even promoted him as a potential prime ministerial candidate half-way through the current campaign, casting doubts about the leadership of their standard-bearer, Lal Krishna Advani.
And yet, despite Mr. Modi campaigning for the Hindu nationalist cause in many parts of the country, he failed to sway voters outside his state. Another candidate – Varun Feroze Gandhi, the estranged cousin of Rahul Gandhi – incited crowds with an inflammatory speech against Muslims. He won in his constituency, but he made many Indians who were unhappy with the Congress recoil, and lost more votes for the BJP all over India. It seems the BJP didn’t learn its lesson of 2004, when it won big in Gujarat, but its stalwarts who had adopted a more fundamentalist Hindu stance all lost. Mr. Modi strutted around like a comissar; the unflappable Dr. Singh was the calm Yogi. This is a point not lost on Sharad Yadav, the national convenor of the NDA, who believes BJP's hardline Hindu agenda and Mr. Modi's campaigning hurt the NDA elsewhere in India.
The leftist parties fared no better. After record gains in 2004 which brought the Communists within striking distance of power – and the opportunity to shape the national agenda – they squandered it by derailing India’s economic liberalization. They curbed further deregulation, opposed moves to make labor market more flexible, and prevented privatization. At the same time, with characteristic hypocrisy, in the states the Left ruled – West Bengal and Kerala – they wooed foreign investment, and when local interests opposed, used tactics borrowed from Beijing’s textbook - brute force - to try to contain protests. The Left’s unprincipled opposition to laws clearly in Indian interests – including the nuclear deal with the United States – didn’t go unnoticed. The Left has survived, but is a shrunken image of itself.
And so it was with the leaders of the so-called Third Front – an alliance so flexible, nobody knew who the partners of such a coalition would be, if it came close to power. Various leaders projected themselves as potential Prime Ministers, including Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, who seemed to think that being a dalit and a woman automatically made her India’s equivalent of a revolutionary candidate, like Barack Obama in the United States.
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