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There are good reasons to doubt the fairness of electoral debates in the Indian context

I don’t know if you have been watching the British prime ministerial debates carried live on CNN and BBC World.

But if you have, then you’ve probably asked yourself the obvious question: why don’t we have something like this over

here?

 

   The prime ministerial debates in the UK are a recent innovation. They are not government sponsored or part of the election tradition. Rather they emerge out of a desire on the part of the main TV networks to cooperate and get the leaders of the three major parties to debate the issues.

 

   The inspiration comes from the US presidential debates which have been in existence for over half a century. But while the US debates have been criticised for being too show-bizzy or informal (remember the one where Barack Obama and John McCain wandered around the stage?) these were serious affairs with the three party leaders standing behind lecterns and discussing the issues.

 

   The first thing that struck me while watching these debates was the extent to which British politics is about issues. The party leaders discussed immigration policy threadbare. They argued about the rights and wrongs of the bank bail-out.

 

   Secondly, economics played a much larger part than in any Indian election. The leaders were forced to explain how each of them would revive the economy. And each spending cut was discussed as was its social cost.

 

   I looked for all the well-advertised drawbacks of election debates. Did they emphasise style over substance? Well, to a certain extent, yes.

 

   The clear winner of the first debate was Nick Clegg, the young and personable leader of the Liberals, a party that has not come near power since the Second World War. That Clegg managed to beat Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Conservative leader David Cameron was at least partly due to the novelty factor and to the freshness he represented.

 

   But is this necessarily so different from the sort of thing that happens in India? One reason why Rahul Gandhi comes off so well is because he is relatively young, personable and fresh. My guess is that the novelty value works in the politics of every democratic country, whether or not there is a televised debate.

 

   On the other hand, there is no doubt that one reason why Prime Minister Gordon Brown has fared so badly in opinion polls conducted after each debate is because he is a strange, awkward man, who lacks the tele-visual appeal of Clegg and Cameron. There is no doubt that Brown is the brightest of the three debaters. Moreover, he is also the best-informed of the trio. During the third debate, he seemed to know more about the Conservative and Liberal manifestoes that either Cameron or Clegg.

 

   But debates do not necessarily show off a ponderous intelligence to best advantage. A charismatic fellow who shoots from the hip usually comes off better than the chap who sticks to deep, well-reasoned responses.

 

   My guess is that even though there is a certain superficiality and bias built into the televised debate format, it is still a useful way of allowing the candidates to tell us what their views are.

 

   Why then, are Indian elections so different?

 

   Partly, it is because our elections are rarely about issues. I am not sure that the Congress and the BJP differed very substantially on economic issues at the last election but we never had a chance to find out. Leaders were hardly ever quizzed about the economy or given an opportunity to tell us what their policies were.

 

"I do not pretend that such debates would be as comprehensive or fair as their counterparts in the UK and the US – the diversity of India makes an exact parallel impossible."

   Indian elections tend to focus too much on the politics of identity (caste, religion, etc.) and far too little on the things that will actually matter once the victorious party is in government.

 

   Let’s take the two issues that seem to have defined the two UPA governments. UPA One was really about the nuclear deal. Yet, at no time during the campaign that led to the first Congress victory was there any suggestion that the party considered the improvement of relations with America to be its major priority.

 

   You could argue that Manmohan Singh had not been anointed the party’s prime ministerial candidate during that campaign and that, therefore, he was unable to effectively communicate what his priorities would be. But what about UPA Two? It is rapidly becoming clear that the Prime Minister’s biggest priority is the improvement of relations with Pakistan. You may or may not agree that this is the correct ordering of priorities. But what is undeniable is that Manmohan Singh never told us during the campaign that peace with Pakistan would be the theme of his second spell at Race Course Road.

 

   Would things have been different if the Prime Minister had participated in a series of debates before the election?

 

   I think they would. When a politician spends an hour in the spotlight, being forced to debate his own views and priorities, then such is the tension that the mask of artifice falls away and the real man stands exposed. I believe that we would have learnt much more about Manmohan Singh and understood how his mind worked much more fully if he had participated in an election debate.

 

   So, why doesn’t it happen here? Partly, it is because there are good reasons to doubt the fairness of such a debate in the Indian context. In the US, there are only two major parties. In the UK, there are only three. But what constitutes a major party in the Indian context? Once you’ve got past the Congress and the BJP, who do you include? Do you agree to feature the BSP and the SP because they both have large numbers (thanks mainly to the size of UP) in Parliament? What about the DMK? It is not a national party but who is to say that it could not throw up a Prime Minister in a coalition government.

 

   And what about the Left? So far the CPM has refused to join any central government. But Jyoti Basu very nearly became Prime Minister twice between 1996 and 1999. Do you include the Left in any debate?

 

   Left to myself, I would restrict the debates to the BJP and the Congress at the national level. At the state level, I would ask the leading regional parties to debate each other. So it would be Trinamool vs the Left in Bengal, the DMK vs the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and so on.

 

   I do not pretend that such debates would be as comprehensive or fair as their counterparts in the UK and the US – the diversity of India makes an exact parallel impossible. On the other hand, even limited debates would be far better than the situation that prevails today.

 

   But of course it won’t happen. Manmohan Singh has not given a single full-length interview to any Indian publication or TV channel ever since he became Prime Minister. Do you really believe that he will agree to debate Sushma Swaraj on TV?

 

   After all, why should Indian politicians agree to debate the issues when confusion suits them so much better?


 

CommentsComments

  • Raj 12 May 2010

    >> Vishrant: human mind has two hemispheres

    well, it's the brain actually, not mind, that has (two) hemispheres...

    btw, your wise man vs funny man comments are nice...

  • vishrant 05 May 2010

    we indians are born learners

    imagine two scenarios

    in one - i prefer the company of people who can say funny things
    in another - i prefer the company of people who can say wise things

    and both these instances say something about me

    in first all i am intrested in - is entertainment
    in second - i am eager to gather wisdom

    what i am talking about here is the difference
    between oprah winfrey and david 'litter'man or even tina fey (i love 30 rock, but not for its pearls of wisdom)

  • vishrant 05 May 2010

    in america if you say funny things, you will be considered insightful

    in india
    to say funny thing only makes you a jester

    to be considered wise
    you need to say wise things

    a wise man can say funny things (atal bihari vajpayee)
    but
    a funny man can not say wise things ( johny lever)

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