Keeping politics in the Phantom zone

Who do you think will win the next election: Veer Savarkar? Or will it be Indira Gandhi? And who will Dr Ambedkar support?

If you read that first paragraph and wondered what the hell was going on, then welcome to the mad, mad world of current Indian politics where politicians fight over the personalities and events of 50 or more years ago.

 

The general rule of Indian politics has now become: do not ever confront what is actually happening in the country at present.

 

   Has the economy slowed down with growth dropping to worrying levels? Well, say the politicians, so what if it has? Let’s talk about a medieval mosque instead.

 

   Is the Stock Market now so volatile that ordinary middle class citizens who had put their money into ‘safe investments’ like mutual funds are beginning to worry about the fate of their savings? Yes, well, maybe, say the politicians. But you know — and then comes the gobbledegook of “global factors “, “the attraction of China as an investment destination “, “re-allocation of portfolios by FIIs “— and so on. None of it offers much comfort to worried investors.

 

   Even worse than the wilful neglect on the economic side, is the refusal to govern. The mess on the political side is particularly striking. Manipur continues to burn. But nobody is willing to talk about it. Communal tensions rise with temples and mosques becoming the subjects of new disputes. Feelings run high about the government’s refusal to do anything to help persecuted Hindus in Bangladesh.

 

  All of this is rarely discussed and I often feel that not only do India’s politicians live in a bubble that insulates them from the real issues facing the country, they behave like members of the Phantom Zone in some sci-fi comic book. They exist in a parallel dimension of their own, dropping in on our reality only now and then, usually to do as much harm as they can.

 

   Which is why we are back to Savarkar and Indira Gandhi. When Rahul Gandhi got up in parliament to oppose what the BJP wants to do to the constitution he framed his arguments in terms of Savarkar. It was what we might call a clever-clever argument. Savarkar had said that there was nothing Indian about the constitution and that it should be replaced by Manu Smriti. And yet, said Rahul, here was the BJP saying that it wanted to protect that same constitution.

 

   “I want to ask you,” he said to the BJP members, “do you stand by your leader? Because when you speak in Parliament about protecting the constitution, you are defaming Savarkar, you are abusing Savarkar.”

 

   Oh so droll.

 

   Actually, Rahul Gandhi would have no objections to any ridicule of Savarkar and certainly believes that the constitution must be protected. He was making what we used to call debating points in school.

 

   Rahul went back to the 1950s, but far-sighted as ever, the prime minister moved briskly forward, reaching as far as the politics of the 1970s. What about Indira Gandhi, he demanded. What about her changes to the constitution? And wasn’t the emergency such a bad thing? It was all the Congress’s fault.

 

   The Congress then said that Amit Shah had insulted Dr Ambedkar. That’s nothing the Prime Minister responded on Twitter. How about the way Jawaharlal Nehru had treated Dr Ambedkar, he said, moving the discussion back to the era where Rahul had started from: the 1950s.

 

"Why are we wasting so much time on it and dragging Savarkar and Indira Gandhi and various figures from history into this pointless debate?"

   For politicians, the current national mood and the insecurity citizens feel about the future don’t matter. When politicians stick their heads out of the phantom zone to look at us, they decide that ancient disputes about Ambedkar, Savarkar and Indira Gandhi are much more fun. Do they ever wonder if any of that is even relevant to us today? Or does time stand still in the Phantom zone?

 

   The historical stuff was part of a discussion on the government’s latest grand distraction. For many years now the prime minister has said that India should have just one election every five years. All state assembly elections should be held at the same time as the Lok Sabha polls.

 

   It is an unusual position for him to hold, because till 1967, this was exactly what happened. And yet according to the BJP, 1947 to 1967 was a dark period in India’s history when we wasted so many years, when the evil Jawaharlal Nehru signed away our future and the constitution-damaging Indira Gandhi had just become prime minister.

 

   So why does the BJP want to go back to that period given how badly it believes India was run during that phase?

 

   There is no real answer to that question. Endless committees have been set up to justify the proposed change and their conclusions have been weak and unconvincing: a simultaneous election would cost the exchequer less. (Would it? What about all the money you would have to spend to buy new EVMs – or is that part of the attraction?)

 

   The model code of conduct would only be implemented briefly once in five years so politicians could keep announcing welfare schemes to win votes without unnecessary interruptions.

 

   We wouldn’t have to keep sending security forces to states where elections were held if it was a simultaneous election. (Really? But surely we would have to post many more security men at tens of thousands of booths at the same time in a simultaneous election? So how is this an advantage?)

 

   As you can tell none of this is at all conclusive. Perhaps a simultaneous election would be better for our democracy; perhaps not. Certainly the practical problems would be enormous.

 

   But either way, this is hardly the biggest problem facing the nation. Why are we wasting so much time on it and dragging Savarkar and Indira Gandhi and various figures from history into this pointless debate?

 

   When the prime minister first made it clear that the simultaneous election scheme was a pet obsession, I looked to see if there were any political benefits to him and the BJP. At that stage it did seem that he would benefit. Every election would become a presidential-style election. He would barnstorm the country campaigning for the BJP so voters would forget regional issues and would vote mainly on the basis of Mr Modi’s popularity and his vision for the nation.

 

   Ten years ago, this may have made sense. But I am not sure that after the results of the last general election this scenario still holds. A few months ago the prime minister toured the country extensively calling for votes in his name and in the name of his agenda. It didn’t always work. In states like UP Maharashtra and Haryana, the BJP did much worse than it expected to.

 

   In the assembly elections and by elections that followed in the same states Mr Modi was much less visible and the BJP and its allies actually did much better.

 

   Not only is it far from clear that the BJP benefits from the presidential style election, it is even less clear that Narendra Modi will still be leader of the party when the scheme is finally implemented – if it does get through parliament.

 

   So why is he doing it? Why has it become so important to him that he is willing to haggle and struggle to get the 2/3 majority he needs to pass the measure? It is entirely possible that he will not get that majority and the scheme will die. So why does he still persist?

 

   Your guess is as good as mine. But at least it keeps politics in the Phantom zone where the current reality never intrudes and all distractions that occupy the general public are more than welcome.