The Prime Minister’s imprint is writ large in all Ministries, which are headed by his favourites.
After all the hullabaloo over the formation of the new Narendra Modi government, there should have been a sense of catharsis, some feeling of continuity with many old names featuring as a cladding and awe at decisive changes in the big league. But it doesn’t inspire emotions, either of excitement or despair. For the Modi 2.0 Cabinet is not just an upgrade of version 1.0 but a total overhaul. The message is very clear. The Prime Minister will be aggressively pushing the BJP’s nationalist vision, means business from the word go and wants to do it with a beehive mindset of anodyne co-workers who are congruently attuned to his schematics. So while old performers continue with their briefs, those not falling within his bandwidth have been moved out. Also, he didn’t reward a stupendous electoral performance with a prize if the candidate was not good enough. The big move was, of course, the induction of his deputy Amit Shah as Home Minister and a virtual Number 2 in government. It would be easy enough to attribute Shah’s ascension as a reward for crafting both Modi’s and the BJP’s political journey to an unassailable position today. But Shah as Home Minister means he will not just be tasked with the law and order machinery. One can expect him to push the BJP’s vision for Jammu and Kashmir — if not Article 370, then maybe Article 35 A — take a tough line on militant and Naxal terror and drive the National Register for Citizens (NRC) in border states, particularly Bengal. With Arun Jaitley choosing to stay out of the government, Modi will be counting on Shah to be his sounding board. However, both Modi and Shah, as the dream team which gave BJP its moment in the sun, are not leaving the party unattended as Assembly elections tumble in one after the other and the BJP’s real intention in winning Vidhan Sabhas is to get comfortable numbers in the Rajya Sabha. The name of another of Modi’s favourites, JP Nadda, is doing the rounds as BJP president, that role now more crucial than any Government post. Rajnath Singh, yet another tall leader whom the BJP needs to keep the primacy of Uttar Pradesh, moves to Defence. But Modi is perhaps counting on his seasoned maturity and low-key style of working to shake up defence acquisitions, in recent times overshadowed by the Rafale imbroglio.
The second big takeaway is that of Nirmala Sitharaman breaking the glass barrier and taking charge of the all-important Finance Ministry. She is expected to address slowdown in investment and industrial production, tackle unemployment and more importantly convince India’s corporates that she is good enough to push reforms. Having worked assiduously with former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, she is expected to follow through with the PMO shadow-coaching reformatory moves. The other woman Cabinet member, Smriti Irani, despite being a giant killer at Amethi, has Woman and Child Development in addition to the old Textiles. With Modi having won a sizeable percentage of women voters, one can expect some empowering policy initiatives. The import of S Jaishankar, who replaces the towering Sushma Swaraj as Minister for External Affairs (MEA), shows that technocrats are going to get lateral entries. It is by the same logic that Hardeep Puri continues to remain in the Council of Ministers. A huge Modi favourite, Jaishankar will harmonise the PMO with MEA and helm critical initiatives vis-a-vis Pakistan, US and China at a time of trade wars and oil sanctions. With Shah and Jaishankar, Modi has created a muscular phalanx in presenting India to the world. The entry of Ramesh Pokhriyal, who has got Human Resource Development, bears the imprint of the BJP’s ideological anchor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). So cultural nationalism will be an ongoing project, one that envisages changes in curriculum not undertaken before. The Sangh wants a new education policy and reforms in the higher education system. Of course, there are those who remind us of all the good things of Modi 1.0 — the doer Nitin Gadkari retains his hold on infrastructure and now has MSMEs, Ravi Shankar Prasad sticks to Law, Dr Harsh Vardhan has regained the Health portfolio, Prakash Javadekar has Environment and Information and Broadcasting while Piyush Goyal, till recently the front-runner for Finance, has kept Railways and added Commerce and Industry. Apart from the tokenisms to castes, States and allies, the Cabinet has only one theme, that of the charioteer Modi, who keeps space and atomic energy as his plum picks but will have the only say among his yes men.
Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer
Air traffic management at Delhi will become easier with a new ATC tower, yet delays in modernisation are worrisome
Delhi Airport has over the past decade overtaken Mumbai as India’s largest airport, so much so that almost half of all Indian air traffic flows through the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Now the new 103-metre tall Air Traffic Control tower, which has been physically ready for a couple of years, is finally set to start operations. This tower that will allow ramp, approach and departure controllers grand sweeping views of the airport should also finally be able to allow simultaneous departures and arrivals on Delhi’s runways. It will also hopefully allow the authorities at the Delhi Airport to get cracking on rapidly improving allied infrastructure as well. The collapse of Jet Airways and the subsequent decline in passenger traffic have eased the congestion at the terminal temporarily but with airlines like IndiGo, Vistara and SpiceJet continuing to expand, adding more domestic and international services out of Delhi, traffic should reach numbers that were there before Jet’s demise by the end of the summer and growth should come back to the market shortly. This means that the Delhi Airport operators will need to get cracking on stalled infrastructure building projects such as a new fourth runway and the two new terminals that have been planned. The fact is that Terminals 1 and 2 are either well past their maximum capacity or too old to continue. They need urgent rebuilding.
This is not just a problem at the Delhi Airport. Across the country, several large aviation infrastructure projects are currently stalled other than at Bengaluru, where work is continuing fast on the new runway. Air travel has transformed India’s economic growth but with aviation infrastructure across the country pushed to its maximum limits with the current infrastructure, the new Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has a challenge on his hands to ensure that growth does not slow down. New aviation infrastructure such as the new Navi Mumbai, Mopa and Jewar airports have to be built quickly to keep pace. There are other systemic challenges that have to be countered as well, some of them regarding protecting passengers rights and keeping profiteering to a minimum. At the same time the Civil Aviation ministry has to be mindful of the overall health of the Indian airlines. A brand new tall tower might be a nice landmark but the problems around the industry have to be tackled urgently first.
Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer
The dismal showing of the Samajwadi Party in UP has put Akhilesh Yadav’s leadership under the scanner. He has to re-unite factions and rebuild grassroots networks
In 2011, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav led a spirited campaign against the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) chief Mayawati. As SP president, he toured the length and breadth of the State — sometimes on cycle — calling the then BSP Government as one of the most corrupt regimes in the annals of Uttar Pradesh. He even called it a pathar wali sarkar (a Government of stones) — an oblique reference to Mayawati’s penchant to build parks and statues. This mutual mistrust and antagonism was so deep-seated that the subsequent SP-BSP trust alliance always seemed cosmetic and superficial.
But before this misadventure, Akhilesh’s hard work bore fruit when in 2012, the SP won the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh with a huge margin. Mulayam Singh Yadav was then the national president of the party and he surprised all by projecting Akhilesh as the Chief Minister. At the age of 38, Akhilesh, then an MP, took oath as the Chief Minister on March 15, 2012. This, political pundits say, was the beginning of the new era in Yadav politics. Talks then centered around how Akhilesh, a foreign-educated young man, could transform the impoverished State, which is home to around 23 crore people, into one of the most developed States in the country.
People had pinned hopes on Akhilesh because of the legacy he carried. Son of wrestler-turned politician Mulayam Singh Yadav, it was believed that the young leader was well-conversant with political ups and downs. Mulayam was three-time Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh besides being the Defence Minister in 1996 during the United Front Government. So, for Akhilesh, politics was nothing new. He had brushed shoulders with the high and mighty and was well-versed with every Machiavellian manoeuvre.
But the high hopes were soon dashed. First, Akhilesh failed to keep his family together. The way he carried out a bloodless coup, replacing his father with himself as national president of the party, did divide the party. Mulayam, after all, was the reason for SP’s claim to any sort of relevance. The rift widened so much that uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav parted ways and formed his own party, the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia), which inflicted larger damage to the SP in three Yadav pocket boroughs of Kannauj, Budaun and Firozabad in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. All old-timers in the party, who had build the SP brick-by-brick and whose advice was worth a pound of gold for Mulayam, were left ignored and their constituencies were taken up by the new blood.
The courtiers in Akhilesh Yadav’s durbar were rich, having no practical understanding about the ground realities or imperatives. They became the eyes and ears of the former Chief Minister. Such was their influence on Akhilesh that they started campaigning for the 2019 elections very late. Some even advised that campaigning through WhatsApp was enough because the SP-BSP alliance would fetch dividends as the arithmetic just would not fail. They argued that the battle was between 85 per cent (combination of Dalits, Muslims and backwards as represented by the alliance partners of SP, BSP and RLD) versus 15 per cent (upper caste), which would undoubtedly go in their favour.
One of the courtiers of Akhilesh Yadav had told this reporter poetically that the bouquet of caste in this alliance was spread from western Uttar Pradesh to eastern Uttar Pradesh and also had its footprints in Rohilkhand and Bundelkhand.
The just-concluded parliamentary poll results came as a rude shock to the mahagathbandhan as it stood completely decimated. In this ignominious defeat, however, the BSP can walk away with its head high — if one can say so — because the party won 10 seats where it had drawn a blank in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. But it is Akhilesh, who has to face the bigger question, because while his family members lost the election, he failed to increase his tally.
In the 2014 election, the SP had won a total of five seats — all the winners were from the family. Besides, Mulayam (who had won from Mainpuri and Azamgarh), other family members of Akhilesh, namely Dimple Yadav and his two cousins Dharmendra and Akshay, won the elections. In the bye-election after Mulayam vacated Mainpuri, another cousin of Akhilesh, Tej Bahadur, romped home. SP’s total tally further increased to seven after it won the bye-elections of Gorakhpur and Phulpur in 2018.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party once again won five seats while Dimple Yadav (Kannauj), Dharmendra Yadav (Budaun) and Akshay Yadav (Firozabad) lost the elections. Besides, Akhilesh Yadav (Azamgarh) and Mulayam Singh Yadav (Mainpuri), three Muslim leaders —Azam Khan (Rampur), Shafiqur Rahman Warq (Sambhal) and ST Hasan (Moradabad)— emerged victorious.
The defeat has raised many questions on Akhilesh’s leadership simply because it is the second time the SP has contested the election under him. As national president of the party, he had contested the first election in 2017. In fact, it was his idea to enter into an alliance with the Congress. His political acumen was even questioned back then because as a performing Chief Minister, who had carried out a spate of development work, including the construction of the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, he did not need a prop. With the tagline of his campaign as ‘Kaam Bolta Hai’, his inclination to go for an alliance with the Congress showed that he was unconvinced about his own work and did not have the stomach to drive hard political decisions or go it alone. In that election, the SP’s tally reduced from 226 to 47.
In 2019, again, he showed political nervousness and entered into an alliance with the BSP and RLD to contest the Lok Sabha election. Some termed it as the election story of 2019. The result, however, was pathetic. Akhilesh not only lost seats but his party’s vote percentage, too, came down. (SP’s vote percentage is 18 percent while it is 19 per cent for BSP and 50 per cent for the BJP).
His father and the wily SP founder Mulayam had publicly said that Akhilesh had “lost half the battle” when the latter chose the politics of alliance. He had even admonished his son, saying that the SP was not battle-ready as it was relying too much on Mayawati whereas the BJP had started groundwork almost a year ago.
Mulayam’s words have proved prophetic. The SP stands vanquished today, primarily because neither the Dalit nor the Yadav vote was consolidated enough to ensure transference to each other’s candidates. The results announced on May 23 punctured the invincibility argument and now the alliance stands exposed. The BSP, SP and RLD have around 39 per cent vote share while the BJP and its ally has over 50 per cent of the vote. This shows that the myth of castes moving at the diktat of leaders does not hold good anymore.
Akhilesh is standing at the cross-roads now. He is carrying the legacy of Mulayam Singh Yadav while the reputation of SP that senior leaders like Janeshwar Mishra, Rama Shankar Kaushik, Babu Lal Yadav, Md Azam Khan and Reoti Raman Singh had built through blood, sweat and tear is at stake. Uttar Pradesh has witnessed how Ajit Singh floundered the political legacy of Chaudhry Charan Singh. His politics of aaya ram, gaya ram and fondness to align with the ruling party has reduced the RLD to a political non-entity.
Akhilesh should take lessons from the failure of Ajit Singh. He should try for a reconciliation of the party and the family. The first step should be to hand over the baton back to Mulayam Singh Yadav. Shivpal Singh should be brought back and he should start touring the State. He should open his doors to the party workers. It is time for Akhilesh to smell the coffee or otherwise he could be heading Ajit Singh’s way.
(The writer is Executive Director [News] with The Pioneer, Lucknow)
Writer: Biswajeet Banerjee
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Cong will have to take the values it holds dear like those of equality, fighting violence with reason and scientific temper to the people and convince them by action
The performance of the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections was extremely disappointing and it is important for a responsible political party like it to accept the verdict of the people with humility. It is also important for the party to understand the pulse of the nation better and showcase itself as a more viable alternative to the BJP. Perhaps most importantly, however, it is important for the party to highlight that the battle between the Congress and the BJP is not one of mere political power but one of ideology.
This ideological battle is often depicted as a fight on TV screens broadcast by news channels. In the past five years, this ideological battle has been depicted as a sensational fight. The sequence of events typically follow the described course: An outrageous statement by a BJP leader like Sadhvi Pragya (about Godse being a deshbhakt) followed by TV channels with a room full of pundits lending their expertise, either admonishing the outrageous statement or finding some sympathy for it. This descends into a shouting match between the two sides, further fuelled by TV anchors who have realised that this is the easy way to capture the attention of the public. I will admit, the Congress and other Opposition parties have often fallen into this trap that only helps TV channels. The reality, however, is that first, the Congress’ ideological battle with the BJP cannot be won in the privilege of air-conditioned TV rooms but will instead be tested over time on the ground. Second, to reduce this ideological battle to a “debate” over statements of agent provocateurs does India and its citizens no service. Instead the Congress will have to now take the values it holds dear like those of equality, fighting violence with reason and scientific temper to the people of the country and convince them by action rather than TV rhetoric. So what happens to these TV channels and what will become of these inflammatory debates?
In this backdrop, I have to say that I am extremely pleased that the Congress has decided that it will send no spokespersons for TV debates. While this position appears to be limited to the next month, I would welcome sticking to this stand for the next five years. This is because news channels now resemble soap operas where TV anchors have pre-decided the plots and sub-plots. Where if the debate appears to be dying, some will ensure that the masala remains till the end. Of course, I don’t mean to paint all TV news media and all anchors with the same brush. But you know who you are and more importantly, every reader of this article has a few of them who spring to mind. I am, therefore, happy that the Congress will do its part to prevent this embarrassing practice from continuing.
I remember there was a time when media houses and TV news channels engaged in genuine investigative journalism. They would raise questions and go where their investigation led them. News channels were led by the aim of fulfilling their role as journalists and earned viewership through dedicated research and brave questions. Has that time gone? An examination of the past few years does seem to suggest so. If not, what explains the unbelievable lack of focus on issues that the country is actually grappling with?
In Jharkhand, for example, why are media houses not raising questions about the huge number of starvation deaths and the failures of the state government that has led to these deaths? Why are there no debates about how the land of tribals in Jharkhand is being taken away from them without any form of rehabilitation? At the national stage too, why have our news channels not raised questions about the intelligence failure that led to the death of our brave soldiers in Pulwama? How did such a massive attack occur and why haven’t we been provided any answers by the government?
Who is supposed to ask these questions? Yes, the Opposition must, as the Congress did over the past few years. But what happened when these questions were raised? Spokespersons were brought on debates where the topic would inevitably be framed along the following lines: “Is the Opposition anti-national for questioning the government at this time?”
Once the debate has been framed in the manner detailed above, the discussion on TV is no longer a discussion or debate about how we can improve our intelligence infrastructure or how do we prevent our soldiers from dying in the future. Instead the debate is now: Is the Opposition anti-national or not? What a tragedy.
It is no coincidence then that the only real investigative journalism we have seen in the past few years has been through print media outlets. This is because the nature of print journalism restricts it from doing what TV channels do. Turning important issues that require examination and questioning of authorities to shouting matches and sensational headlines.
So I welcome seeing how our TV news channels will react. As the government in power with clear majority for what will be 10 years in 2024, PM Modi will have no excuses. They will have to answer questions about a failing economy and how they plan to revive it. They will have to answer questions about why there are no jobs for India’s youth. They will have to answer questions about why certain Indians feel targeted due to their religion and caste as the events of the past week have shown.
Without a shouting match between the Opposition and the government, TV anchors will now have to face representatives from the BJP government and have to look at the actual work that has been done and what the numbers on the ground are. Their TRPs will then depend on how they question the government and whether they can get the government to answer questions the government may not want to answer. Let’s see if these news channels are up to the task: The nation wants to know.
(The author is president of Jharkhand Pradesh Congress Committee)
Writer: Ajoy Kumar
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The RJD chief failed to evolve with time and ignored the omen that threatened to shatter his image as the messiah of the entire OBC pantheon and usher in his doom
When Lalu Prasad, then a rustic Yadav chieftain and a well-established cheer leader of the JP movement, was crowned as Chief Minister of Bihar in 1990, among his backers were both Left and Right — communists and the BJP — who found a common enemy in the Congress. Thirty years later, Lalu is in prison on corruption charges while his party is in the doghouse. Lalu, the phenomenon who overturned the template of India’s politics, today faces apathy of the very section of the populace that once saw a redeemer in this man who spoke their language and promised them salvation from centuries of discrimination and disgrace.
Lalu Prasad was always seen as a wily politician — someone who could even count the feathers of a flying bird. But the fact remains that he took no time in frittering away the gains of the casteist “Mandal” politics. Primarily, because he lacked the vision to foresee that by mocking development, encouraging corruption and lawlessness, and giving Yadavs a carte blanche to do what they pleased to do, he was turning against his own clan and the very forces of social justice that brought him to power.
Lalu failed to evolve with time and ignored the omen that threatened to shatter his image as the messiah of the entire OBC pantheon and usher in his political doom. Over a period of time, his comrades in arms of the social justice movement — Nitish Kumar, Ramvilas Paswan and others — deserted his caravan, reducing it to an assembly of Yadavs and Muslims alone. The way extremely backward castes led by Nitish Kumar and Dalits, under the stewardship of Ram Vilas Paswan, came together to challenge the Muslim-Yadav combine by joining hands with even the upper castes in the Lok Sabha polls has a clear message. Unless Lalu Prasad’s outfit goes through a complete metamorphosis, it will never again regain the crown of Bihar.
It was this lack of political foresight that saw Lalu forcing Nitish Kumar to walk out of the alliance government in 2016. It was this lack of political foresight that stopped him from walking the extra mile to protect the RJD-JD(U) alliance in Bihar. The break-up of the promising political collaboration and the return of Nitish Kumar to the saffron fold made for a watershed event in national politics that sowed the seeds of disintegration among the anti-BJP forces. Critics will say that Nitish acted out of “opportunism” but it was Lalu who wrote the script for his exit. Lalu and his son Tejashvi kept humiliating Nitish from a public platform, leaving no opportunity to remind him that he was a Chief Minister at their mercy. He also didn’t give a free hand to Nitish in taking administrative and policy decisions and wanted the latter to be at his beck and call in the matter of transfer and posting.
When the CBI, apparently at the behest of the BJP, began to tighten the screw against Lalu and his family in a railway hotel scam, the RJD chief did the final miscalculation. Instead of asking his son to resign from the Cabinet to save the alliance government, he tried to bear and grin it. An image-conscious person like Nitish Kumar realised that if he continued with Lalu, the JD(U) would end up paying the cost of policy paralysis of his governance. Lalu did not realise that his interest lay in making every possible compromise to stop Nitish from going to the BJP. The miscalculation not only gave the BJP a chance to share power in Bihar through the backdoor but also broke the backbone of Opposition unity at the national level. Nitish, a Kurmi leader, had the image and social background to challenge Modi at the national level. He was the lone leader who could have been a rallying point for consolidation of extremely backward castes behind the Opposition. The breakdown of the RJD-JD(U) alliance was a turning point in national politics and precursor to the return of the Modi regime at the Centre.
Lalu’s supporters may argue that Nitish had made up his mind — for some reason or the other — to join hands with the BJP and Lalu could have done little to prevent the parting of ways. However, few care to ponder that it would not have been so easy for Nitish either to go back to the BJP after the sort of bitterness that existed between him and Narendra Modi. He must have felt so suffocated that he decided to swallow his pride and accept the leadership of his bitter rival, who had even questioned his DNA. It was at this moment when Lalu should have acted like a statesman and made any number of sacrifices to ensure that the Opposition remained united against the Modi government.
In parting ways with Nitish Kumar, Lalu thought he could challenge the BJP-JD(U) alliance by bringing together several non-Yadav OBC outfits under an overarching umbrella of social justice. But he didn’t realise that though casteism was rooted deeply in the soil of Bihar politics, the State had also tasted the flavour of development under Nitish Kumar’s decade-old rule. The elaborate network of roads, 24-hour electricity supply and the end of the kidnapping for ransom trade had brought much relief to the people. The State’s revenue collection and development expenditure took a huge leap in 10 years. And the voter was not ready to turn the clock back. So when Lalu (let’s assume that it was he who was dictating the course of RJD politics from behind the prison walls) tried to expand his M-Y alliance by roping in other backward castes like Kushwahas and Mallahs and joining hands with Upendra Kushwaha and Mukesh Sahni, the experiment had few takers.
A section of Yadavs may have emotional reasons to support Lalu Prasad in his moment of crisis, and Muslims may have their own compulsion to remain hyphenated with him, but the rest of Bihar found no reason to leave its future in the hands of someone like Tejashvi Yadav, who had spent most of his time in ridiculing and humiliating Nitish Kumar.
Perhaps, Lalu got swayed by the successful experiment of the 2015 Assembly polls when the OBC and Dalits were up in the arms against the BJP over RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s controversial statement against caste-based reservation. But Lalu forgot that the presence of Nitish Kumar by his side played a big role in mobilising the entire groupings of OBCs and most backward castes. The voters were assured that if Nitish remained at the helm of affairs, Bihar would not go back to the days of the jungle raj.
Lalu tried to raise the same caste passion in the Lok Sabha polls when he opposed the Modi government’s decision to grant 10 per cent reservation in government jobs and educational institutions to candidates of the general category. Lalu ignored the advice of his senior party colleagues like Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who openly criticised his decision. While Lalu’s decision completely antagonised the upper castes, Nitish Kumar’s hold over the EBCs is so firm that the former’s gambit failed miserably.
The outcome of the polls showed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s astutely cultivated EBC lineage and Nitish Kumar’s sway over the non-Yadav OBC went a long way in blunting the edge of Lalu’s rusted caste device. Lalu failed to realise that times were changing and the hackneyed slogans of social justice didn’t mean much to a new generation of voters oblivious to the obnoxious caste discrimination of the past. The days ahead could be nightmarish for both Lalu and his party. His health is sinking and there is no hope of his release from jail any sooner. Both his sons are on the warpath and voices against Tejashvi’s leadership have begun to rise in the party. Going by the Lok Sabha trends, the RJD will face an existential crisis after next year’s Assembly polls.
Lalu may have given a voice to millions of socially deprived people but he failed to hear their yearning for change. With empowerment comes aspiration, which is a major catalyst for a political shake-up of the type that has turned a political giant into a fallen messiah.
Lalu once jokingly said, “Jab tak samosa me rahega aloo, tab tak Bihar me rahega Lalu.” The master of metaphors and similes that he is, it was his way of saying that, whether a winner or a vanquished, he would forever be remembered for his contribution in empowering the poor and hapless multitudes.
(The writer is Political Editor, The Pioneer)
Writer: Navin Upadhyay
Rahul Gandhi went after the youth voters but they rejected him. Maybe because he and his mother ignored the party’s capable and tested young leaders. The BJP won because the Congress conspired to lose
Even before the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) landslide victory in the recently-concluded elections, there was a healthy disrespect for family dynasts in the Congress among the young BJP-leaning ideologue. If you mentioned the irony of the fact that several of the BJP’s own cadre of youth leaders are second or third generation politicians, they would argue that they had worked in their constituencies and elsewhere. Some like Poonam Mahajan, the BJP’s youth wing leader and daughter of Pramod Mahajan, travelled across the country constantly to ensure that the BJP got the youth vote. While all dynasts are born into politics, Congress dynasts, they always argued, enjoyed the trappings of power without wanting to do the work for it. All except one, a man whom most young and old leaders inside the party always respected — Sachin Pilot.
And after the Congress won the Assembly polls in Rajasthan and made the much older Ashok Gehlot as Chief Minister, many found it surprising, although several people in the BJP were jubilant albeit a bit sad for Pilot. This one decision, they said, completely exposed the Congress’ claims to represent the youth and not only would this decision cost them the popular vote in Rajasthan, where Narendra Modi remained hugely popular even as the Congress won the Assembly polls, it would expose Rahul Gandhi’s claims to “love” the youth as hollow. This was not just the opinion of those inside the BJP. Several commentators in the Congress ecosystem were not just puzzled at the decision, some were outright apoplectic. And even though some might claim that this decision was made by Sonia Gandhi or because of some outstanding land cases against Robert Vadra in Rajasthan, it was an illogical decision.
As several of the old guard in the Congress study their defeat at the hustings, they will likely learn that this one fact was weaponised by the BJP against them and no matter how many cool campaign numbers that the Congress commissioned and Rahul Gandhi’s appeals to the youth, the treatment of a genuine young and hard-working politician was going to count against the leadership. However, Pilot is not the first young leader to be sidelined after working hard. The last one was Jagan Reddy, again the son of a successful Congress politician and one loyal to the family in YS Rajashekhar Reddy. One who might have even returned to the party fold had Rahul Gandhi the grace and sense to have apologised to him for his mother’s indiscretions and told him to let bygones be bygones. Instead Rahul Gandhi entertained the Telugu Desam Party’s N Chandrababu Naidu even though most opinion polls were indicating that Jagan Reddy was ahead in the race. We all saw what happened, because at the end of the day, sheer electoral numbers do not lie. Jagan wiped the Telugu Desam Party almost clean off the floor of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly and totally out of the Lok Sabha. And while it is not correct to blame Rahul Gandhi for ditching Jagan — that is completely on Sonia Gandhi — he could have salvaged the situation. Again, another tickmark for the Congress party’s amazing ineptitude with regard to youth. The young leaders which the Congress did not up this time were people like Gehlot’s son who lost and Kamal Nath and P Chidambaram’s sons, who won their seats but at what cost? Ignoring Pilot and Jagan Reddy might have cost them the ability to cross at least a hundred seats and blunt Modi’s massive edge among young first and second-time voters.
You get a sense of Modi’s immense popularity among younger voters clearly through the results in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where there is no doubt that young voters have voted for him in droves. One could argue that Modi is no spring chicken either but he has a message that resonates with the younger population, a message that goes beyond caste and infuses a sense of national self-identity. In both those States, younger voters did not just ditch the Congress, they also ditched two young leaders of caste-based parties in Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav. And if Modi and Amit Shah are to be remembered for anything in three or four decades, it will be for finally smashing through post-Mandal Commission caste-based identity politics. While many cannot swallow that defeat, the meltdown not just appearing on social media but in distasteful articles by full-time antagonists of the Indian State, this election must not just be remembered as one that the BJP won through complicated social engineering and excellent delivery of subsidies, but one that the Congress conspired to lose.
All is not lost for the Congress. If they have to take a youth pivot, they have to do it now. They have to not only cleanse the party of the old guard whose clothes are still stained by the extreme corruption of the UPA-2 era but also promote hard-working young leaders instead of promoting those stuck in the ivory towers of Delhi and Mumbai. In this, they should not only take a page out of the BJP’s book and see how effectively Poonam Mahajan and her team have mobilised the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha while the Indian Youth Congress is in a coma, but also look at one of their own in Sachin Pilot and the one they lost in Jagan Reddy. Otherwise the Congress will, like many in the old guard, wither away and die.
(The author is Managing Editor)
Writer: Kushan Mitra
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Shakuntala Kulkarni’s avant garde artworks at the Venice Biennale compel onlookers to ask questions, says U Nair
Most people associate the Venice Art Biennale with the national pavilions in the Giardini (Biennale gardens) or the main site at the Arsenale — the former dockyards. At the India Pavilion at the former, visitors are swirling around the cane cages of the brilliant artist Shakuntala Kulkarni, and for once the language of the selfie is inclusive of avant garde contemporary Indian art. Utterly feminine, tall bamboo cane ensembles are catching the interest of the visitors for their quaintness.
These artworks belong to her project Of bodies, armour and cages (2013-2018) in which historical objects like the armour and the elaborately designed costumes/dresses of different communities are brought together in the contemporary context by re-articulating the usage and the medium. In collapsing and metamorphosing the two, she blurs cultural and visual boundaries.
Caged bird
When you look at the long-skirted cages and bodies, you can’t help but think of Paul Dunbar’s famous poem, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In an interview to me in 2013 she said: “For long, I have been making inquiries into body violence, atrocities and experiences of women in different spaces. The impact of these atrocities against women are uncertainty and loss of freedom and power. Women are often blamed for crimes that happen against them; the men are set free and walk around with their heads held high. Morality or norms make a woman lose power.”
But she was cautious to state that she didn’t want to show women as weak beings. “I never show women as victims,” she said emphatically. “They are victimised. They are not completely weak. I show how they fight it out, how they deal with it. My question is simple: This is how society is. How do I, as a woman, live powerfully?”
Linear and delicate cane
Shakuntala’s sculptures have an Indian insignia. “ I used the armour as a metaphor to explore how I could protect my body,” states Shakuntala. “I borrowed from all kinds of cultures; Naga masks, Rajasthani ghagras, hair styles from Bollywood in the 1960s — my pieces have no cultural, geographical or religious boundaries. I used cane because I am comfortable with it; also, it is linear, delicate and looks grand. There are rings, bangles, flared skirts and it is very feminine.”
As you look through the cane — the ideation seems full of multiple perspectives.The cane is tenuous and tensile, flexible yet delicate in a strong sort of way. No doubt there are many references — history culture and the beauty of dances, Kathakali and Manipuri costumes and regalia become a translation — that are royal yet replete with rhythmic intonations.
Between dualities
Her thought process is fascinating, “I wanted to explore what happens when you have a costume as protection… There’s a freedom you experience when you’re in armour, but at the same time, some part of your body is caught. You’re trapped but you’re also secure. That to me is interesting.”
Visitors at Venice are fascinated by the very structure and the grandeur of the armour which is masculine, stiff, strong, lasting and peerless in nature. The cane figures and heads provoke us to ask questions. The cane armour /costumes in this project speak of the grandeur too. But the elaborately structured dresses look relatively feminine, linear, fragile, and organic in nature, protecting the body, breaking the gaze by the joineries of the pieces of cane and the weave. In more ways than one these cane installations are reflective of ‘interesting times’ in the words of curator Ralph Rugoff. These sculptures were part of her solo show at Chemould Gallery, Mumbai last year.
Writer: U Nair
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The Congress needs to look at the present crisis as an opportunity to change itself to modern-day needs. A new strategy must include infusion of dynamic second-rung and strong State-level leaders. It must be a blend of experience and youth
The Congress is going through an existential crisis even as party chief Rahul Gandhi has been authorised to restructure the organisation at all levels last week. Indeed, the party needs such ruthless surgery. Gandhi offered to resign taking 100 per cent responsibility for the defeat in 2019 polls but during a Congress Working Committee meeting, party leaders asked Rahul to stay.
There can be no doubt that the Congress has barely managed to improve its tally from its all-time low of 44 seats in 2014 — it has now won 52 seats but the buck stops with Rahul Gandhi as party chief. It is the media, which has been demanding Rahul Gandhi’s ouster but the question is: Is Rahul Gandhi the only problem the Congress is facing now? No. The problem lies elsewhere. The Congress is facing a combination of issues, including a leadership crisis. The last time it faced a similar situation was when there was erosion under the leadership of Sitaram Kesri in 1998. That time, Sonia Gandhi stepped in and arrested the erosion. Now, the lack of a thriving organisation, proper vision for the future and failure to project itself as a credible alternative to the BJP and disconnect with the voters are the real problems. The Congress also could not lead the Opposition to challenge the Modi juggernaut.
Perhaps, the failure of Rahul is that he did not choose the right people for the right job as he collected around himself non-political leaders who had no electoral understanding or experience. He seemed a confused lot as he could not spell out the present Congress ideology or its message. The NYAY scheme, too, was announced late and it could not percolate down. The Congress scion did not have any electoral strategy to match the BJP’s excellent campaign. Rafale and chowkidar chor hai slogans were just not enough. Moreover, there were only two star campaigners — Rahul and Priyanka. Senior leaders were not utilised in the campaign. Even bringing Priyanka into politics was a decision too late. Also, the party did not build on second-rung leaders. How could the party win the elections when it did not have booth-level workers or foot soldiers who could carry the party’s message to the people?
The Congress may not dump the Gandhi family as it has no other leader on whom the party can repose trust. The party will not allow Rahul Gandhi to quit even if he persists and will go through the same drama after Sonia Gandhi resigned in 1999 when leaders like Sharad Pawar questioned her foreign origin. When Sitaram Kesri was expelled in 1998, Sonia Gandhi was ready and waiting. Today, most senior leaders in the Congress are too old while most junior leaders have lost the recent Lok Sabha polls. So who could steer the party when its morale is so low? As a temporary reprieve, it will try to find a buffer between Rahul and the party and might go for a working president to share Rahul’s work. This has been its formula all along when leadership comes under attack.
There is no doubt that the Congress should reinvent itself if it wants to survive. Perhaps, it can take a leaf out of the former Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had coined the word “new labour” in October 1994 conference speech as part of the slogan “New Labour, New Britain” before the party came to power. The new Congress should take into account the changing scenario in the country and study what the new voters and aspirational youth want instead of harping on its past glory.
The Congress has reinvented itself earlier, too. Indira Gandhi showed them the way in 1969 when the party split and again in 1977 when she launched the Congress (I). Rajiv Gandhi spoke of the power brokers in the 1985 AICC session and tried to change the party. PV Narasimha Rao’s Congress moved towards the Right-wing with reforms while Sonia Gandhi brought it back to Left-wing welfare politics. Rahul’s failure is that he was not able to sell his political or economic vision to the public.
There is still time to implement the much-needed facelift, which can be decided after a Pachmarhi or Shimla kind of brainstorming session. The new strategy should include infusion of dynamic second-rung leaders and strong State-level leaders. It must be a blend of experience and youth. The party should re-establish connect with the public.
Even at this stage, all is not lost in the half-a-dozen States and the party can hope to win some more in the upcoming Assembly elections in the next five years. If it decides to change itself ruthlessly with the single aim of electoral gains, it should begin now. It needs to look at the present crisis as an opportunity to change itself to modern-day needs. Change is the only constant thing and the party should realise this.
(The writer is a senior political commentator and syndicated columnist)
Writer: Kalyani Shankar
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Modi’s victory marks a tectonic shift in the history of the republic. He may have seemed presidential but the spirit was republican
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is accused of making the 2019 general election a presidential race centred on his formidable personality and powerful oratory, thus ensuring the landslide victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 303; NDA 353. However, his principal challenger, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, made the contest monarchical with his family-driven rhetoric and entitlement brigade — scions of political families close to the Nehru-Gandhis, who owe their eminence to proximity. Rahul Gandhi’s closest colleague is sister, Priyanka Vadra, and his political advisors and mentors (Digvijay Singh, Sam Pitroda) are also inherited.
The Congress was hobbled by this baggage. In an age of soaring aspirations and quest for equality, it was clueless how to appeal to rural or urban voters, women, youth, farmers, traders, entrepreneurs and professionals among others. Decision-making within the party has shrunk to closed door meetings with unknown membership and little regular communication with the rank and file. In contrast, BJP president Amit Shah kept the party on its toes round the year and gave tasks to every booth worker.
The result of the lustreless campaign is evident in the collapse of the political blue-blooded: Rahul Gandhi (Amethi), Sheila Dikshit, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Milind Deora, Jitin Prasad, Salman Khurshid, Ajay Maken, Kumari Shailja, Priya Dutt, Meira Kumar, Vaibhav Gehlot, Manvendra Singh, RPN Singh, Ashok Chavan, Bhupendra Hooda and son Deependra Hooda and Kirti Azad. Indeed, hereditary politicians fared badly across State-based political parties, virtually a guillotine by ballot box.
The more disturbing news for Congress is that it has been reduced to a fringe party, with a decent presence only in Punjab and Kerala. It drew a blank in Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Daman Diu, Dadra Nagar Haveli, Lakshadweep, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Chandigarh. A comeback would take a miracle. Meanwhile, the BJP vote share rose to over 50 per cent in several States.
The Left collapsed with the Congress, given its deep symbiotic relationship. The Leftist stranglehold over the media got huge coverage for Kanhaiya Kumar (CPI, Begusarai, Bihar), who was trounced. But public fatigue with the Left’s shrill and negative rhetoric caused its fall from 59 seats in 2004, 26 in 2009, 10 in 2014 and five in 2019; recovery is unlikely.
Modi’s success lay in shifting the electoral template away from the Nehruvian paradigm of default Muslim vote bank plus sprinkling of castes to fill the electoral kitty towards more inclusive voter participation. The process began in 2014 but was largely ignored by analysts. Fine-tuned and implemented with greater vigour in 2019, it is being maligned as the rise of “majoritarianism.” Western newspapers and their Indian echo chambers are warning of danger to minority groups. Yet none of these eminences ever criticised minority religious leaders, who asked their flocks not to vote for the BJP, thus tampering with the free will of voters and perverting the democratic system.
Simply put, Modi has removed the minority veto in the polity, a Nehruvian aberration that denied equality to the myriad groups comprising the non-monolithic Hindu community. Henceforth, minorities, like others, must vote as individuals on the issues of the day – nationalism, terrorism, farmer distress, budget and employment among others. The ancien régime, which pressured citizens to “vote your caste/community”, while lampooning them for doing so, has made way for “vote your nation/issue”. This caused the rout of the Samajwadi Party despite its pact with the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress won only Sonia Gandhi’s seat, which means Priyanka Vadra (who failed to retain Amethi) may not win Rae Bareli if Sonia Gandhi vacates it.
With hindsight, it seems amusing that Sonia Gandhi, Sharad Pawar and Telugu Desam Party’s Chandrababu Naidu were so oblivious of the simmering Modi wave that they proposed a grand Opposition alliance in the event of BJP-NDA failing to win a clear majority and even wanted the President to call the post-post alliance before the pre-poll pact. They cast aspersions on the integrity of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) even after dodging a previous challenge by the Election Commission to publicly demonstrate that the machines could be hacked. Sadly, former President Pranab Mukherjee joined this chorus and blotted his copybook.
The truth is that EVMs cannot be tampered without physically handling each machine (which is impossible). Each machine is an independent recording device with no internet connection and cannot be hacked via internet/Wi-Fi. The VVPAT trail found no discrepancies. Anyway, Chandrababu Naidu vanished after the TDP’s rout; Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee was chastened. At its working committee meeting, the Congress agreed not to question the EVMs.
In Jammu and Kashmir, the National Conference won Anantnag (Hasnain Masoodi), Baramulla (Akbar Lone) and Srinagar (Farooq Abdullah) and the BJP won Jammu (Jugal Kishore), Udhampur (Jitendra Singh) and Ladakh (J.T. Namgyal). The People’s Democratic Party’s rout is a message to the BJP to fulfill its promise to abolish Articles 370 and 35-A, which only needs a Presidential order and political will. In Assembly elections later this year, if a coalition is necessary, the BJP must cut a deal equal to that crafted by the Congress when it gave the Chief Minister’s post to Omar Abdullah. In Delhi Assembly elections, the BJP must field leaders with an electoral base and shun paratroopers who ruined the party in 2015.
Modi has promised cooperation to the new Governments of Odisha, Sikkim, Andhra Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh; they will naturally reciprocate in Parliament. For India as a whole, some urgent priorities include updating the National Register of Citizens, passing the Citizenship Amendment Bill to protect Hindus fleeing persecution or instability in the neighbourhood, giving equal rights to Hindu refugees languishing in Jammu and Kashmir and scrapping the discriminatory Right to Education Act or applying its provisions equally.
Above all, Modi must give priority to the economy by securing investments and increasing the pace of infrastructure development. Agriculture needs a rethink outside the discredited paradigm of costly fertilisers, pesticides and depleted water tables. The growing health consciousness in society will make organic farming feasible and remunerative.
Modi’s victory marks a tectonic shift in the history of the republic. Unlike Rahul Gandhi, who embodied elected monarchy and had little to offer the citizen, Modi wove city and chaupal together in a grand narrative of nationalism, national resurgence and regeneration. He may have seemed presidential but the spirit was republican.
(The writer is Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library; the views expressed are personal)
Writer: Sandhya Jain
Courtesy: The Pioneer
The Congress is up against a nasty adversary. Playing within the BJP’s comfort zone will be like trying to defeat Nadal on red clay. It must force its rival to a surface where the ball skids faster
I must admit to being gobsmacked when the election results gathered momentum and the inevitable stared me in the face. Disappointment would be a severe understatement, I was completely devastated. The numbers seemed unreal, fictitious, as the BJP counter clocked above 300 while that of the Congress party plateaued around 50. A historic mandate, screamed one channel; an unprecedented landslide, suggested another. For once, their egregious hyperbole was not misplaced. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made a triumphant return, and in fact, bettered his previous performance of 2014 of 282 seats. I say Modi’s victory and not that of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) that he represents because essentially general elections 2019 became like a US presidential contest, where a personality-centric pitch overwhelmed compelling issues that most thought would be the determining factors affecting voter sentiment. That was not to be. There are reports that many voters did not even know the name of the Lok Sabha candidate they were voting for; just the lotus symbol on the EVM machine was sufficient motivation. Not unexpectedly, Congress was facing the predictable onslaught of acerbic scrutiny marinated with dollops of unrestrained sarcasm; is the party now facing an irreversible terminal decline? Did NYAY (the Minimum Income Guarantee scheme) fail to percolate down to the last mile? Was the campaign strategy flawed ? Was the Congress party unable to answer Modi’s rhetorical fusillade of the Grand Old Party being soft on terror? Some partially saffronised TV anchors could barely conceal their schadenfreude when mocking the Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s leadership. For many of us, it was a dark dismal nightmare. We have seen it before in 2014. But this one hurt a lot more.
The BJP has indulged in asymmetrical warfare with a bountiful treasury, chaperoned by a captivated mainstream media and backed by rent-seeking corporate behemoths who are opportunistic accessories with big ticket deals to formalise. The traditional template of political contestations stood completely upended by the time the victor was formally announced. So where does the Congress party go from not aggregating even 100 Lok Sabha seats in two consecutive elections, while up against a formidable monstrosity that has made winning elections its raison d’etre? To understand that, first we need to know what really happened.
Modi and BJP president Amit Shah had clearly recognised the clear and present danger following the Congress party wins in the State elections of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan in December 2018. This electoral adversity followed the sledgehammer blow in Karnataka when the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) formed the government, by checkmating the BJP’s Chanakya. Rahul Gandhi was seeing stratospheric traction on social media, and his relentless assault on Modi on the Rafale corruption scandal, had created a popular leitmotif of Chowkidar Chor Hai. Frequent interactions with different sections of people without a pre-arranged script, impromptu press conferences and a refreshingly honest politician, who talked compassionate politics, had the toxic BJP nonplussed. Despite a prodigiously jaundiced media that was sand-bagging Modi, the perception battle had now become a competitive one. And Modi was feeling the cracks. The farming community was facing diminishing incomes due to falling procurement and lower prices while Modi dilly-dallied on Minimum Support Prices. The agrarian crisis is an alarming reality and a pandemic problem. India’s storied demographic dividend has become an onerous liability, as we are confronted with an epic catastrophe on job creation. The macro-economic fundamentals are a manifestation of an economy in virtual stagnation. Demonetisation, which was nothing but an atrocious hocus-pocus economics and the clumsy execution of Goods and Services Tax (GST) had plundered the informal economy, pauperising millions in its wake. India’s GDP appears manipulated and government data when unpalatable to Modi ( like the job numbers) have been unceremoniously dumped. The latest figures on the automobile industry sales show a conspicuous downward trend and the manufacturing sector appears to be in rigor-mortis. The stressed assets in the banking sector are kissing some dark clouds. Sum and substance, a rejuvenated and resolute Rahul Gandhi and a faltering economy had Modi outwitted, foxed. Then Pulwama happened.
For a man who sold the “development” spiel in 2014, Modi calculatedly dumped his flaky past promises which have been nothing but embarrassing snafus such as 2 crore jobs per annum, the obliteration of black money, doubling of farm incomes and creation of monochromatic smart cities, among a few. Post the terror attack at Pulwama and the Balakot counter-strike, Modi had found his 2019 trumpcard; muscular nationalism. This became for him what the Kargil war was for former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee. The heart-stopping capture of Wing Commander Abhinandan and his subsequent release by Pakistan were seized by Modi as his own superman prowess that intimidated Islamabad. Ghar Me Ghus Ghus Ke Maroonga (I will enter each and every home and kill them all) was his thundering pomposity that sought to resurrect his attenuated 56” machismo. People whistled and clapped like they once did watching Amitabh Bachchan bash up goons in Deewaar.
The new global authoritarian leader is now an elected autocrat who presides over an illiberal democracy. For him the most marketable weapon is fear; Islamophobia is popular political currency. An enemy at the border is usually enough. Modi found one at home too. His speech at Wardha, Maharashtra, lambasted Rahul Gandhi for contesting from Wayanad in Kerala because it was a Hindu-minority parliamentary constituency. This was scare-mongering, and an “othering” of the fellow Indian. A Prime Minister takes an oath on India’s Constitution to embody its consecrated principles in his impartial political conduct; Modi cast them aside, making his preferred religious choice publicly known. It was dog-whistle politics. As the votes closed in on May 23, it was clear Modi’s stratagem worked. And how.
In 2014, there were large billboards in Marine Drive, Mumbai that had Modi vaingloriously promoted as a Hindu Hriday Samrat. This time the BJP chose another Hindutva icon, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur. The political messaging behind the questionable choice was unambiguous; even a terror-accused allegedly responsible for a bomb blast that killed six persons in Malegaon and injured several from the minority community was kosher. Modi was legitimising an orchestrated violent attack, even proposing to give the controversial candidate a haloed seat in the Parliament. It was an abject low even by BJP’s polarising standards. But there it was. For Thakur, Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse was a patriot. Thakur’s electoral victory from Bhopal on May 23 is perhaps the defining moment of this election, and of the reshaping of India.
The Congress party will have to aggressively defend the Indian Constitution, which is being systematically annihilated by ridiculing its quintessential credo. It is an ideological war where BJP’s Hindutva enterprise cleverly disguised through cultural nationalism is getting fresh tailwinds. First, the BJP trivialised communal harmony by creating the term pseudo-secular, and now the Indian liberal is called an Urban Naxal. The Saffron Project is to gradually infiltrate institutions and convert impressionable Indians through religious chauvinism. The Congress faces an arduous challenge given BJP’s propaganda machine, social media troll army and the WhatsApp fake news manufacturing capabilities. The party is up against a nasty adversary that has altered the rules of the game. Playing within the BJP’s comfort zone will be like trying to defeat Rafael Nadal on red clay at the French Open. There is only one option; force your opponent to a surface where the ball skids faster and the grass is green.
The Congress party will have to reinvent the political discourse, while simultaneously maximising its enormous human talent currently performing at low productivity on account of bureaucratic cholesterol in its organisational structure. Internal disorganisation is costing the party dear, as was expressed by the Congress president himself. There is tremendous energy that needs to be liberated for the great struggle ahead. It is time to take bold pragmatic risks, be unpredictable and practise political plasticity. There is too much at stake. It is a battle that must be won.
Rahul Gandhi correctly said that the 2019 election was a battle for India’s soul. That soul is today splintered into smithereens. But the soul is indestructible. And it will find its voice again.
(The author is a national spokesperson of the Indian National Congress party. The views are his own.)
Writer: Sanjay Jha
Courtesy: The Pioneer
While EVMs are convenient, there are too many reports of tampering. A workable solution is needed in future
Granted there is a general air of mistrust over the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) ever since it was introduced, and depending on whichever party has had the unexpectedly winnable verdict, its opponents have cried foul and lodged allegations of tampering. But in one of the world’s biggest democracies, there has to be mass confidence in the integrity of EVMs so that voters can trust the outcome of elections. Although the Election Commission (EC) has been stoutly claiming their tamper-proof nature, all political parties, including the BJP and Congress, have at various points in time expressed reservations and in the current election season, there have been genuine concerns about their safety being compromised during transit, storage and handling. Although there is an insurance in the form of voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPATs), the fact is its cumbersome logistics isn’t a practical model of resolution. At best, the intent behind it is entirely perfunctory. This is one of the reasons why the EC has rejected the 100 per cent cross-checks of VVPATs as a workable option. But then with so many complaints and anxieties piling up, the EC cannot appear to be so intransigent about concerns and seem to be at war with voters. It must remember that it is not a comment on the adequacy of its security protocol, expert certification and administrative safeguards but about prevention of the hazardous misuse of technology that is the real devil. So as parties across India guard strongrooms and monitor the journey of EVMs to counting centres, the EC cannot discount the shadow of reasonable doubt.
The scientific fact is since EVMs aren’t connected to the internet, mass manipulation is impossible because the software is “burnt” into the CPU. Of course thefts, faulty chips and breakdowns are possible. And all of it can be a result of human intervention. Many experts have claimed how a dishonest insider can get physical access to EVMs, tweak the control unit that can be programmed to count votes in a certain pattern wirelessly though that charge is a bit of an elephant passing through a hole. A simpler way would be to have an insider cast residual area votes. Fraud can also happen during the long non-election period in far-flung areas, where the EVMs are stored in basic facilities and at the stage of ‘first level checks’ before the machines are serviced by authorised technicians from manufacturers. It is in these outlier segments and districts, where swinging the vote stretched across narrow margins would require manipulating a minuscule number, that results could be altered. And in the Indian context, EVMs, though definitely convenient than paper ballots, cannot combat what is encoded in our DNA — human intent and ingenuity. The West is not immune to EVM malpractices either. Which is why Germany and the Netherlands, which used the machine type that is being used by us, re-introduced paper ballots. Of course, they are far less populated than India, which can consider machine-readable paper ballots going forward to cut down delays. Here, the primary ballots are in paper and the secondary ballots in electronic form unlike the current model. Agreed, technology is not our enemy but had it been perfect, original inventions would not have undergone innovations to be relevant to current time and practices. Like it or not, the onus of restoring the credibility of the democratic exercise is upon the EC and the next five years give it ample time to relook at flaws seriously than dismiss complaints as perennially motivated. It owes it to us.
Writer: Pioneer
Courtesy: The Pioneer
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