15564974 India Elections 2009 Newspaper Articles After Results
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Transcript of 15564974 India Elections 2009 Newspaper Articles After Results
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The triumph and the glory
Pratap Bhanu Mehta Posted online: Sunday , May 17, 2009 at
0155 hrs
There are moments in the life of nations that are harbingers of
deep changes. The Congress has achieved what even so many
of its friends thought was unthinkable: not just a return to
power, but a return with such aplomb. No amount of
psephological quibbling can take away from this achievement.
They put a lie to the proposition that this was not a national
election, but a sum of state elections. The swing towards themacross large parts of the country is too significant to be
dismissed as a conjuncture of lots of local factors. But this is
also a moment where the nation is also entitled to some
degree of self-congratulation. Small exceptions apart, this
election represents a big defeat for the politics of
opportunism, obfuscation and obscurantism. Those political
forces that thought that mere political bargaining with others
was a substitute for an electoral strategy have lost. Instead a
message has been sent out, loud and clear, that playing
spoiler, switching sides in order to pre-empt the peoples
mandate, changing positions at the last minute are simply not
on. Elections are fundamentally about comparative credibility,
and those who were foolish enough to assume that mere
words could hoodwink electorates have been cut to size. A
large number of parties have been punished for this reasonand rightly so.
This election is also an indicator that the era of votebank
politics as we have known it is over. Parties that placed undue
confidence in the fact that they had secure vote-bases
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amongst particular political groups have been given a severe
blow. For instance, Mayawati made the same mistake Lalu
made in Bihar. She took the Dalit vote so much for granted
that she felt even less compelled to deliver. She has not yet
recognised that a functioning state, freed from the local
political economy of extortion and violence, will be to her
benefit in the long run. Lalus constituents gave him 15
years; Mayawatis will give her even less. The Congress did
extraordinarily well to step into the breach. The Muslim vote
will show a similar trend; here is a group that also feels it now
has choices, and this is a healthy sign for Indian politics. It is
too soon to say that caste and identity have become irrelevant
for politics. They may seem so because the policy agendas
that came out of that politics are now deeply entrenched; yet
its logic is also involuting, creating new coalitions as in Bihar.
It is inevitable that there will be a search for new paradigms.
But the post-Mandal age of identity votebanks is over.
The standard thesis that Indian politics is centrist and
moderate in its orientation also holds. The BJPs core
dilemma is that the politics of polarisation can give it local
victories, a Gujarat here, a Pilibhit there. But it cannot sustain a
broad national presence. Its leadership has consistently failed
to recognise this point. Indeed, aversion to a politics of
polarisation may also explain the backlash against Mayawati.
Hazari Prasad Dwivedi once wrote a remarkable sentence in
the context of Indian culture that sums up our politics as well:bharat ka loknayak wahi ho sakta hai jo samanvaya kar sake.
This was the core premise on which the Congress was built; it
was punished when it departed from it. It may now be able to
reoccupy that space.
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The election has also complicated the dialectic of
fragmentation. While smaller parties have played the spoiler in
a few states, they have ended up reinforcing the space of
national parties, as in the case of Maharashtra. The election
also demonstrates the Indian electorates aversion to hubris.
One of the most dramatic results is from West Bengal, where
the Left has suffered a serious setback. Much ink will be spilt
over the analysing of whether it was its opposition to
Manmohan Singh or Nandigram that did it in. But the Left,
particularly in Bengal, had acquired a sense of hubris that was
overdue for a rebuff. This is also an era where two things are
evident in voters responses to governance and
development issues: on the one hand, their expectations are
rising; they want a politics of hope, not resentment. On the
other hand, they are exercising nuanced judgments, not
instinctive anti-incumbency.
But in the end nothing can take away from the fact that the
Congresss strategy was hugely successful. Even his critics
have to acknowledge that Dr Manmohan Singhs
government seemed to be a safer pair of hands than any of
the competitors. He can claim credit for the fact that this
election was not taking place against the backdrop of deep
discontentment; if anything, most people have more cash in
their pockets. Agrarian growth has been impressive,
procurement prices high, subsidies galore, government
employees with cash in their pockets; and despite the recentslowdown, the continuous record of growth was a strong
hand with which to go to the elections. Rahul Gandhi should
rightly get the credit for laying the political foundations of this
victory. But in end that could not have been possible, without
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the fact that the government, for all its imperfections seemed
more credible than all the rivals.
Rahul Gandhis three gambits seem to have paid off
handsomely. The first was the decision of the Congress to go
it alone; if nothing else, this decision was a reiteration of its
character as a special national party. And the timing for this
was just right in UP. Second, and more subtly, in states like
Punjab,
Uttarakhand and even, to some extent, in Gujarat, the strategy
of energising the Youth Congress and bringing an element of
organisational vitality seems to have paid off. And finally, his
own subtle strategy of positioning himself as an outsider
to the system, a source of real, even if somewhat
indeterminate newness seems a master stroke. There is no
question that at the moment people see Congress as a party
of the future, and he was able to embody that idea in all its
concreteness. If outcomes were a consequence of
predetermined logic, no politics would be necessary. Rahul
Gandhi has demonstrated the dividends that risk-taking can
have in politics: it can change the rules of the game. This is his
moment. He has changed the rules of politics. The country will
now look to him to change its horizons for the future.
The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi
The Easts beautiful sunrise
Bibek Debroy Posted online: Sunday , May 17, 2009 at 0154
hrs
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Since 2004, the Left has held a disproportionately high
importance in national policy-making, media bytes and
coalition politics, while its ideology is reflects mindsets young
India finds difficult to identify with. This is not to suggest
there arent concerns about unbridled, unregulated market-
based reforms, or uneven benefits from trickle-down for
the poor, especially relevant in this period of downturn.
However, that agenda has successfully been captured by the
Congress. This leaves the Left with nothing but an
obstructionist space to occupy be it on economic policy or
external affairs, including specific issues like Indo-US relations
and the nuclear deal. It is a space where the Left has rights but
no responsibilities, where it is part of the government but is
also outside it. Among several trends in these elections, that
bluff has been called and the Left reduced to less than half the
numbers it possessed in 2004. Barring a few seats elsewhere
(including Tripura), the Left holds but Kerala and West Bengal
and it has been decimated in both states.
Opposition-type posturing doesnt work when one is the
government, as in West Bengal. And nor, after more than
three decades in power, can one blame the Centre for all
ones travails. The progressive decline in West Bengals
economic performance, both relative to other states and over
time, has been documented. The initial growth momentum
based on agriculture and land reforms petered out;
deprivation in WBs worst-off districts is worse than that insome districts in Bihar and Orissa. In industrialisation and land
acquisition, typified by Nandigram and Singur, there were
genuine issues of compensation and non-transparent
procedures, capitalised on by the Trinamool.
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However, in both Delhi and West Bengal, the Left displayed an
arrogance of power, blinded by the belief that Left bastions
could not be stormed, especially since voting was never fair
and clean, with electoral procedures subverted. Panchayat and
municipal elections provided enough evidence this wasnt
the case, but the Left underestimated the extent of
disenchantment, or believed it could be suppressed. With the
Congress- Trinamool tie-up, what is significant is not just the
magnitude of the Lefts decline, but its loss in key
constituencies like Tamluk, Jadavpur and Barrackpore,
believed to be unassailable. The Sachar Committee
documented the status of Muslims, reinforced by local
developments too. The Muslim, ST and rural vote has now
turned against the Left and it has been reduced to its original
support base in the industrial-cum-trade union belt. 2009 was
a semi-final; extrapolated, with the mahajot in place, the Left
is certain to be dislodged in the finals, the assembly elections
of 2011.
Vote shares vary in individual constituencies. But on average,
in local body elections, the Lefts vote share was 45 per cent,
with 35 per cent for the Trinamool, 10 per cent for the
Congress and 10 per cent for the BJP. 2009 should therefore
have been touch-and-go. However, it wasnt, and the Left
has been convincingly trounced. There was thus a swing away
from the Left, particularly in rural Bengal. In urban Bengal,
there was still cynicism about whether the Left could ever bedislodged, which is why prominent intellectuals preferred to
sit on the fence rather than take sides.
There remain question marks about the Trinamools
governance agenda and about its co-opting of riff-raff to
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counter the Left. But those are questions for the future. For
the moment, proof that the Left can be bested will certainly
snowball, reducing cynicism and fatalism among fence-sitters.
Change in West Bengal will be believed to be feasible.
Soul-searching and cleansing should be good for the Left too.
Historically, it has been identified with honesty and integrity,
traits increasingly absent in West Bengal. The Left in West
Bengal has instead become identified with corruption, graft,
criminalisation, violence and scant respect for the rule of law.
Governance is non-existent and administration has yielded to
party fiat.
This is good neither for democracy, nor for West Bengal. 2009
doesnt directly change the status quo, but shows it can be
changed. High growth since 1991 has benefited India, but
certain geographical regions remain deprived. Other than
central India, these areas are to the east and Northeast. (Even
MP, Bihar and Orissa have begun to change.) What sticks out
like a sore thumb is West Bengal, critical to the Northeasts
development too. Some indicators in that state are inferior to
those in Bangladesh, suggesting possible reverse migration if
these trends continue. For a state that was once supposed to
think today what India thought tomorrow, this is nothing
short of pathetic. Human and financial capital have fled.
Unskilled and semi-skilled labour in west and north India now
comes from northern West Bengal, not eastern UP or Bihar.The Lefts decimation should help change this. Overall, there
is much for West Bengals voters and Indias citizens to
celebrate.
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Hands down
Shekhar Gupta Posted online: Sunday , May 17, 2009 at 0249
hrs
There are winners and there are losers in any election. But this
is one election India can feel particularly good about. Not only
because its been one of our smoothest ever for which the
Election Commission deserves the nations gratitude but
also because it confirms the positive trends that some of us,
incorrigible optimists, have been flagging for a while. This
newspaper has argued that the politics of grievance, rooted inour complex past, is giving way to the politics of aspiration.
Or, as Thomas Friedman puts it, the weight of dreams is
turning out heavier than that of memories. This election,
powered by 60 crore voters, shows our democracy is firmly on
that virtuous curve.
For, anybody who built a campaign on negativism, prejudice,
victimhood and vengeance has been demolished. The voter
has, in fact, been even less forgiving with victims of hubris,
with those who loftily announce themselves as next Prime
Ministers without being sure of even 40 seats; those who build
their own statues; and those who with a fraction of seats in
Parliament aspire to control the nations foreign and
economic policies without, of course, being accountable for
anything. The Indian voter has always rejected arrogance andpomposity but has sometimes been forgiving to those with
whom she might have found affinity of caste, religion or
ethnicity. By jettisoning even that, the voter has shown new
maturity. This didnt happen overnight. Over the past five
years, we saw the voter increasingly reject the spoilers, the
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rent-seekers. This election reaffirms that trend and
vindicates the faith in those who deliver.
There are other shifts, some stunning, some subtle. This will
be Indias first post-1991 secular government elected
without any help from the Left and in spite of its bitter
opposition. So the voter has also junked the idea that Indian
secularism needs certificates of legitimacy from the Left. Or
that, somehow, you had to be godless to be secular.
Such a ringing endorsement of incumbency also busts the
myth that an angry voter throws out everybody. A mature,
aspirational one thinks coolly and rewards good performance.
You see that across states: the Congress scripts a brilliant
revival in Uttar Pradesh but has its poorest score for any state
in next-door Bihar where Nitish Kumar runs its first decent
government in three decades. Similarly, nobody is swayed so
easily by abuse and innuendo, particularly when directed at a
leader seen as decent, honest, modest and well-meaning. The
BJP erred grievously in making a man like Dr Manmohan
Singh the main target of its attack, for being weak and
ineffectual, because it was contra-factual and the voter
had the equanimity to judge that. On the contrary, in this
environment of insecurity, with terror attacks and job losses,
India has shown that it finds greater comfort with a leader,
mature and understated.
His party now stands by him and its leaders Sonia Gandhi and
Rahul Gandhi have been wise extending to him the respect
and trust he so richly deserves. Having risked his head on his
instinct twice, on economic reforms in 1991 and the nuclear
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deal in 2008, Dr Singh will now feel the burden of high
expectations. This mandate is such it leaves you no excuses.
A final word about L K Advani, one of the last of the great
long marchers of our politics, who once again finds himself on
the wrong side of history. He has shown admirable grace in
defeat and can have the satisfaction that he played a key role
in bringing to Indian politics something it needed so badly
a centre of gravity which, as this newspaper has argued, can
only be found if the Congress and the BJP together have at
least 325-350 seats so that rent-seekers cant hold
governance to ransom. That this figure has mostly beenachieved, that the Centre will now hold, is another reason why
Verdict 2009 deserves applause.
Why 2009 may be most
startling verdict since 1977
Vandita Mishra Posted online: Sunday , May 17, 2009 at 0224
hrs
New Delhi : The verdict of 2004 was also a huge surprise, but
it left a puzzle in its wake. The final all-India seats and vote
share for the major alliances showed how difficult it was to
claim that the Congress and its allies had won a mandate to
rule.
While the Congress had improved its tally to 145, an
improvement of 31 seats over its worst-ever performance in
1999, its vote share actually fell by 1.9 percentage points
between the two elections. Barring the National Front of 1989
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and the United Front of 1996, no other party or alliance had
come to power at the Centre with such a small share of the
popular vote. Compared to the 35.88 per cent of the NDA, the
UPA secured a tiny lead of half a percentage point at 36.53.
The difference in vote share between the Congress and BJP
was 4.28 percentage points in 2004 the Congress got 26.44
per cent and the BJP 22.16 per cent.
Verdict 2009 is more like the verdicts of 1977 and 1980. Like
them, it is startling. But unlike the 2004 verdict, it is clear. The
winner, Congress, has notched an estimated 10 percentage
point lead over the loser, BJP.
Since the 1990s, a theme of Indian politics has been the
decline of the two main national parties, Congress and BJP,
and the ascendance of regional players. In the run-up to this
election, it was widely predicted that the Big Two would
become less decisive to the final outcome than ever before.
The 2009 results defy that expectation in at least two ways:
One, the Congresss 2009 tally is the highest won by either
the Congress or BJP at the Centre since 1991. Also, the
combined vote share of the Congress and BJP, that had
plunged from 56.68 per cent in 1991 to 48.16 in 2004, has
again risen above the 50 per cent mark in 2009.
Conventional wisdom has it that the Congress does better inthe rural areas while the BJP bests the Congress in the urban
vote. This understanding was first dented by the 2004 results
in which the Congress-led UPA won most of the big cities.
According to CSDS data, of the 74 urban seats in the country,
the UPA won 35 while the NDA won 21.
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This trend reversal has been accentuated in the 2009 elections
the Congress-led alliance has swept Mumbai, Delhi,
Chennai, Kolkata indicating that a genuine shift in the
support base of the major players is taking place.
It used to be said that the road to Delhi passes through UP.
But in the last decade and a half, national politics has pursued
a trajectory that is separate from UP.
The old adage may be coming true again. The Congress-led
alliances big win in 2009 at Centre runs alongside the
stunning u-turn the partys fortunes have taken in UP, a state
in which it had been virtually knocked out of the reckoning
since it lost power in 1989.
Ever since the collapse of Congress dominance in 1989, the
state of Uttar Pradesh became the site for the unfolding of
three national-level political projects. Majorities were sought
to be cobbled through Mandir, Mandal, and social
engineering BSP-style. The 2009 results indicate that allthree projects may have been exhausted or domesticated or
both.
In successive elections in UP, a sharp seat-vote
disproportionality a structural feature of the first-past-the-
post system has been on display. For instance, in 1991, the
BJP got 31.5 per cent of the vote and 221 seats. In the next
election in 1993, the BJP improved its vote share to 33.3 percent but its seats came down to 177. The party further
improved its vote share to 33.9 in 1996 and further reduced its
seats to 175. More recently, in 2007, Mayawati got only 30.4
per cent of the vote, yet won 206 seats, an absolute majority.
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For the first time after 1991, the Congress performance shows
a congruence in seat and vote shares. The party has doubled
both in UP since the last parliamentary election in 2004.
The Left has hit a historic low. Its best ever performance in
the 2004 LS polls has been undone by its worst-ever
performance now since 1977.
Lalu Prasad Yadavs RJD has posted its worst-ever
performance, with its tally being lower than the previous low
of 1999. Also, for the first time the erstwhile king of Bihar, and
torchbearer of Mandal politics in the countrys north, is likely
to be out of power both in the state and at the Centre. If the
Congress offers him a Cabinet berth, it will be more as
graceful acknowledgement of past loyalty than tribute to his
power to dictate terms.
Ever since the fracturing of the polity after the collapse of
Congress dominance in the 1990s, decisive verdicts have been
associated with emotive issues. Yet, Campaign 2009, shorn ofany emotive charge, has delivered a scintillating national
verdict.
The Lefts fork
The Indian Express Posted online: Sunday , May 17, 2009 at
0148 hrsHubris causes the fatal error of judgment that leads to the fall.
When the Left Front won 60 seats in 2004, did anybody tell its
leaders that that fall begins at the zenith, from the very
moment of over-reach? The Lefts best-ever performance is
followed now by its worst-ever since 1977. While party
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strengths in Kerala routinely oscillate, Bengal has been the
Lefts impregnable fortress since then. On Fort Bengal now
flies the Trinamools flag. In Kerala, its victory in 2004 has
been almost reversed now.
As the Left introspects, as Messrs Bardhan, Karat and Raja
indicated it would, how should it apportion blame? By now, its
central leadership doesnt need to be reminded there was
always a price to pay for decisions made in the air-
conditioned ivory tower, disregarding opinions of state units.
True, troubles in the states must be factored into the Lefts
spectacular collapse the CPM was mortally wounded byNandigram and Singur, the Kerala state government has been
a darkly comic boxing match between two titans but, in
each case, state units have been let down by central leaders
whose doctrinaire intransigence has now forced the Left out in
the cold. If the TC-Congress momentum picks up from here,
after the 2011 assembly polls in Bengal, left parties might find
themselves reduced to a last, tiny bastion of Tripura. Theyve
just proved themselves capable, in real terms, of losing
Bengal.
That fissures are now appearing in the Left will not surprise
those who recall how the Bengal CPM was unhappy with Karat
bulldozing the Left out of supporting the UPA last year. After
four-plus years of dictating terms, Karat chose that moment,
and the nuclear deal, to erase the Lefts credibility. Had it notblackmailed and betrayed the UPA, thered perhaps have
been no TC-Congress alliance to hammer the CPM. Somnath
Chatterjee, whom the party expelled over the trust vote, has
called for mature leadership and warned that narcissistic
leaders wont take the Left anywhere, anymore. The Lefts
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come to a fork in its path; it must now choose between
irrelevance and reinvention.
Now, reform
The Financial Express
Posted online: May 17, 2009 at 2249 hrs
Election 2009 has probably delivered the best ever political
context for economic reform. A reformist, economically
literate and economically liberal Prime Minister is back with a
hugely enhanced personal-political stature. His core economic
policy team has gained in stature as well. Therefore,
opposition from within the Congress to reforms will be muted.
There will be no opposition from outsidethe communists
are out of influence and out of reckoning. They will be back to
organising ineffectual strikes protesting inevitable changes.
Indeed, it is striking that the two leaders who targeted
Manmohan Singh as an individual have both had a bad
election: LK Advanis leadership is under severe scrutiny as
the BJPs numbers sink to a new low and Prakash Karat must
explain the vanishingly small returns to his ideological
brinkmanship. Dr Singhs personal profile right now looks
even more impressive when set against these twos troubles.
The PM also has the advantage of post-result political
analyses being free of false theories about voter preferences
against reforms. The 2004 Congress victory was complicated
by such a theory. No such fanciful reasoning is possible thistime. The substantive reasoning should be this: as Dr Singh
will know better than most, the economy needs a few mood-
and investment climate-changing policy initiatives quickly. The
PM has the political capital to deliver this now.
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Some of the errors of the last policymaking apparatus can and
should be avoided this time. Economic ministries and the
education ministry should have high-calibre candidates. We
can be fairly sure about the finance ministryall post-1991
FMs have been well chosen. But for other ministries, merit
must be made to count now that the Congress is on a
stronger wicket in the UPA, and within the Congress, the non-
performing gerontocracy is on a weaker wicket. Ideally, the
PMs right to veto all ministerial appointments should be
reasserted; allies may get to pick their ministries after
negotiations, but the allys nominee should have the PMs
minimum confidence. Again, in coalition politics, there has
rarely been a better time than this to test the acceptability of
this very reasonable proposal. Dr Singhs toughening as a
politician started with his stand and his winning gamble on
the nuclear deal trust vote. Returning as an incumbenta rare
thing at the national levelmakes him an even more
formidable politician. The politician Dr Singh must now aid the
economist Dr Singh.
Yesterday once more
UPAs victory gives Manmohan Singh the opportunity to
serve a historic second term, and Congress has that rare thing
in politics, a second chance
Sunil Khilnani
The demand in New Delhi for cars with opaque windows, and
for large suitcases, has suddenly dropped. The extraordinarydecisive victory of the Congress-led United Progressive
Alliance (UPA) now gives it the opportunity to form a
government without the usual, tortuous machinationsand
with the nearest approximation to an electoral mandate that
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India has seen in 25 years. The victory asserts Manmohan
Singhs personal authority at the heart of government, and it
vindicates his decision last year to
dispense with
Sunil Khilnani
dependence on the Left parties. He
now has the opportunity to serve a
historic second term, and Congress
has that rare thing in politics, a
second chance. After the UPA
government came to power in
2004, it squandereddespite some
golden economic yearsmany
opportunities to develop
infrastructure, to improve primary and higher education, to
pursue financial reforms, to provide basic health, and to work
towards stabilizing the region. Today, with a global recession,
a high-risk neighbourhood, and increasing inequality at home,
the need for a stable, coherent national strategy is urgent.With 206 seats, Congress must now get serious about creating
onefree this time of coalitional encumbrances, and of
pressures from its mismatched ideological partners.
Even before the results came in, there were reasons to feel
good about this election. Inflammatory rhetoric of the sort
peddled by Varun Gandhi was more swiftly rejected than
might have been a few years ago, reported violence was fairly
minimal, and 60% of registered voters turned out. Newly
delimited constituencies to some extent restored value to the
individual vote (especially for urban citizens). Improved public
monitoring of candidates allowed us to know, for instance, by
how much the 300 members (source: Association for
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Democratic Reforms) in the outgoing Lok Sabha personally
enriched themselves over the past five years, while ostensibly
conducting the business of government. In historical and
political terms, yesterdays results give two further reasons
for optimism.
In the 2004 election, Indias plural identity was in question,
weakened by BJP rule. Today, we can be a little more
confident about sustaining that plural identity. The seductions
of identity politics held little attraction in this election, and its
great practitionersL.K. Advani, Mayawatiemerged losers.
Such politics of course remain potent and destructive in the
lives of ordinary Indians, but their capacity to dictate national
policy has at least for the moment been constrained.
In the neighbourhood:
A man walks with a
boy through the Jalala
refugee camp near
Mardan, in north-west
Pakistan, earlier thisweek. Pakistans
army lifted its curfew
in the battle-scarred Swat valley on Friday, allowing thousands
to flee as troops prepared for street battles with Taliban
militants entrenched in the valleys biggest town. What
happens in Pakistan is our problem tooand we need a
government willing to address it. Greg Baker / AP
Second, the results provide a useful corrective to the defining
political dynamic of the last two decades. That dynamic was
not the consolidation of a national electoral identity centred
around Hindutva, nor the transformative rise of lower caste
parties. Rather, it was the marked empowerment of Indias
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regional states, beginning in the 1990s with a surge in new
voters and political parties. Since that time, the mantra has
been that our national elections are in fact a series of local
elections. Yet this idea distorts the relationship between local
and national issues. Agrarian unrest in a third of the
countrys districts, access to water in scores of them: When
exactly does a local issue become a national one? The
localization of our politics sometimes entrapped vital matters
of national interest into constituency ghettos. Now, a secure
national party should work to make such local realities the
stuff of national policy.
Still, one should not too hastily declare the 2009 election as
marking a return to the dominance of national parties. After
all, the two national parties have together gained less than 40
seats more in the new Lok Sabha than they won in 2004
hardly a decisive shift. Yet this election does represent at least
a slowing of the politys headlong regionalization, at a
crucial moment in our engagement with the globeand the
Congress, with 29% of the vote share, can claim to haveplayed a real role this. In a world that is remarkably uncertain,
one where China, the US and other states are capable of
acting in response to crisis with far more coherent will than we
possess, and where international developments impinge with
startling rapidity on the lives of the poor, India is now
potentially in a better position to act and react on behalf of its
citizens.
It is now up to the new Congress-led government to make its
opportunities. It will need first to articulate clearly what it
takes Indias interests to beand then to be prepared to
uphold these, in the face of domestic and international
challenge. Perhaps most immediately pressing are the
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uncertainties of our region. No amount of economic
diplomacy can help us to escape our geography. What
happens in and to Pakistan, and to its west, matters hugely to
Indias future. It is our problemand we need a government
willing to address it. At home, we will need to think more
expansively about the principles and forms of redistribution
to be willing to move beyond the politics of reservations. And
globally, we cannot pretend that questions of the human
habitat are of secondary concern to us. We have to take a lead
in international initiatives.
In coming days, the Congress will claim that the voters have
affirmed its policies and achievements of the last five years.
Indeed the unusual arc of the election lends this argument
some credence. The left and right lost, broadly speaking, as
masses turned out for the status quo. But while the pundits
have already begun ventriloquizing about what the public
chose in national terms, MPs across the country campaigned
on gutters, water connections, roads. Every election spawns its
mythsusually ones far worse than an invented nationalsatisfaction. Now, if the Congress can bring the local to the
nationalas it could in its heydayits new term might deliver
more that its last one.
Sunil Khilnani is author of The Idea of India (Penguin, 3rd ed.
2003)
The making of a miracle
Despite the odds, Indias recent economic performance has
been closer to being miraculous
Eye on India | Nirvikar Singh
In 1993, the World Bank published a study on the causes of
the unprecedented high growth of eight East Asian
economies. It was provocatively titled The East Asian Miracle,
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and inspired reams of further analysis and commentary. In
retrospect, perhaps the growth experience of these countries
was not so miraculousthey followed reasonably good
economic policies that encouraged trade and investment.
Most of all, those of the eight that did best already had, or
developed, good initial conditions: stable societies with
relatively high levels of education and broad participation of
the populations in the economic transformation. China, the
East Asian giant that followed in the footsteps of the eight,
fitted the pattern in many respects.
Through this lens, Indias recent economic performance has
been closer to being miraculous. Its economic reforms have
been incomplete, its democratic government is often creaky
and ineffective, and its society is riven by fault lines. Yet it
came tantalizingly close to matching East Asian rates of
growth for a few years. The real success, however, will come
from sustaining growth of 8% or more over a couple of
decades. With a new government about to come into power,
it is tantalizing to think how close India is to this goal, if it canimplement some key policy reforms. The feasibility of reforms
is always a challenge, but what would be an ideal set of
national policy moves to make an Indian growth miracle?
The feasibility of reforms is always a challenge, but what
would be an ideal policy set to make an Indian growth
miracle?
First, strengthen local governments economically. Give them
real fiscal capacity by allowing them to piggyback on some
state and Central taxes, as well as increasing transfers to local
governments. Compensate the states by also giving them new
tax authority, including piggybacking on the national income
tax. Let states and local governments be responsible for
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raising their own revenue at the margin, to cover their
marginal expenditures. Fiscal decentralization will improve the
efficiency of government expenditures, and simply make
substantive the political decentralization that has already
taken place in India.
Second, push state and local governments to do their most
important job, of delivering basic health, education and safety
to their citizens. One by one, leaders in Indias states, even
now in Bihar, have been figuring out that their electorates care
most about good government in this fundamental sense. The
Union government needs to set broad outcome goals, make
block grants, and let the states compete to serve their citizens.
Mobility and media have changed fundamentally from the
India of 20 years ago, so that they provide checks on sub-
national governments, and the apparatus of planning and
doling out earmarked money for various schemes has
long since become obsolete.
Third, overhaul macroeconomic management, including the
mechanisms governing monetary and exchange rate policysetting. There is far too little transparency in these policies, so
that economic actors are left guessing as to what might
happen, rather than having a clear and openly stated set of
policy rules that allow for rational planning of investment and
allocation decisions. On top of this opaqueness, there are still
dozens of discretionary or even conflicting controls and
restrictions that hinder the workings of domestic and
international financial markets. The previous government
commissioned superb studies on financial sector reform, and
the time has come to carry out the recommendations.
Fourth, keep pruning away the thicket of rules and
regulations that still make doing business in India (including
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starting and stopping) unnecessarily cumbersome. Just as with
the old licence raj, many of the controls favour large firms and
politically connected incumbents. Politicians should realize
that, just as with corporate income taxes, they can increase
their take by growing the base of successful businesses. One
sector where a limited number of domestic incumbents
cannot keep up with demand is higher education. The logic of
liberalization applies strongly to this sector, which has been
strangled for decades by inefficient government controls.
Allowing businesses to flourish across the whole economy will
be crucial to generating the additional employment
opportunities that Indias young population needs.
Perhaps the true miracle will be if any of the above changes
are actually implemented. But in any of these four areas, there
is so much room for improvement that even piecemeal and
incomplete reforms can yield growth dividends. What is
interesting is that many politicians, technocrats and academics
have been articulating an agenda for reform that can enhance
growth as well as expand the set of its beneficiaries. Thegreatest resistance seems to come from an old elite, a
combination of civil servants and members of the
intelligentsia.
My guess, though, is that the tide has turned. The last
government distributed some of the benefits of growth to the
rural hinterland, crudely and inefficiently, but still with an
impact: People now widely understand the possibilities and
benefits of growth.
As a version of that coalition returns to power, it will be the
first continuous decade of rule after a long time, and may yet
make a miracle happen.
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Nirvikar Singh is professor of economics at the University of
California, Santa Cruz. Your comments are welcome at
After at least a month of wrenching uncertainty about the
complexion of the new Union government, the people of India
voted decisively. The result was an anticlimax: Fears of a
muddled verdict were swept aside and one coalition, the
United Progressive Alliance (UPA), has been given a clear
mandate to govern. The question now is, what should it dowith its victory and what will it do?
In that sense, the coming years will have the appearance of a
laboratory experiment. The UPA has been in power for the
past five years, will be so for the next five (barring the
exceptional, of course). In these years, the coalition dumped
economic reforms and imbibed populism. It served India
badly, even if it had a role in securing a victory.
Now, of course, the UPA has no crutches to cope with. For the
Left is gone and the numbers are decisive in their own
right. This is the first time since 1991 that the road to reforms
is not obstructed by electoral concerns. As a result, the UPA
should waste no time: It should quickly initiate reforms that
have the potential to shift the growth gears of India. Moving
the country from 7%-plus annual growth to the 9% trajectory
requires three things.
Illustration: Jayachandran / Mint
One, India needs to abandon its
framework of labour laws.
Freeing the labour market by
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permitting companies to hire and fire workers at will,
especially in the small and medium enterprises (SME) sector,
has the potential to ignite growth. The timing for this is
propitious: As the world enters a weakening phase of
recession, India can work hard to make inroads into global
markets.
Labour market flexibility is one condition that can give India a
cost advantage that countries such as China, Bangladesh and
Vietnam possess.
Labour market flexibility, however, has more to it than mere
cost competitiveness. It will open the doors for job creation
something that can be a powerful engine of progress, if
implemented. The political returns to such a move should not
be underestimated.
Two, the country badly needs to move towards a rule-based
fiscal and monetary policy mix. The absence of such a rule-
based system has ensured that the fruits of liberalizing foreign
trade and product markets have not been reaped. A rule-
based system will also complement labour market reforms.Until now, the governments fiscal policy interventions have
been ad hoc and are usually in the wrong direction, leading to
inflationary situations. As a result, when it comes to
firefighting, monetary policy has the potential to kill growth.
Once all markets have been liberalized, it becomes all the
more important to follow a rule-based system. Interest rate
fluctuations, to give one example, have the ability to kill SMEs:
No amount of labour reforms can keep them alive in adverse
economic conditions created by a bad monetary-fiscal policy
mix.
In one sense, the coming five years of UPA rule will have the
appearance of a laboratory experiment
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How should the government proceed in this direction? As a
first step, the Union government can go back to the discipline
of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act. The
more difficult task will be that of convincing other political
parties about the need and utility of policy continuity on this
front. If the UPA can move along these lines, the chances that
the next government will follow suit will increase dramatically.
The success of such a rule-based platform can ensure this.
Once these reforms are initiated, an economic transition can
begin. One may say that that is what has been happening for
the last 18 years, isnt that sufficient time to move towards
open markets? The answer is yes only in a partial sense: For in
the absence of labour market flexibility, no transition to an
open economy is complete.
Which brings us to the most important part of these reforms:
the creation of a social security net during the transition. The
UPA does not have to begin creating a safety net de novo. It
already has a template in the form of the National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Turning NREGS inthat direction, however, will require extensive rejigging. But
that may be worth a try. The government can also try out new
innovations, such as direct cash transfers to the needy. That
has the potential to save administrative costs and also control
corruption associated with programmes such as NREGS. This,
however, will be a big challenge.
Will the UPA execute these reforms? It is a hard question to
answer. If one looks at the necessary conditions for these
reforms, one can say yes. But a necessary condition is not the
same as a sufficient condition. That sufficiency has to come
from the political leadership. That is a big imponderable.
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INDIA RETURNS TO THE GRAND OLD PARTY
By Ashutosh Varshney
Published: May 16 2009 17:56 | Last updated: May 16 2009
17:56
It is impossible to deny that all of us underestimated the
resurgence of Indias Congress party. It is also equally clear
that undaunted by soaring heat and a long and exhausting
campaign, roughly 420 million voters have produced the bestpossible outcome for India in what was the largest election of
world history.
Multiple factors are always involved in producing a clear
outcome in Indian elections, but these elections will be widely
read as a moment of national redemption and renewal and a
retreat, though not the end of, parochial political noise.
EDITORSCHOICE
CONGRESS ALLIANCE WINS INDIAN ELECTION-MAY-16
G IDEON RACHMANS BLOG :THE CONGRESS PARTY SPRINGS A
SURPRISE-MAY-17
CONGRESS VICTORY BODES WELL FOR INVESTORS -MAY-16
OPPOSITION SUPPORT COLLAPSES IN INDIAN VOTE-MAY-16
RESULT IS OPPORTUNITY TO IMPROVE TIES WITH PAKISTAN -MAY-16
JOHN ELLIOTT :B IG WIN FORCONGRESS-MAY-16
Indias economic downturn and security dilemmas require
political stability and national resolve. Whether that is why the
electorate produced such an unexpected verdict in favor of
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the Congress alliance remains unclear, but the election results
will take India in that direction.
The wisdom of the electorate is often congratulated for such
results. Only with greater election statistics, which will come
later, can we establish the existence of such wisdom. It is,
however, beyond doubt that a rising power like India, located
in a dangerous neighborhood, needs such luck. Both South
Asia and the world will be a better place as a result.
The victory of the Congress alliance needs to be put in
historical perspective. Right since the birth of the Indian
republic -- indeed, right since the freedom movement --
Indias tallest leaders have always intuitively grasped what
their greatest challenge was: how to stitch the nations
diversities together.
It was called nation-building to begin with. Of late, it has
come to be viewed as giving the various groups a share in the
power structure.
Historically, more than any other political organization, the
Congress party has understood the centrality of this task. In
terms of language, it was always federal, incorporating the
various regional diversities into its internal structure. In terms
of religion, it sought to bring Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and
Christians together.
But in terms of castes within Hindu society, Indias divided
majority community, the challenges have been unexpectedly
formidable. The Congress sought to put the upper castes,
middle castes and the ex-untouchable Dalits together, but
sandwiched between the upper castes and Dalits and feeling
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uncomfortable with both, the middle castes, the largest
demographic category of Indian society, started leaving the
Congress in the 1950s and 1960s.
By the 1990s, the migration of middle castes from the
Congress in much of Northern India was nearly complete. In
two of Indias biggest states, Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar,
the Congress was decimated by the mid-1990s.
Once the middle castes and later the Dalits formed their own
political parties, Muslims and the upper Hindu castes also did
not wish to back a losing horse. They left the Congress,
making its hold over power in Delhi extremely shaky.
Basically, UPs size is so huge that without substantial
support in UP, it is extremely hard to form a stable
government in Delhi.
The electoral revival of the Congress party in UP is the biggest
news of these elections. It means a return of substantial parts
of the Muslim community and upper castes, in addition to
some middle castes. It also signifies weakening of lower caste
parties that had begun to worry even those, who supported
the ideology of social justice and greater power for lower
castes. Unlike the plebeian parties of Southern India, the lower
caste parties of UP, and also the neighboring Bihar, had
become passionate advocates of a rather coarse form of
identity politics. Arguing that Robin Hoods correctedsocial injustices on the ground, they openly celebrated
Robin Hoods, inducted them in large numbers in their
parties, and gave them offices.
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Identity politics came to overwhelm law and order,
governance and policy seriousness. The shock delivered to
such parties in Northern India in these elections almost
certainly represents new citizen aspirations for governance
and development, not simply an embrace of caste identity.
The defeat of the Communists, especially in West Bengal, also
represents a triumph of national purpose. During 2004-2008,
Indias Communists were noted for their resistance to
economic reforms and nuclear deal.
It is one of the hidden transcripts of Indian politics that in
West Bengal, the Communists also represented a regionalist
aspiration. Right through the 20th century, Kolkata and Delhi
had an uneasy relationship. Kolkata was the center of British
India till 1912, when the capital moved to Delhi. Since then,
Kolkata and Bengal in general have felt an increasing erosion
of power.
The victory of a Congress alliance in West Bengal bringsKolkata into the national mainstream for the first time in over
three decades. Two of Indias historic cities -- Kolkata and
Delhi -- will now have a much better conversation, a
development worth applauding.
Finally, these elections have boosted the fortunes of Rahul
Gandhi as a national leader and deepened the anxieties of the
BJP about its future. In a coming-of-age press conference twoweeks ago, Rahul Gandhi made two arguments with clarity
and passion.
First, economic growth, he said, is a necessary (though not a
sufficient) condition for poverty removal. No politician of
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consequence in Indias mass politics (as opposed to its elite
politics) has made this argument openly on public stage for
decades.
Second, he argued that internal elections were a pre-requisite
for the revival of the Congress party, especially in UP but also
elsewhere. For more than three decades, the discipline of
political science has had a professional consensus on this
point. It is striking to see a rising political figure agree so
much with what the intellectuals and researchers have been
saying.
The rise of the Congress in UP is mostly due to Rahul
Gandhis efforts. Many of the national gains of the Congress
will also be attributed to his electoral campaign.
The Congress party now has a leader not only known in the
country for the accident of his birth, but also one whose
politics appear to be based on ideas and arguments. For a
whole variety of reasons, combining mass appeal with seriousarguments has not been easy in Congress politics for a long
time. The Congress also has other younger-generation leaders
of promise.
In contrast, the BJPs future appears to be very shaky. Its
current leader is too old to have the energy to lead for long,
and the next in line is Mr Modi, Chief Minister of the state of
Gujarat. Mr Modi, a hero of Gujarat and of the right wing ofthe party, is a deeply divisive figure.
In March 2002, he presided over the greatest massacre of
Muslims in independent India. The BJPs future is unlikely to
be bright, unless it gets rid of its anti-Muslim prejudice and
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becomes a Tory or Republican-style right-of-centre party. If
Mr. Modi takes over the leadership of the BJP, this historical
challenge is likely to be more elusive than ever.
The 2009 elections redeem a pluralist and inclusive view of
India, defeating narrower visions. The elections also promise
political stability. When the campaign began in March, it was
hard to imagine such a benign outcome for the country, South
Asian region and the international system.
The author is professor of political science at Brown
University. His books include Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life:
Hindus and Muslims in India, and Midnights Diaspora.
S INGH IS RE-KING
By Suhel Seth
Published: May 16 2009 17:56 | Last updated: May 16 2009
17:56
Singh is Kingwas a blockbuster Bollywood film of 2008. Very
few ever dreamt it would be the most apt post-poll slogan in
Indias parliamentary elections.
Never has an Indian election been so bitter, so debased and
deprived of real issues. Never was an election fought sans
issues. Never was a general election in India witness to
deplorable personal attacks, but the lesson has now been
swiftly learnt.
EDITORSCHOICE
CONGRESS ALLIANCE WINS INDIAN ELECTION-MAY-16
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CONGRESS VICTORY BODES WELL FOR INVESTORS -MAY-16
VOTERS DENY H INDU NATIONALIST OPPOSITION -MAY-16
RESULT IS OPPORTUNITY TO IMPROVE TIES WITH PAKISTAN -MAY-16
JOHN ELLIOTT :B IG WIN FORCONGRESS-MAY-16
ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY :INDIA RETURNS TO THE GRAND OLD PARTY -MAY-16
Where the parties got it horribly wrong was while their leaders
were aging, the voter was getting younger and it is no
surprise that hatred lost to hope. And progress and principles
triumphed.
The return of the Congress-led UPA is going to be a welcome
signal but not without enhanced expectations and this is what
should worry Manmohan Singh, who after Indias revered
statesman, Jawaharlal Nehru will be the only ever person to
become prime minister of this country twice in a row,
throwing anti-incumbency to the winds.
But like most elections, this one too has many lessons
embedded in it and one hopes that those who craft thedestinies of Indias politics will pay some heed.
Lesson # 1: There is a bigger religion than being Hindu or a
Muslim and that is the faith of the economy. People want
food on their table; jobs to go to and a home to live in. Riots
destroy, they never build. This is a lesson that every political
party must learn because in some way religious appeasement
exists across the entire political spectrum.
Lesson # 2: Given the fact that 65 per cent of Indias voter
base is between the ages of 18 and 35, is indicative of what an
ideal political campaign must be. It must feed on issues
pertaining to development and progress and not be
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regressive in its thinking. I believe the logic of aligning
youthful idealism with policies and manifestoes is never more
critical than it is in todays times.
Lesson # 3: The time for alibis and excuses during the tenure
of a government doesnt ever bode well when it comes to
getting re-elected. The fact that the Communists have been
decimated in these elections is both good and ironic. Good
because they were the stumbling blocks to any kind of
economic reforms in the previous regime and ironic because
the only cadre-based political party in India is now left
shattered.
Lesson # 4: You have to sense the pulse and not the idiom
whilst preparing for elections. Security was thought of as a
critical issues after the Mumbai attacks but I guess the BJP
didnt realise, from its own understanding of Hinduism, that
we as a nation, and not just Hindus, are pretty karmic about
death. What we worry more about is not being blown up by a
bomb but instead not having any means of subsistence.
Lesson # 5: The nation has moved from regionalism to
federalism and this is a tremendous signal of the maturity of
the Indian voter. We are now seeing the return of the two
major parties: the Congress and the BJP and the demise of
regional factionalism and certainly the blackmail opportunities
that were effectively the birthmark of these fringe parties.
Lesson # 6: The great divide between Bharat (rural or poor
India) and India will remain. But this divide is easily bridged
when it comes to voting in a government at the centre. And
this time round, we have seen that divide melt because the
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aspirations of the people remain the same even though the
definition ad intensity may vary.
Lesson # 7: Politics is no longer the refuge of the scoundrel
and perhaps for the first time, we saw professionals, either as
independents or as party candidates fighting elections. This
augurs well for a country that either elected dynasties or rank
crooks. This is perhaps the most significant progressive signal
from these elections. It is this that must now guide candidate
selection of these political parties. The earlier concept of
winnability is no longer cast in stone.
I believe India has moved many steps forward with these
elections. We will continue to have an honourable man at the
helm of affairs. My only hope is that this time round
Manmohan Singh is able to cleanse his cabinet of some of
those corrupt ministers who were part of his earlier
government.
We will also see the emergence of Rahul Gandhi as a politicianwho thinks from his head rather than acts from the heart and
the transformation of Manmohan Singh from a technocrat to
a statesman.
In many ways, a perfectly happy ending just like we have in
our Bollywood films!
Suhel Seth is managing partner of Counselage, a brandingand marketing consultancy.
India chooses Congress
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India voted decisively for continuity and stability in the
general election to the 15th Lok Sabha, giving the Congress-
led United Progressive Alliance another five-year term in
office. In contrast to 2004, the UPA, with close to 260 of the
total 543 seats, will not need the support of the Left parties,
and should be able to get a comfortable majority with the
backing of the Samajwadi Party, which emerged as the single
largest party in Uttar Pradesh. In terms of seats, this is the best
performance by the Congress since 1991, the last time the
country saw a single-party, although minority, government.
Verdict 2009 gives little scope for the smaller parties or
groupings to engage in backroom negotiations to decide the
shape of the next government. The Congress holds all the
aces. The prime ministership will not be up for bargaining, as
some of the smaller players were hoping. For President
Pratibha Patil, the task on hand couldnt be simpler: there is
no need to consult constitutional experts to decide on whom
to invite to form the next government. Manmohan Singh, the
declared candidate of the Congress and the automatic choicefor Prime Minister, could be the first Prime Minister since
Indira Gandhi to have two full terms.
The triumph of the Congress was actually an aggregation of
specific successes across different States. The party retained
its base in Andhra Pradesh; cut its losses in Madhya Pradesh;
recovered lost ground in West Bengal, Kerala, and Rajasthan;
and combined well with its allies in Maharashtra and TamilNadu. There was no one big surprise anywhere, but the party
pulled out one small surprise after another across the regions
of India. When it seemed to take the long view in Uttar
Pradesh and Bihar and spurned alliance offers by regional
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players, few predicted any immediate gains for the party. But
now, one of the significant features of this election is surely
the re-emergence of the Congress as a key player in Uttar
Pradesh, Indias most populous state, where 80 seats are on
offer. The same strategy did not work of course in Bihar,
where the alliance of the Janata Dal(United) and the Bharatiya
Janata Party rode on the good track record of Chief Minister
Nitish Kumar. All the same, the Congress seems to have sown
the seeds of its own resurgence by adopting a long-sighted
strategy in the two key Hindi-speaking States.
The principal opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party,needed to expand beyond its core support base to get ahead
of the Congress. This it was unable to do. In 2004, the BJP
fared very well in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,
Gujarat, and Karnataka the States where it is locked in a
more or less direct fight with the Congress. To merely repeat
that success would have been a considerable achievement.
But this time, it lost badly in Rajasthan and yielded some
ground in Madhya Pradesh. The successes in Gujarat,
Chhattisgarh, and Karnataka could not compensate for the
losses sustained in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. To have a
realistic chance of forming the government, the BJP not only
had to hold its ground in the Hindi belt; it also needed its
allies to do well. While the JD(U) obliged in Bihar, the Shiv
Sena disappointed in Maharashtra. The honours were more or
less even in Punjab. But more importantly, potential post-pollallies such as the Telugu Desam Party and the Telangana
Rashtra Samiti in Andhra Pradesh and the All India Anna
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu did not do as well
as they were expected to. And this came after the
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demoralising loss of a long-time ally, the Biju Janata Dal, in
Orissa. After reaching a plateau in the Hindi belt, the BJP
needed to grow outside its traditional strongholds to really
threaten the Congress. In recent years, its only success in this
regard has been Karnataka. But in other States in the south,
the party is far from being a player of any significance.
Other than the BJP, the big loser in the current election is the
Left. In both West Bengal and Kerala, the Left parties suffered
severe reverses; if the loss in the southern State can be
explained in terms of the customary swing of the pendulum,
the failure to win a majority of seats in the eastern State is thefirst in more than three decades. This has meant that the Left
parties will no longer be the influential force they were at the
Centre between 2004 and 2008. Although they were not part
of the UPA government, the Left parties helped shape a
Common Minimum Programme and kept up pressure on the
government to comply with it. Factional infighting in Kerala,
and a strong oppositional, even if opportunistic, alliance in
West Bengal, have succeeded in beating back the Left, which
will need to do serious introspection on where it went wrong.
In a tough contest, the UPA overcame not only the anti-
incumbency factor, but also the shrill, communal campaign of
the BJP. But the mandate must not be read as an unqualified
endorsement of all that the UPA government did in the last
five years. In many States, regional issues came into play. TheSri Lankan Tamil issue dominated campaign rhetoric in Tamil
Nadu, but the voters rewarded neither those who advocated
the cause of the LTTE nor those who blamed the humanitarian
crisis in Sri Lanka on alleged complicity and inaction by the
Central and State governments. In Bihar, the fight became a
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virtual referendum on the performance of the Nitish Kumar-
government after years of Lalu-Rabri rule. In Maharashtra, the
split in the Shiv Sena engineered by Raj Thackeray seems to
have played as big a role as the coming together of the
Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress. India faces a
number of internal and external challenges: in particular, the
impact of the global economic slowdown, and the tensions
and instability in the neighbourhood. The UPA must guard
against complacency and must use this second innings to
improve governance and respond effectively to the big
challenges.
VOTE FOR STABILITY ,SONIAS TRIUMPH
May 17 2009
The way the Congress Party, at the head of the UPA, has
powered its way back to government is the stuff of legend.
From July last year, when the parliamentary majority of the
Manmohan Singh government had to be reconfirmed amid
controversy and rancour in the light of withdrawal of support
by the Communist-led group, the Left and the Hindu Right
and their allies had acted in tandem although not
necessarily by design to harass the Congress, its policies
and its Prime Minister. The people have now spoken, reposing
their trust in a party which has, surprising everyone, picked up
support in regions where it had been relegated to the margins
in recent decades. The Congress has gathered about 45 percent of the national vote share in contrast with approximately
26 per cent for the BJP, underlining the difference in their
respective popularity. There are glimpses in this impressive
Congress victory of the famous win of 1971 when Indira
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Gandhi had routed the Grand Alliance of the Opposition
parties led by stalwarts. The clear storyline of this election is
the ignominious defeat of the Left and the drubbing of the
BJP-led Right. There can be no ambiguity that people are
asking them probing questions about their role in national
affairs. It should indeed be a surprise if the organisational
structure of these formations does not feel the impact of this.
In this election the Congress could only bank on the DMK and
the Trinamul Congress as firm allies. The NCP has to be
excluded from this list as it was in the habit of unleashing
friendly fire in concert with the Left and the Third Front. As it
happens, the Congress two rock-solid allies exceeded their
own expectations and turned in impressive performances. The
Trinamul Congress, led by the feisty Mamata Banerjee, has
turned the politics of West Bengal on its head. In Tamil Nadu,
the DMK has made a mockery of past trends and stupefied
analysts and rivals who pointed to anti-incumbency. In Andhra
Pradesh, the Congress beat back anti-incumbency to regain its
clout in the state Assembly and won more seats in the LokSabha than in 2004. This is an extraordinary achievement. In
the Congress scheme, there can be no two ways now that
Rahul Gandhi is the man to watch, even as Manmohan Singh
has led the government with deftness. Inveterate critics of the
party and the Nehru-Gandhi family will be hard put to deny
Mr Gandhis billing as a national leader of substance after his
fashioning of the Uttar Pradesh and Bihar strategy of going it
alone, and campaigning with maturity and lan across the
country. His sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will also be
remembered for the role she played in this election, her easy
wavelength with the poor being the hallmark of her style.
Outside the Congress and the UPA, two impressive politicians
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stand out Bihars Nitish Kumar, the JD(U) leader who is
with the BJP-led NDA, and Orissas Naveen Patnaik, who
recently left the NDA to associate with the Third Front being
self-righteously chaperoned by the Left. They are among the
younger generation leaders that India may look to in future. In
contrast, Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party appears to have
rolled over without a fight, surprising even critics.
With the Congress huge win comes huge responsibility. It
has been a quarter century since the party ruling the Centre
has been returned to power, and the Congress has come back
with a vastly improved performance. The winning touch that
Mrs Sonia Gandhi has shown enables her to seek to forge a
politics of consensus with non-UPA parties, especially with the
likes of Mr Patnaik and Mr Kumar. At the level of policy, the
immediate attention must be on policies to fight back the
economic downturn. Stimulating the infrastructure sector is
critical even if the deficit cannot be reined in immediately. The
situation in Indias neighbourhood is extremely worrying and
needs a sure touch. At a difficult time, our people have votedfor stability.
A VOTE FOR DECENCY AND DEVELOPMENT
By By Shiv Visvanathan
May 17 2009
Everyone loves a winner. But the winner of this election is not
the Congress, but the people. What came up clearly was the
wisdom of the polity. While every pollster was discussing
tactics, especially the instrumentality of alliances, the people
of India gave a clear signal for strategy.
The voter as a collective entity had two realistic options before
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him. He could have created a hung Parliament, leaving every
party foraging for votes. This would have brought down the
politicians a peg or two instead of merely consuming it.
Secondly, the voter could have given a clear message, which
was not a clear-cut one. What we received was a vote for
decency and development but the message came at several
levels.
Firstly, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) has
been decimated in Kerala and Bengal. At a national level, the
CPI(M) had played the dog in the manger and has been voted
out for its negativism. At the regional level, it has been
responsible for murder and rape.
Anyway, it was a walking anachronism and deserved to be
dumped. Yet one hopes that while the Left as a party has been
voted out, the Left as an imagination should hopefully survive.
This in fact is going to be one of the great challenges before
the Congress. It will be called upon to create a new vocabulary
of rights and justice, especially around the informal economy.
This election has been a middle class lesson, a vote fordecency and development. The decency comes from the fact
that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is out of Orissa. No party
responsible for carnage deserves to survive and alarm bells
rang at the right time for Naveen Patnaik to respond.
The message is clearer in Lucknow where the electorate
expects Page 3 to stay out of Page 1. The electorate has
expressed its impatience with the Amar Singh kind of
interventions whether around Jaya Prada or Sanjay Dutt. The
same relief operated in West Bengal where the electorate,
tired of the rape and murder, has un-loosened the self-
imposed grip of the boa constrictor called the CPI(M).
It is not that the BJP has done badly. It merely fell prey to its
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favourite virus, complacency. One notices that the voter
always punishes the Congress for arrogance and the BJP for
complacency.
This is an election that will say goodbye to a whole
generation. One feels a touch of loss for L.K. Advani. But one
accepts the logic of time. One must emphasise that the youth
voted not for youth but for the party that struck the best
balance between youth and experience. The Congress
between Rahul Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh created that
effect. In that sense, it was a vote for governance and not
dynasty. It is not soft support but a reminder to the Congress
that the millstone of CPI(M) politics is no longer there. It is a
nudge to remind it about the reforms it has been lackadaisical
about.
The Left and BJP have to re-work their image. The BJP has to
realise that Hinduism has rejected Hindutva. The Left has to
create a more innovative idea of justice. Justice is not an egg
hatched by the commissars of the party. In this context, Nitish
Kumars victory is impressive. His victory shows how an ismcan still create a model of governance. Mr Nitish Kumar has
created a time machine which has moved Bihar into
modernity. In fact, Mamata Banerjee and Mr Nitish Kumar
have created history, one negatively and the other positively.
To expect Ms Banerjee to expand on her victory may be
looking a gift-horse in the mouth.
The real question is around the BJP. The era of Atal Behari
Vajpayee and L.K. Advani is over and what it has left is a
Narendra Modi attempting to bridge communalism and
development. The question is can Mr Modis model of
development be even more dangerous that his model of
communal politics.
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The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has been told something
simple. As long as its politics follows a vision of inclusion, it
will survive. It will succeed as long as it gives pride and dignity
to marginals. But it must realise that narcissism is no
substitute for human dignity and that monuments show little
understanding of the politics of sacrifice.
One must be clear that this election is a transitional one. It has
emphasised decency because no grand vision was available. It
has rejected archaisms especially if they were cantankerous,
pompous or dogmatic. It is a gentle hint that the Congress
must go back to retain the mentality of a coalition. But to say
a new middle class imagination is emerging is to jump the
gun. We still need new theories of justice, sustainability and
plurality. No party has created this.
The electorate has only created a space of clarity. It is also
asking the Congress to complete the experiments it began.
Can the Congress do for India what Mr Nitish Kumar did for
Bihar? There is a rider. It is also asking the Congress to create
a model of development without the traumas that Mr Modipromises to attach to it. This is the vote which rejects marginal
opportunism, while asking for diversity. It is clear that it wants
security but not one based on machismo. This election has no
finality. It is more like an interval within a movie. The action
will soon begin.
Yet one should never see politics only in terms of the events
that happen. There are players in the backstage. One of them
is nature. Nature has been kind to India, to the Congress over
the last few years. It is the moral luck of nature, expressed in
the absence of major droughts that shaped the Congress
victory. Secondly, the Congress can claim a stable economy
undamaged by major recession. This too is actually an
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achievement of the past, of a conservative economy, which is
really a socialist hang over. Nature, history and the electorate
have given a provisional yes to the Congress.
* Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist
USE THIS HISTORIC VICTORY
If the mandate of Elections 2009 tells us something loud and
clear, it is this: governance pays.
Even as the pundits furiously muttered, chattered and
twittered, reaching a frightful crescendo as they played a
strange version of Sudoku a day before Saturdays results,
the people of India chose their government without help from
pocket calculators. They have given a historic mandate for the
UPA government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and its
policies. At the same time, they have rejected the surreal,
distasteful numberpolitik that had made strange, mutant
political formations such an ominous prospect. This marks a
return to old-fashioned parliamentary elections where the
people and not hard-boiled demand-supply politics
decide who will represent them in Parliament.
The choices provided by the flotsam of the Third and Fourth
Fronts have been exposed for what they always were: at best,
professional nay-sayers; at worst, fly-by-night operators. But
with the UPA now without albatrosses like the Left around its
neck, we expect the Congress-led government to press its
foot more firmly on the gas of reforms and take out forward-
looking policies from the deep-freeze.
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Does Verdict 2009 mark the end of Big Regiona-lism? Hardly.
Nitish Kumars success in Patna is really a micro-version of
Prime Minister Singhs in Delhi. Both have been rewarded by
an electorate that has grown increasingly aware of the
benefits of and the need for good boring
governance. It is the regional politics in its most narrow avatar
extreme identity politics that has been finally exposed
for its overreach. A dozen tails will no longer be wagging the
dog.
Indias voters believe Mr Singhs government is the right
one to take India forward in these unsteady times. It is now upto the new, unfettered, unhindered UPA government to show
what it can do with our future.
Marxist leader Prakash Karats dream of a Third front
alternative to the Congress and the BJP has disappeared in
smoke with the poor performance in the Lok Sabha polls of
his two mercurial women warriors: Mayawati and Jayalalithaa.
It was critical for both of them to deliver a sizeable chunk of
seats to the Third Front kitty on the basis of which Karat could
drive a hard bargain with the Congress in government
formation. Their palpable failure to do so has made the Third
Front collapse even before it could take off.
In the case of Mayawati, there is little doubt that the biggest
mistake she had made was to assume that the electoral
template of the current Lok Sabha polls was the same as that
of the 2007 Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh when she had the
tail wind of a widespread Mulayam phobia across the state
propelling her from behind. She had quite forgotten that two
years later she herself was heading into some serious
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turbulence relating to her poor record of governance. Not
surprisingly, the formidable social alliance of Dalits, poor
backwards, Muslims and Brahmins came apart at the edges
without the anti-Mulayam glue to keep it together.
There is also reason to believe that in her obsession to
become Prime Minister, Mayawati stretched herself too thin
across the country neglecting her only bastion, Uttar Pradesh.
For instance she hardly addressed any public meetings in her
home state till the penultimate stage of the election
campaign, choosing instead to hold rallies in far-flung areas in
southern and eastern India where she had no hope to pick upa single seat. She ended up ignoring her own turf which was
being fast encroached by the Congress, which has resurrected
itself in Uttar Pradesh.
Jayalalithaa showed similar arrogance: she sought to steamroll
her way back to power in Tamil Nadu. Much like Mayawati,
the Tamil empress was over confident about her hold on the
faithful and taking for granted the challenge posed by her
opponents. A good example is the way she taunted the DMK
and its central ally, the Congress, on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue
disregarding the sensitive nature of the issue. It was this
completely cynical approach to politics that allowed a panicky
DMK to reorganise itself at the last moment and turn the
tables on her.
It may be tempting to read in the setbacks to Mayawati and
Jayalalithaa and the astounding victory of the Congress as the
end of the road for the Third Front and the diminishing of
regional parties. But it should not be forgotten that the same
Lok Sabha polls has also yielded victories for two regional
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leaders and cms like Nitish Kumar and Naveen Patnaik. The
fact that in both states, purely regional planks have won over
the supposedly superior national agendas of parties like the
Congress and the BJP.
Yet, it may be instructive to note the difference in style and
substance of down to earth leaders like Nitish Kumar and
Naveen Patnaik with the far more overtly ambitious Mayawati
and Jayalalithaa. The cms of Bihar and Orissa have gone out of
their way to play down personal ambition and project a
certain degree of sub-nationalism that sought to connect to
the local populace. In sharp contrast, the Dalit empress andthe Tamil amma appeared to putting forward themselves
above the interests of the people.
Clearly, the results of the Lok Sabha polls are a wake up call to
both Mayawati and Jayalalithaa to not ignore basic political
realities. Both have suffered many defeats before and
achieved several victories. It should not be difficult for them to
take the electoral debacle in their stride and prepare for fresh
battle.
As far as the prospects of the Third Front alternative is
concerned, it may be unwise to entirely bury the idea,
however, laughable it may be at the moment. Indian politics
have shown a strange propensity to twist and turn in the past
and it may not take long before regional parties are back in
business.
AJOY BOSE IS THE AUTHOR OF BEHENJI :APOLITICAL
BIOGRAPHY OF MAYAWATI.
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Congress won conclusively
Swapan Dasgupta
There is a facile explanation that many of those who neither anticipatednor wished for a Congress victory in the general election may fall back on.
It goes something like this: the Congress and UPA surge was contributed
by its spectacular successes in Kerala, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and
Tamil Nadu where its principal opponent was either the Left or another
constituent of the ramshackle Third Front. The implication is that the NDA
by and large held its ground.
Such an explanation would be an exercise in complete self-delusion. The
harsh reality which should be obvious to all is that the Congress won thematch quite conclusively. The formal numbers may suggest that the pre-
poll UPA will need som