THUNDEROUS LESSONS FROM GUJARAT

The reactions to the Gujarat election results were as boastful as the campaign rhetoric was hypocritical, proving yet again that politicians never learn anything. The BJP's leaders were full of exaggerated claims. Congress voices were similar though the exaggerations were more modest. The khachra parties that should not have been in the field at all were too shocked to react immediately. That they were shocked was the only sign of normalcy in an otherwise absurd, unnatural, but very Indian, scenario.

There was not one Mayawati candidate in the winners' list though she was arrogant enough to field her minions in all 182 constituencies. One of them gave his deposit money of Rs 5000 in coins to show that he got it through public donations. He lost. Not one Sharad Pawar candidate won out of 72 fielded. In fact the results fell into a pattern that was astonishingly clearcut -- BJP versus Congress, that was it. There were only four other candidates who won, two of them belonging to the Bharatiya Tribal Party in alliance with the Congress, and two independents one of whom was Jignesh Mewani, also an ally of the Congress.

It was not only a two-party contest, it was a close contest. This is significant because the venue was Gujarat, the stamping ground of the two BJP stalwarts considered invincible. And it was a contest which the BJP knew it could not afford to lose. So they put everything into the fight, unprecedented personal campaign by the Prime Minister and, as local reports said, unprecedented allotment of resources.

With all that, the BJP could only scrape through with a margin of less than 3000 in 16 constituencies. In Dholka, for example, it won by 327 votes. The BSP got 3139 votes in this constituency and the NCP 1198. If a fraction of this splitting was avoided, the opposition would have netted the seat. The emotionally important seat of Godhra was won by a Congress rebel who stood in BJP colours -- and still got only a majority of 236 votes.

In other words, if the conceit of marginal party leaders had not divided the votes, the story of Gujarat would have been different. To put it differently, a significant number of Gujarati voters are no longer enamoured of the BJP that has ruled them for nearly two decades. The Congress getting so close and yet so far must be attributed primarily to its lack of strong local leadership. The Congress campaign was a one-man charge, the one man being an import from Delhi. The party's four seniormost leaders lost even as their party was on the upswing. Something is grossly amiss here.

On the other hand, the Congress gained momentum from the rise of a new generation of leaders. It would be a mistake to see the Three Musketeers of Gujarat -- Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mewani -- as mere caste leaders. It is true that their rise is the result of caste-based discrimination. Jignesh Mewani, for example, became a leader following the public whipping of Dalits by cow vigilantes in Una. But all three have shown a modernistic approach to the problems of the people they represent emphasising the need for jobs, economic openings and better academic opportunities. This trio may well turn out to be representative of the new Gujarat waiting in the wings. Now that the Congress has had the experience of direct dealings with them, there must be an effort to bring up a clutch of credible Gujarati leaders to take over the reigns of the party in that crucial state.

This may look too much for the Congress Party to achieve, given the absence of credible local leaders in most states. In the two major states where it is on top of the heap, Karnataka and Kerala, groupism is killing it. Rahul Gandhi becoming president is the party's last chance to bring a new generation of young leaders to the top in each state.

He can draw inspiration from words that thunder in Gujarat. Amit Shah thundered that the BJP would get 150 seats before 11 a.m. He couldn't touch 100 even by nightfall. Earlier, Gujarat's best-known under-aged voice thundered: " I, Hardik Patel, swear by the martyrdom of the 14 Patidars and vow to cast my vote on 9 and 14 December before 11 a.m to oust the BJP who are torturing six crore people of the State". The ousting didn't happen, but the thunder is still echoing in surprising Gujarat.

HOW EGO POLITICS HELP THE ENEMY

Small minds can create big dislocations in a democracy. When Prakash Karat says that the CPM's purity cannot be diluted by association with bourgeois parties, when Sharad Pawar fields 72 candidates in Gujarat knowing that he cannot go beyond single digits, when Mayawati, who put up 163 candidates in 2012 and scored 0 seats, fields 165 candidates this time, when Samajwadi Party pours money into the campaign knowing that it will get nowhere -- when such things happen, what we see is ego superceding basic political commonsense.

Everyone from Karat to Mayawati wants the BJP defeated because of its communal extremism. The basic political commonsense then is for them to field common candidates so that votes won't be split leading to the adversary's victory. But conceit won't allow them to do that. In the 16-seat Surat area, the NCP is contesting in 9 seats and the local chief agreed that votes in those seats would get divided to the BJP's advantage. It's as though politicians are happy to cut the nose to spite the face.

Small parties get smaller as a result of such egocentric policies. Under Prakash Karat the CPM has become an inconsequential party. Not that it was very consequential before be became general secretary. But his predecessor Harkishen Singh Surjeet had enabled the party to punch above its weight. An amiable networker, he had excellent personal relations with all parties and all leaders which made him a key player in times of crisis and controversy. Under him the CPM, despite having no power, wielded great influence.

Karat proved to be the very opposite of Surjeet, considering himself ideologically superior to all others and confining his contacts to a handful of party cronies. He not only witnessed the loss of West Bengal which the party had ruled for more than three decades; his petulance led to the party losing an effective voice it had in the Rajya Sabha. Sitaram Yechury was popular. Perhaps for that reason Karat turned against him and ensured that he was not given a third term. In the name of ideology he refuses contact with the Congress. The BJP won't even thank him for the assistance thus provided.

Uttar Pradesh VIPs are even more thick-headed. Exhortations have appeared in the media emphasising that Akhilesh Yadav is the natural opposition candidate to take on Narendra Modi in 2019. As a Samajwadi loyalist put it: Rahul Gandhi may not be acceptable to others as the face against Modi, but Akhilesh will be. He conceded that his party could have friendly relations with the Congress, but not a joint programme; "Akhilesh against Modi in 2019 will be a winner".

Most other parties ignored this proposition. Naturally. But Mayawati's admirers won't let such a claim go unnoticed. Naturally. A BSP spokesman quickly dismissed Samajwadi pretensions. "Behenji is the only leader with a pan-India presence. If there is to be a prime ministerial candidate from the opposition, it has to be Behenji". The advantage with UP leaders is that they know that the sun rises in Ballia and sets in Ghaziabad of which Delhi is a suburb.

A new entrant to this game of "me-first" is Asaduddin Owaisi, the Muslim entrepreneur from Hyderabad. His home seat has been a fortress for him for long. But the rise of Telangana and BJP's deliberate inroads into his bastion have raised new challenges. In a frank admission, the articulate Owaisi said recently: "If we are silent our identity will be wiped out from Indian politics".

So he contested 35 seats in far-away UP. He did not win even one. (He got a consolation prize when he bagged 29 of the 78 seats in UP's municipal elections). He split Muslim votes and contributed to the massive victory of the BJP. The effect of splitting was dramatically illustrated in Deoband, a Muslim-majority area and seat of a famous Islamic centre. The BJP's Hindu candidate won there. The BSP's Muslim candidate and the Samajwadi's Muslim candidate together won more votes than the BJP candidate.

Refusing to learn the lesson, Owaisi is fielding candidates in the forthcoming election in Karnataka where the BJP is exerting every muscle and every rupee it has to regain power. The Congress has a fair chance to win, but splitting of votes can eliminate that chance. Those with short sight won't care. This is how small minds help their enemies and create dislocations that harm themselves and the larger polity. "Behold, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed".

LOOKING BEYOND A SHAM ELECTION

No harm would have come to the Congress Party if Rahul Gandhi was named President one fine morning. Much harm was done to its image by staging a charade of an election. As many as 89 sets of nomination papers filed for Shri Gandhi. Not even one nam-ke-wastay opponent. (Dissidents? What dissidents?) The party's dutiful “Central Election Committee” wanted a day to scrutinise the papers. A deadline was fixed for withdrawal of nominations. Then voting. Who were they trying to fool? Why?

Among the first to react was Mani Shankar Aiyar, the Congressman who has just lost his Congressmanship. Off-centre as ever, he underlined the meaninglessness of the election by proclaiming that Rahul's elevation was as natural as Mughal succession. “After Jehangir, Shah Jehan came. Was an election held? After Shah Jehan it was understood that Aurangazeb would be the leader”.

Understood by whom? There was a bit of humbug there introduced by Mani. The Mughals had no tradition of passing power from father to son. Shah Jehan did want to crown his eldest son Dara Shikoh, a thinker and religious liberal though poor in military matters. The ambitious Aurangazeb defeated various opponents, then turned on Dara accusing him of being no longer a Muslim. Dara was betrayed by a general and was eventually executed. Aurangazeb cut his brother's head and sent it to his father detained in Agra Fort.

So why did Mani compare Rahul Gandhi's succession to that of Aurangazeb? Nothing disloyal, to be sure; he is known as one of the few civilised men in politics. But he loves intellectual mischief, as most intellectuals do. He probably wanted to give another handle to his nemesis, Narendra Modi, and watch the fun. He did that once by revealing something nobody had noticed till then – that Narendra Modi began as a chaiwalla. The Modi juggernaut used that bit with great success. Naturally Modi seized the Aurangazeb bit as well. He has been having a ball comparing the Congress with the Mughals.

Of course the BJP has no moral right to criticise the Aurangazeb in the Congress when its own leaders are saffron-clad Aurangazebs. Were L.K.Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi sent to pasture through an election? How many BJP chief ministers became chief ministers through inner-party elections? The Indian voter is not dumb. He and she can see the hypocrisy of one party accusing another of wrongdoings when all of them wallow in wrongdoings. Dynastic autocracy is no different from personality-based autocracy.

Fortunately for the Congress, its tactical mistakes have not so far dented the image-boost that Rahul Gandhi acquired in recent months. The rise of Patel politics in Gujarat and the remarkable electoral setbacks the ABVP, the student wing of the BJP, has suffered in Delhi, Hyderabad, Varanasi, Rajasthan, Guwahati and even the Central University of Gujarat point to a trend. Modi will remain unbeatable in oratory. But recent events show that, without oratory, his opponents can attract some attention.

Image matters in public life: Richard Nixon's camera-unfriendly “7 o'clock shadow” undid him before the fresh and friendly face of John Kennedy. Modi's dreamlike idealism will remain unrivalled, but it can no longer be separated from the image of Amit Shah who has become his alter ego. Nor can he escape from the negative vibes produced by his Finance Minister who goes on introducing half-baked reforms, then keeps correcting them in bits and pieces, all the time claiming superior wisdom incomprehensible to ordinary mortals. Image matters – and the image of the Government today is not what it was yesterday.

Opposition forces have gained ground support in Gujarat, but Gujarat is one state the BJP simply cannot afford to lose. If they lose Gujarat, they lose India. So they will use every trick in the book and then some to win. They have already got help from squirrel parties like NCP and AAP who will field their own squirrels and thus split anti-BJP votes. BJP strategists must now protect EVMs to prevent Hardik Patel from tampering with them, and protect the Election Commission also to prevent Alpesh and Jignesh from misusing it. Got it?

For Rahul Gandhi a setback in Gujarat will not be the end of the road. It will be the beginning of a new journey. Everyone is looking for a New India. The BJP spoiled its chances by equating New India with patriotic lynchings. A new Congress can seize the opportunity.

A new Congress? Ay, there's the rub.

JUDGES MUST CROSS LAKSHMAN REKHA

Jawaharlal Nehru showed the judiciary its place when he said in the Constituent Assembly in 1949: "No Supreme Court can make itself a third chamber. No Supreme Court and no judiciary can stand in judgment over the sovereign will of Parliament. If we go wrong here and there, it can point it out, but in the ultimate analysis, where the future of the [country] is concerned, no judiciary can come in the way. And if it comes in the way, ultimately, the whole constitution is a creature of Parliament".

Ravi Shankar Prasad is no Jawaharlal Nehru. Indeed, his party has deleted Nehru from its memory pad. But the Law Minister was on Nehru's page when he, too, showed the judiciary its place. His phraseology was different because it was meant primarily to please his chief, but the spirit was the same when he told judges at a Law Day meeting: The people of India trust the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister possesses the nuclear button, that's how much the people trust him. Yet the Prime Minister through the Law Minister cannot be trusted to have a fair judge appointed. Why don't you trust the Prime Minister?

That is a self-serving approach to electoral democracy. A declamatory answer to the Law Minister's declamatory question would be: The Supreme Court does not trust the Government for the same reasons that the Government does not trust the Supreme Court. Such mutual mistrust suits the citizen because it will ensure a fair measure of checks and balances.

Justice J.S.Khehar gave a pointed answer to the Law Minister when he said "the judiciary is mandated to shield all citizens against discrimination and abuse of state power". The curse of party politics as played in India is that power is abused by all parties. This is evident in the appointment of governors, in giving undue favours to relatives, in promoting the interests of crony capitalists.

A Government favourite, Pahlaj Nichalani, was made film certification board chief; he proved such a liability that he had to be removed. The Pune film institute was reduced to a laughing stock by another BJP favourite, Gajendra Chauhan. His replacement, Anupam Kher, has more filmic credentials but his principal credential is that he is a BJP bhakt. Come to think of it, what about Raghuram Rajan's exit from the Reserve Bank?

All governments want pliable people in key positions, from the Reserve Bank to the CBI. All governments want a pliable judiciary. Indira Gandhi used crude authoritarianism to achieve her purpose. The present government passed a law that gave the Law Ministry a say in the appointment and transfer of judges. But Justice Khehar's 5-judge bench struck it down on the ground that the judiciary must remain insulated and independent from organs of governance -- a position India's citizenry will wholeheartedly support.

This does not mean that a Supreme Court collegium is a perfect arrangement. With embarrassing frequency, collegium-backed appointments have favoured sons and uncles and promoted private interests. Judges have faced impeachment and one is currently in jail. But the solution to a flawed system is not the installation of another flawed system.

We had a taste of what would happen if this Government were to have its way in appointing judges. The eminent jurist Gopal Subramanian's name was put up by the collegium for appointment to the Supreme Court. When resistance came, he withdrew his name with dignity. It transpired that he was once the amicus curiae on behalf of the Supreme Court in the Shorabuddin Sheikh encounter killing case, which the BJP has turned into the most politically sensitive case in modern India. The Government's resistance to collegium recommendations led, as CJI T.S.Thakur said last year, to 478 High Court positions being vacant and "people languishing in jails for 13 years without a hearing".

The idealism that propelled Nehru lost its meaning even when his party was in power. The "sovereign will of Parliament" became a farce when gangsters and money-bags entered the House as "elected representatives of the people". The first two chambers Nehru had in mind lost credibility while the third, the judiciary, despite black sheep, remained a saving grace. That's why Subramanyam Swamy was unconvincing when he argued, in the 2G spectrum corruption case, that the courts should remain within the Lakshman Rekha of executive wisdom. Justice Ganguly intervened: "It was only when Seeta crossed the Lakshman Rekha that Ravana was killed". May the judiciary continue to cross executive rekhas and help kill the Ravanas roaming around.