THEIR DEMOCRACY AIN'T LIKE OURS

Democracy in India is entertaining, except that its disruptive side makes the entertainment not enjoyable. In mature democracies, parties fight it out at election time, then settle down to governance. Even when an unpopular leader gets elected, the system allows him to run his course. In our country the system never gets a chance because political plotters never stop plotting. The moment one party wins, other parties begin manipulations to bring it down. The result is that we are for ever in a combative electioneering mindset. We keep moving from fight to fight. No respite ever. No governance ever.

America is a good case to study because in recent years it has had some really bad presidents, and yet the system held on. People started showing their disapproval of the leadership openly during the Vietnam war. It was the most obnoxious war America ever fought and the American people rose against the unacceptable levels of American casualties and the equally unacceptable use of fire bombs and chemicals to destroy Vietnam's flora and fauna. People's protests began with the Kennedy-Johnson years and reached a climax during Richard Nixon's presidency. One of the most disliked presidents in US history, Nixon was too drunk and too megalomaniacal to pay heed to public opinion. Nonetheless he would have completed his term but for an illegality in a different arena: The Watergate spying. He quit on his own to escape impeachment.

George Bush was just as disliked as Nixon -- no mean achievement. He led America into a war on the basis of a lie. Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction as Bush claimed. And he knew that. Yet he unleashed a war of mass destruction that led to catastrophes like the birth of the Islamic State; a nation was felled and a civilisation knocked off balance. Saddam Hussein was tried for war crimes. Bigger crimes against humanity were committed by Bush, but he went on to joyful retirement in his ranch where he held self-proclaimed conversations with Jesus Christ. Miraculously Jesus Christ survived.

The improvident George Bush completed his term, as will the insufferable Donald Trump because American democracy is disciplined. British democracy showed its class when David Cameron resigned in mid 2016; six years in office, he was still going strong. He had wanted Britain to stay in the European Union. Rather than take decisions unilaterally, he decided to go for people's approval. In the referendum that followed, people voted for Britain's exit from EU, Brexit. The Prime Minister resigned. And resignation meant resignation. He was only 50, but has made no attempt to manoeuvre his way back or influence events.

In India no politician ever gives up, whatever his age. If you are defeated in an election, you never accept you are defeated. Either you join hands with other groups and grab power (as the Congress did in Karnataka and the BJP did in Goa, Meghalaya and Manipur), or you go into permanent sabotage mode. BJP leader Sriramulu warned the Kumaraswamy Government: "BJP won't let you sleep". This is the same leader who was identified with the Bellary Mafia. The party has threatened state-wide bundhs.

Party boss Amit Shah is full of righteous indignation. According to him the BJP had won "people's mandate" by emerging the largest single party. He is morally outraged that the people's mandate was sabotaged by the Congress and the JDS. He didn't say a word about the other states where the people's mandate was successfully undermined by the BJP. Nor did he say that his idea of people's mandate was based on the wrong arithmetic. The BJP's vote share was 36.2 percent while the Congress (38 percent) and JDS (18.3 percent) together had the backing of more than 56 percent of the state's voters. Selective arithmetic, like selective morality, is the badge of Indian politics.

Horse-trading is set to start in full swing after cabinet appointments are completed when, hopefully for the BJP, there will be some Congress-JDS MLAs unhappy about not getting ministership. The extent to which the Vokkaliga chief minister can satisfy the Lingayat hopefuls is another angle the horse-traders will be exploring. JDS being a family party, internal squabbles may not give much scope for disrupters. But who knows. The patriarch is looking forward to becoming prime minister. Two grandsons, with neither maturity nor any official position whatever, have been giving interviews on policy matters.

The field is open, horses like galloping, money is aplenty -- and the worst have every chance to win.

NO 15 DAYS TO PURCHASE MAJORITY!

Here is what the Buddha said about Karnataka elections:
“There are many difficulties to overcome in this world. It is hard for a proud man to learn the way of enlightenment. It is hard not to argue about right and wrong. It is hard to find a good method. It is hard to keep the mind pure against the instincts of the body. It is hard not to desire beautiful things. It is hard for a strong man not to use his strength to satisfy his desires.”

The Strong Man heading The Strong Party used all his strength to make things move his way. There were serial IT raids on “Congress moneybags,” even a last-minute raid on a resort in Badami where Congressmen heading Siddaramaiah’s campaign were lodged. The central government’s partisan role reached an absurd limit when Congress MLAs headed for Kochi found that civil aviation authorities would not permit their flight to take off. How childish can arrogance get.

Misuse of power is a badge of the arrogant. Here is what the Vishnu Purana said about Karnataka elections:
“And then there will be a decline in prosperity and dharma and the whole earth shall slowly perish. The one who has wealth shall rule. The one who wears a false mask shall be honoured. The one who is greedy shall be king. And weary of misrule, the people shall hide in dark caves and wait for their days of misery to end.”

The ones who had wealth have been ruling in solitary splendour since the demonetization of the beloved rupee. It enabled them to wear a false mask and win honours. They became kings who ruled over the dispensers of justice as well. But the men of justice, reared in a different kind of discipline, had a tendency to show their mettle now and again.

It was left to them to expose Karnataka’s RSS Governor. The man had ignored his oath to the Constitution and given the BJP, the party without a majority, an unheard-of 15 days to purchase a majority. That was 15 days to buy and sell horses; 15 days for central government agencies to raid and intimidate MLAs; 15 days to flaunt Rs.100-crore baits (or was it 200 crore?) The farce decreed by the gubernotorious swayam sevak made the men of justice go into action. They decreed that the party with no majority must test the floor in two days instead of 15. That turned out to be the decisive factor in what was becoming a travesty of electoral democracy in Karnataka; it stopped the politicians from playing a cheating game.

There were missing MLAs, absconding MLAs, double-crossing MLAs. And then there were MLAs who were discovered, MLAs who were retrieved, MLAs who were captured. Here is what Kautilya said about Karnataka elections:

“Just as fish moving inside water cannot be seen drinking water, so officers of the state [politicians] cannot be seen appropriating money. It is possible to know the paths of birds in the sky, but not the ways of [politicians] with their intentions concealed. A wise king should guard others from others, his own people from his own people, his own people from others, and others from his own people, and always guard himself from his own people and from others.”

Now that people are kings, how do we guard ourselves from our own people and from others? Some imperatives arise from factors which now stand proved by the dramatic twists in Karnataka.
The BJP juggernaut is not unstoppable.
The juggernaut needs to be stopped because it is splitting people along communal lines and institutionalising a culture of everyday violence in the name of what people should eat, say, study and think. India is too diverse a society to survive as a monolithic entity.
The Congress has neither the leadership nor the infrastructure to stand on its own legs.
A combination of regional parties and the Congress is the way forward. The Congress-JDS union that has gained traction in Karnataka must expand and multiply across the country, with common development programmes that will avoid politics of hatred and intimidation.
And for starters, can we bring the institutions that have sustained our democracy back to their wonted glory - the judiciary, the civil service, the CBI, the Election Commission?

Steps like these would start giving hope to the people hiding in dark caves waiting for their days of misery to end.

Meanwhile, Jai Hind!

WISE PHILOSOPHERS, FANATIC KINGS

The time gap between voting day and results day is one of the afflictions of democracy. The tension is excruciating when it's an election that will decide the temper of life for a considerable length of time. Will the freedoms we have taken for granted for 68 years continue as before, or will they be amended by a new set of values with new definitions of freedom and democracy? To know the answer, we must necessarily live through the pressure of waiting. One way to cope is to think of electioneering in the old days; that will keep the mind on elections, but without the stress of the immediate.

The Constitution was signed on January 26, 1950.Those were days of idealism and high thinking. Politicians were careful about the language they used, the manners they maintained. The way Jawaharlal Nehru mingled with the masses was a spectacle in itself. Leaders like Sardar Patel and Rajendra Prasad did not have the populist touch, but the trust and respect they enjoyed put them on par with the glamorous Nehru.

Nehru's friends and fellow ministers went their separate ways for the first general election in 1950-51. There were more than 50 parties in all. Prominent among them were Shyama Prasad Mukherjee's Jan Sangh, J. B. Kripalani's Kisan Mazdoor Praja Parishad and B.R. Ambedkar's Scheduled Castes Federation (later named Republican Party). Jayaprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia headed the Socialist Party and there was S.A.Dange's Communist Party of India. Not one of them proved a match to the Indian National Congress.

In a way the Congress played a game of deception. Indian National Congress was not a political party. It was a national movement, representing all Indians in their common struggle for freedom. The universal appeal it thus acquired could not in all fairness be exploited for the partisan interests of one group of people competing with other groups of people in a democratic election. This was one reason Mahatma Gandhi asked for the dismantling of the Congress after independence. But the tacticians who claimed to be his followers rejected his advice and made unfair use of the Congress name. In two generations they lost the advantage they had wrongly gained.

In the first generation, though, electioneering adhered to the best standards of democracy.
The style changed -- as did everything connected with politics -- after Indira Gandhi and her Emergency rule. It was during her time that money became a powerful element of democracy. She was also the first to introduce sloganeering as an election weapon. It has to be admitted that her slogan, Garibi Hatao, did influence voters. During Vajpaye's reign, Pramod Mahajan introduced corporate-style electioneering with "India Shining" as the dominant slogan. It flopped.

The big change we saw in electioneering was in 2014 when hitech took over. What was called Obama Style of electioneering saw armies of educated youth checking in as volunteers and electrifying the scene with hitherto unheard techniques such as microtargeting of voter groups and social media outreach. They "minted data" and launched "digital campaigns".

But the quality of electioneering nosedived. The Karnataka election saw top leaders using unbecoming language. Personal attacks were made often and Amit Shah spoke of the "10 percent sarkar of Congress", provoking reminders that the BJP's 15 percent sarkar had landed in jail. There were apprehensions about dirty tricks coming into play. The Prime Minister's statement that when his party won there would be allegations against voting machines, struck many as taking advance bail.

Some attacks invited strong but civilised rebuttals, none stronger or more civilised than a written message by Devanura Mahadeva, one of Kannada's best known novelists with a mind independent enough to decline a nomination to the Rajya Sabha. He wrote an open letter to Ananta Kumar Hegde, the rabid communalist from coastal Karnataka. "It is frightening", Devanura wrote, "to have to listen to the words you have spoken: 'Those who are unaware of their parentage are the ones who call themselves secularists'. Now we have to make you aware of your own parentage. It is Hatred that is your father, Intolerance your mother, Illusion your ancestry, Mithya (falsehood) the source of your knowledge. Another statement of yours: 'Every human being is an animal when he is born; it is what he does that makes him a human being'. In your case I somehow feel it is quite the opposite".

Now we know why Plato said there would be no end to the troubles of humanity till philosophers became Kings.

VOTE FOR THE FUTURE OF INDIA

Never was a Karnataka election more important to India than this one. Never was a Karnataka election more ruthlessly fought than this one. All bets are off. All masks are off. All decencies associated with democracy are out. The one and only objective is: Win by hook or by crook, mostly by crook because that's easier.

Such is the viciousness of the fight that victory can become defeat and vice versa. The Congress, for example, may get more votes than others, yet the BJP may form the government. Two factors support this possibility. First, the BJP is in power in Delhi and has no qualms about using that power to its partisan advantage. Income Tax raids meant to scare opponents have already taken place and the CBI has progressively closed its cases against the famously infamous Reddy brothers, the principal support base for the BJP's finances and muscle power in the state. Referring to the Reddys' mining business, the then Lok Ayukta Santosh Hegde said that exports took place although "there was no mining permit, no transportation permit, no export permit". And now, no case.

The second factor that can make a mockery of the election is the phenomenon of also-ran parties in India; they cannot get anywhere near power on their own, but can tilt the balance in a tight contest. The most notorious example of this one-man subterfuge is the Kerala Congress, a small outfit with a small Christian following. Its patriarch, K.M.Mani, played the two-timing game so cleverly that he remained a cabinet minister in changing permutations and combinations.

A cheaper version of the K.M.Mani brand of opportunism was devised, also in Kerala, by toddy king turned politician Vellapally Natesan. He projected his son Tushar as the great hope of tomorrow. This completely unknown man formed an alliance with the BJP and floated rumours that he was going to be a Rajya Sabha MP, or a cabinet minister, or chairman of this corporation or that. The man's hunger for a highfalutin position was pathetic to watch, especially since Amit Shah just kept him waiting, despite Papa Natesan's warnings.

In Karnataka, though, opportunistic politics has a better chance because H.D.Deve Gowda's JD(S) is in the buy-and-sell market. There isn't a hope in hell for the JD(S) to get a majority on its own. But the few seats it wins can make a difference if the Congress-BJP scores are close. One thing that is certain about JD(S) is that it will embrace anybody for power. Don't believe Deve Gowda's threat to disown his son Kumaraswamy if any tie-up with the BJP took place. He said similar things in 2006, yet Kumaraswamy tied up with the BJP and ascended the throne. Father was delighted.

If anything is certain about this election, it is that the Gowdas will keep all option open till the final hour. That's because H.D.Deve Gowda is the greatest dynastic politician in India, well above the Gandhis. The balance sheet of his reign as Karnataka's chief minister and India's first accidental prime minister had nothing to show for it -- except for the light it shone on H.D.Kumaraswamy, H.D.Revanna, H.D.Ramesh, H.D.Anasuya, H.D.Shailaja, H.D.Balakrishna Gowda, some H.D. wives and children. Beyond two sons, two grandsons are also being groomed. What we see now is a meeting of the cynical with the crafty. The Gowda chief knows that the BJP is so desperate for power that it will agree to make Kumaraswamy chief minister. The BJP knows that Gowdas are so desperate for power that they will accept its diktats. Watch out for the ultimate exercise in expediency. The only saving grace is that if the Gowda ambition becomes too self-centred, a section of the JD(S) may revolt.

Meanwhile, the take-aways of this election are finding their way into the history books. In Karnataka, unlike in other states, the BJP faces a strong opponent. The Congress has an array of time-tested leaders, while Siddaramaiah, stronger and more assertive of late, pits himself against Modi with aplomb. Example: When Modi mocked him for his 2+1 formula (contesting from two seats with son contesting from another), Siddaramaiah retorted by referring to (a) Modi contesting from Vadodra and Varanasi and (b) Modi's own 2+1 formula (two Reddys and one Yeddy).

Memorable, too, was the Hindutva extremist's shout from coastal Karnataka: "This election is not about water and roads; it is about Hindus and Muslims". Sam Pitroda brought in sobriety with the comment, "This election is not about Karnataka; it is about the future of India". Amen.