Bypoll results are not an indicator

Recently concluded bypolls in 49 assembly constituencies are not an national level indicator. If we go by this results the Congress gets red signal. But the actual case is not that. The local factors play an important role in the bypolls.

The Times of India writes (21 September 2009)


The results of byelections held since August in 49 assembly constituencies spread across 12 states must serve as a wake-up call for the Congress.
Despite the crisis in the BJP, it has fared reasonably well and has won more seats than the Congress. While the Congress lost seven of the seats it held among the 49 that went to polls, the BJP tally went up by five.

What explains the Congress reverses, coming four months after its remarkable success in the general elections? The political dynamic of a general election and assembly polls, particularly byelections, is very different. Local factors development record of the administration, selection of candidates etc influence byelection outcomes more than national issues. Yet, the reverses suffered by the Congress in Delhi, UP and Gujarat and the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar were unexpected and, in many ways, instructive. Clearly, these parties failed to read the mood of the voters correctly and underestimated the ability of their rivals to regroup after the general election defeat. The JD(U), in particular, was impervious to the logic of its past electoral success. People supported the party because it promised to shift the paradigm of Bihar politics from the cynical identity management games conducted by Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) to matters of governance. Many of the JD(U) candidates who lost were RJD turncoats who had moved over to JD(U) after the general election. However, the BJP Nitish's ally in Bihar managed to retain its three seats.

The results are also a reflection of the organisational capabilities of the Congress and the BJP. The Congress was successful in projecting a united and credible leadership at the Centre while the BJP's central leadership appeared to be a confused and divided lot. This influenced the general election results. However, the picture is different in the states. Despite the ideological confusion at the top, the BJP doesn't appear to have lost ground in its strongholds. The success in Gujarat where the party won seats from the Congress and Madhya Pradesh indicates that its organisational clout has not suffered. In contrast, the Congress is yet to rebuild its organisation in states like Gujarat and UP. The party failed to win a single seat in UP where it had done reasonably well in the general election. In the absence of a well-oiled party organisation, it is difficult to sustain electoral success. And, that's what helped the BSP to bounce back in UP.

The big battle will be fought in Maharashtra and Haryana, two states that have Congress governments, where elections are due. Congress can't afford a repeat of the byelections in these two strongholds.

Money Make Ministers, MPs and MLAs

No credentials are required to get elected to the Indian parliament and state assemblies. Just money is power is enough to get you there. This is what the concluded Lok Sabha election reveals.

P. Sainath writes in The Hindu (20 June 2009)

“I think almost everyone will grant that if candidates for the United States Senate were required to possess ten million dollars, and for the House one million, the year-in-year-out level of conservatism of those two bodies might be expected to rise sharply. We could still be said to have a freely elected Congress. Anybody with ten million dollars (or one, if he tailored his ambition to fit his means) would be free to try to get himself nominated, and the rest of us would be free to vote for our favourite millionaire or even to abstain from voting.” — A.J. Liebling, The Wayward Pressman, 1947

Liebling also warned in the 1960s that the business models of newspapers would one day prove their undoing. A prophecy that rings true today for the giants of that industry in his own country. Yes, you’ve seen his words on voting in these columns before. But the 2009 poll results have made him doubly relevant. “Voting for our favourite millionaire” comes alive with the 15th Lok Sabha. Its 543 MPs are worth close to Rs. 28 billion. (Of which 64 Union Cabinet members from the Lok Sabha account for Rs. 5 billion). And the links between wealth and winning elections are firmer than ever before.

If you are worth over Rs. 50 million, you are 75 times more likely to win an election to the Lok Sabha than if you are worth under Rs. 1 million. At least, in the case of the 2009 polls. (Some 23 of 64 Cabinet Ministers whose asset worth is in the public domain fall into this Rs. 50 million-plus category. Providing it stability of sorts, I guess. In the entire Cabinet, only one falls into the less-than-Rs.1 million group.)

Another 29 members of the Cabinet fall in the Rs. 5 million-Rs. 50 million category. If you are in this bracket, your chances of winning aren’t as great as the 50 million-plus, or Platinum Tier, elite. However, you are still 43 times more likely to win than those with less than Rs. 1 million in assets (that is, almost the whole of India’s population). The remaining Ministers, in case you were losing sleep over their condition, fall into the Rs. 1 million-Rs. 5 million club, the Cabinet equivalent of BPL. However, there are five years in which to remedy this situation and alleviate the misery of this group.

These are just a few of the insights brought to us by an interim report of National Election Watch on the 2009 polls. NEW is a coalition of over 1200 civil society groups working across the country. Their “Analysis of MPs of the 15th Lok Sabha (2009)” makes great reading and is the product of fine research and much hard work.

There were 3,437 candidates in the polls with assets of less than Rs.1 million, says the report. Of these, just 15 (0.44 per cent) made it past the post. But your chances soar with your assets. Of the 1,785 candidates in the Rs. 1 million-Rs. 5 million group, 116 (6 per cent) won. This win-ratio goes up to 19 per cent of candidates for the Rs. 5 million-Rs. 50 million segment. And of 322 candidates in the Rs. 50 million-plus or platinum tier, 106 (33 per cent) romped home.

The higher you climb the ladder of lucre, the better your chances. That is obvious. But what is striking is how bleak things are for non-millionaires. Even a modest improvement in your wealth helps. Say, you move from the below Rs. 1 million group to the Rs.1-5 million group — your chances immediately improve at a higher rate than your wealth. (Of course, that works only if you are already close to the Rs. 1 million mark.) So it’s not just that wealth has some impact on election outcomes — it influences them heavily and disproportionately as you go up the scale.

All of a piece with a society that only last year had 53 dollar billionaires (pre-meltdown). One that still has 836 million human beings who “get by” on less than Rs. 20 a day. Which ranks 66th amongst 88 nations on the Global Hunger Index (just one notch above Zimbabwe). Which has plummeted to rank 132 in the United Nations Human Development Index (one slot below Bhutan) as our billionaire count has risen. That wallows below Bolivia, Botswana, the Republic of the Congo and the Occupied Territories of Palestine in the HDI rankings. And never mind being worth billions — 60 per cent of adult rural Indians simply do not have bank accounts.

There is little question that big bucks help in our polls. The number of ‘crorepatis’ in the present Lok Sabha is up 98 per cent as compared to 2004. Then there were 154, now there are 306 — almost double. A healthy growth rate. And there are grounds for optimism that the BPL group in the Cabinet can uplift itself speedily. That’s happened to both MPs and candidates in some of the most troubled parts of the country. The net worth of candidates in Vidarbha rose by over 160 per cent between 2004 and 2009. In the Wardha district of that region alone, the net worth of candidates rose by 1,157 per cent between 2004 and 2009. (Ananth Krishnan, The Hindu, April 14, 2009). The Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput region had seven ‘crorepati’ candidates.

But back to the NEW report. Of the 306 crorepatis in the new Lok Sabha, 141, almost half, belong to the party of the aam aadmi, the Congress. The BJP lotus is a withering second, with 58. The SP, the BSP and the DMK follow with 14, 13 and 12 multi-millionaires. The Shiv Sena doesn’t do too badly with nine and the NCP with seven. In the case of these two parties, it means that almost 80 per cent of their elected MPs are ‘crorepatis.’ The Left bloc fares poorly, scoring just one from among its 24 MPs.

The one-in-three success rate of the Rs.50 million-plus candidates doesn’t tell the whole story, though. Often, they have defeated others of their own league. Who might well have fared better against candidates of lower asset castes.

We are also faithful to our role model: the United States, where Liebling’s prophecy has worked with a vengeance for decades. One pre-meltdown piece in www.opensecrets.org put it neatly last year. “As Americans worry about their own finances, their elected representatives in Washington — with a collective net worth of $3.6 billion [roughly Rs. 172 billion] — are mostly in good shape to withstand a recession.” Before the meltdown rained on their parade, it says, members of Congress, “saw their net worths soar 84 per cent from 2004 to 2006, on average.” It points out that while U.S. Senators had “a median net worth of approximately $1.7 million in 2006,” only about “1 per cent of all American adults had a net worth greater than $1 million around the same time.”

So the collective net worth of elected representatives in Washington is Rs.172 billion and that of our own Rs. 28 billion. Okay, we’re outclassed. But not to feel too bad about it. For one thing, the U.S. figure appears to include both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Ours covers only the Lok Sabha. What’s more, our team seems to clock a better rate of growth. And the gap is narrowing. The good rate of growth for second or third-term MPs also holds another lesson. Not only is it easier to get elected if you have money, it is easier to make money if you get elected

In both countries, money from big corporations helps clinch poll victories. Corporate lobbies like Big Oil have long “owned” Senators and Congressmen. In India, this trend has grown even in terms of individual corporate chiefs. In the U.S., corporate power has been on shameless display during the financial bailouts.

The AIGs, The Goldman Sachs et al unsheathed their massive clout to grab public money. In India, that power was visible to the naked eye in the run-up to last year’s trust vote in Parliament. One party even dumped a sworn political stand of eight decades under that influence.

In the NEW report, the wealthiest group of those elected falls into the Rs. 50 million-plus category. The ranking within this is intriguing. The average worth of a Lok Sabha MP is Rs. 51 million. But there are 74 MPs with serious criminal charges against them whose wealth averages Rs. 60 million. That is, they are well entrenched in Parliament’s Platinum tier. And the average wealth of a Cabinet Minister is around Rs. 75 million. Ah well, it’s a hard climb to the top.

If the parties want to survive in the long run and to hold the democratic torch burning they need to give tickets to the hard working cadre who got good credentials and rapport with the common people.

Recovering the nation

Once again general election is coming. Voters will be exercising their electoral franchise. How far this democratic exercise is going to help the welfare of the masses? It is important to recover the nation from the clutches of few vested interests and make it helpful for all citizens.
V.R. Krishna Iyer writes in The Hindu, 9.3.2009
The Indian nation’s future will be shaped by the ballot of a billion-plus voters in a process that should be over within a couple of months under the broad framework of the Constitution. This country needs a stable government, for which are needed stable parties with basically common manifestoes that conform to national norms under the parameters of the Constitution. For India is a People’s Democratic Republic.
Jawaharlal Nehru explained this in the Constituent Assembly thus: “I must frankly confess that I am a socialist and a republican, and am no believer in kings or princes or in the order which produces the modern kings of industry, who have greater power over the lives and fortunes of men than even the kings of old, and whose methods are as predatory as those of the old feudal aristocracy. I recognise, however, that it may not be possible for a body constituted as is this National Congress, to adopt a full socialistic programme. But we must realise that the philosophy of socialism has gradually permeated the entire structure of society the world over and almost the only points in dispute are the pace and the methods of advance to its full realisation. India will have to go that way, too, if she seeks to end her poverty and inequality, though she may evolve her own methods and may adapt the ideal to the genius of her race.”
In short, in the vision of the country’s first Prime Minister, India was a socialist, casteless community with a dynamic amity amid theological pluralism, but at the base it is bound by a manifestation of universal divinity in every human being. This wonder of oneness must inform our cultural community life in cosmic humanism, illuminate and animate all religions, even the atheists. This free patriotic fraternity, this celestial spiritual thought, this theological comity and global political vision, are a sine qua non for the survival of the large have-not Indian humanity.
The current situation is deplorable, indeed a horror. The Food and Agriculture Organisation has stated that 27 per cent of the poor of the world live in India, as are the richest 4 per cent. No less than 40 per cent of the women suffer under-development and masculine domination in social and political power. An end to food scarcity is not in sight. This is sad and pathetic. The seemingly hidden agenda of the ruling brand of economics is contradicting our cultural and constitutional values.
The governing class is oath-bound to uphold a Socialist-Secular-Democratic Republic, under the trinity of instrumentalities. But they betray it by means of mafia propaganda and class-conscious casteism, using a treacherous trinity of mantras: globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation. This dollar dependency syndrome comes from the U.S., with exotic and native brands in collusion.
Philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways. Our task is to transform it, said Karl Marx. The pity of it is that even the Marxists, mentally conditioned as they occasionally are by industrial glamour, have jettisoned Marx.
We still behave colonially in our imperial judicial jurisprudence of economic classes in our state’s bureaucratic structure and micro-molar political pluralism and theological rivalry. This comes as a part of communal-casteist pathology and vote-bank strategy to seize power. In such a situation, socialist-secular egalitarian democracy is an illusion and religious unity mere moonshine. The managers of state power are buried deep in the disguised dimension of development.
India lives in its villages, which has had panchayati democracy for decades. But centralisation, the craze for industrialisation and the cult of money-over-human-beings have vulgarised our culture. Even the gods, it would seem, are today after huge money. Godmen-swindlers are often lost in their own internecine conflicts. They ignore the development of agriculture and fall victim to fossil, feudal, corrupt, colonial communal competitive divisiveness and polluting nature. To them, the hard-won swaraj is but a fancy five-star mirage.
This colonial fraud must change and the village must become vibrant and progressive in the agrarian sphere. It must not capitulate to capitalist industrialisation creating poorly paid wage-earners. The root cause of class and the hallowed creamy layers are luxurious lifestyles, servitude and feudal, colonial pathology that are projected as five-star development.
A new synthesis achieved through a harmony of the haves and the have-nots through happy universal humanism is the socialist vision and mass-oriented mission of our Constitution. Achieving that state will be our authentic swaraj — poorna swaraj.
Leftists, you stand by the people lest the people leave you. You are the salt of the Indian earth and if the salt loses its savour, wherewith shall they be salted? We, the People of India united in a fine fraternity — that is “Bharat Mahan,” with panchayati raj as the basic democratic unit.
The coming elections will electrify the nation into a meaningful militant activism, integrity and fraternity, and spell hara-kiri for a number of politicians across the spectrum. The manifesto of the billion humans is luminously spelt out in the suprema lex as a socialist, democratic, secular republic. But every party, every group or caste, the proletariat to the proprietariat, is fragmented. They have jettisoned statesmanship, national vision and united radical passion and abandoned the ideology of the Constitution in favour of ministership, communalism, corruption and terrorism. This must change. Yes, We can.
Voters, do not sell your soul but fight for the Constitution. “The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.” (The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, Page 26).
Patriotism shall not be the last refuge of a scoundrel. The non-negotiable Indo-Pakistan friendship and the SAARC fraternity are fundamental if international laws of peace and human rights should not become the vanishing point of jurisprudence. But even cricket is an opportunity for sermons and political accusations with Goebbelsian audacity and absurdity. Let the people of India and Pakistan come together. The world is sinking; let us arrest this through honest swadeshi as the essence of development — which is not of things but of man.
Today ghostly gods are big business and godmen are the new mafia. The common masses vs the millionaires and the mafia: that is India’s new grand tryst in these powerful national elections. In India today the slumdog has to sleep hungry in terrible conditions while the millionaire remains in luminous palaces. Swaraj India has betrayed Gandhi and Nehru and Indira Gandhi. You the people shall arise, awake and build a great India and implement the Preamble, Part II, IV and IV A of the Constitution as a fundamental of our great country.
Without adequate sincerity of purpose and work among the public representatives it is difficult to save the country from the control of few business people and political highhandedness. This year’s election and the coalition compulsions should make the governance better.