Can polls bailout India?

Look at the problem. It looks gargantuan. The global economy has literally tanked, our own is holding on for the time, but no one knows for how long. Slowdown is smothering enterprise and hope. The future of Generation Next looks seriously blighted. The job market looks eerily tight and there is no promise of how the real turn around would happen in our country. When will the factories, business establishments open? When will people get their jobs back? Will India's turnaround coincide with the rest of the world or is it decoupled enough to brave out this global economic catastrophe. And then, there is this bloody problem of cross border terror. After the Mumbai attack it has taken a different spin all together.

Worryingly, these questions are gaining urgency and intensity at a time when the country is going in for a long and tiring election to Parliament. After the notification by the Election Commission, it will take about three months before the country gets a new government. No one knows by then what the fate of the nation would be. What makes matters worse is that there is little clarity about which political formation will come to power and whether the new government would have individuals who will have the integrity and competence to speedily find a solution to the problems brought about by the economic slowdown on a billion strong people.

These are really daunting times and the need of the hour is a strong leadership. The country needs a steady hand that can guide the fortunes of this young nation out of the demoralising labyrinth of confusion and self- doubt. It is incumbent on the democratic process to throw up a leadership that can meet these tough challenges that have the potential to crush hopes of people and societies. Some doomsayers suggest that even ‘classical civilisations' are not safe from the threat that the collapse of the global monetary system has triggered.

What has also aggravated the economic crisis is the wanton loot by stock market bandicoots, dubious businessmen and corrupt politicians. Scams are hurtling out from the closet as the tide of easy money retreats. The Satyam scam represents a tip of this monumental iceberg of corruption, deceit and loot. What is disturbing is that the entire business of elections in India feeds this formidable money-making enterprise that subverts morality and the mandate of people. Candidates with big bucks, as recently witnessed in the Karnataka assembly, give a different spin to the polls. And once they come to power, they again engage in the same exercises that wreak havoc on the economy, effectively demolishing in the process the aspirations of the common people who look at the government to provide them succor, justice, health, education, and social infrastructure.

For years now, powerful politicians and have been using the ballot box and electronic voting machines to perpetuate this venal order. They have provided immunity to their cronies to make money, which in turn is used to fund elections. Voters in the absence of any meaningful choice have voted for the same set of people again and again, fully aware that their hopes from the government will be crushed at the altar of insensitivity, efficiency and corruption.

However, after the economic meltdown and the Mumbai attack, there is a compelling reason for voters to search for a kind of politics that provides them hope. In the United States of America (USA), the election of Barack Obama as president and the cerebral manner in which he has been going about reviving a recession racked economy has raised expectations here too! Voters want a leader who works relentlessly for the greater common good and instills optimism and life-affirmation in a people who are unsure of the future.