Editorial: Listen to the People

CONGRESS HAS REPEATEDLY been surprised by its own performance. In 2004, they never expected to emerge as the single largest party and thus lead a coalition. In the recent elections, too, Congress did not expect to do so well in Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. Superlative performance from these states gave the party the kind of bounce that propelled them to conjure visions of forming the government without relying on unreliable allies. Although the party is still short by 66 seats, the composition of the House is such that they can run a minority government without really fearing ouster by their opponents. So what is the reason for the success of a party that had seemed clueless about how it should handle identity politics as represented by the likes of Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Chiranjeevi?

An avalanche of inevitable and rather predictable reasons is available on TV channels and newspapers about the causes that have turned the fortunes of a party that seemed in a state of drift and doom. Recent assembly elections had provided little indication that such a revival was in the offing for the Congress in different parts of the country. Victories in Rajasthan and Delhi were a fortuitous combination of division of votes and good image of the state leaders. Sheila Dikshit, has proved once again that good governance and high integrity always gets rewarded by voters.

So how did Congress and its allies manage to ward off the challenge of regional parties and identity politics and prove settled theories wrong? For once, not many commentators or psephologists could really gauge the impact of the economic boom the country has experienced in the last ten years and how it has changed the level of aspirations of the voting masses. Although, there are vast areas in the country that are desperately poor, but people seemed desperate to hang on to their gains, however small. Besides, people want to share the fruits of development which has been increasingly restricted and appropriated by a microscopic feudal and corporate elite and the upwardly mobile urban classes.

The economic policies of the last few years have removed the 'guilt feeling' in making money and made it a desirable value. Otherwise, of the 543 elected members in Parliament, how come there are 300 crorepatis openly flaunting their wealth? Surely, many of those who have not declared themselves as millionaires, are also very well off. This only proves that politics and elections have become another kind of 'financial investment' whereby candidates are supposed to 'make up' for their 'investments' after the polls. That is why, much more is being read in the overt posturing by DMK, which is chasing lucrative portfolios. Besides, while the vast majority in India survive on just about Rs 28 a day, politicians seem to be getting richer and richer every five years, even though the majority of them are not professionally employed, 'earning their own bread' as most hardworking Indians do. Dynasties, moneybags and fat cats seem to dominate the electoral landscape and people really have no choice but to vote for this candidate/party or that. Truly, people who have neither deep pockets nor big organisations to back them stand no chance in this 'free and fair' representative democracy.

Another reason that the Congress has done well is due to the enormous funds that it allocated in the rural sector. Loan waiver and the rural employment guarantee scheme has worked in poor areas and is likely to do better as it matures and acquires greater awareness among the targeted beneficiaries. The vote was also for decency, secularism and wisdom. In large parts of the country, people rejected the high strung, boorish and hate-driven campaign unleashed by LK Advani, Narendra Modi and Varun Gandhi. For some reasons they did not fit with what the pluralist young India wants in New India. In metros, especially, BJP was roundly rejected. Also, criminals, fixers and manipulators like Amar Singh were roundly rejected.

This is a vote that will change the way politics is being conducted in the country in the days to come. It has stoked the desire among ordinary, often voiceless citizens, to demand and choose a higher quality of life and social and economic infrastructure, for themselves, and their children. It is a mandate for a party that has a modern, secular, liberal world view rather than those that are atavistic and warped in crude machismo and xenophobia.