Vote by dispossessed for the dispossessed
The dramatic sweep of the month-long assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh which concluded on May 11 by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) led by woman Dalit leader Mayawati, is being differently interpreted by chastened pollsters and political pundits whose predictions of a hung assembly in India’s most populous state (180 million) were proved egregiously wrong. The BSP not only won a clear majority bagging 206 seats in the 402 strong UP legislative assembly — a record gain of 107 seats over the number it won in 2002 — but while routing opposition parties including the pan-India Congress and BJP, also turned the ages-old and seemingly ineradicable caste politics of this Hindi heartland state on its head. This is a landmark development in Indian politics because perhaps for the first time since the Mandal Committee’s report of 1980 which recommended the reservation of jobs in government for OBCs (other backward castes), the electorate of a Hindi heartland state has voted on political and socio-economic issues rather than on the basis of caste particularisms. All available evidence indicates that the electorate voted out the ruling Samajwadi party for continuous neglect of law and order, economic cronyism and indifference to improving the state’s abysmal education system. Telling evidence that people are beginning to vote on issues of governance and development ignoring appeals for caste and religious loyalty.
But at a deeper level, the resounding endorsement that the Uttar Pradesh electorate cutting across traditional caste and religious antagonisms, has given the BSP and Mayawati, is also a vote against the shining India politics of the BJP, Congress and the opulent durbars of Delhi and Lucknow. It is the vote of the dispossessed for the dispossessed. Undoubtedly with her shrill politics, intemperate demeanour, mysterious affluence and penchant for diamond jewellery, Mayawati arouses widespread contempt and ridicule within the ruling classes and salons of Delhi and the metro cities. Yet quite clearly the dispossessed majority of the other India, denied the dividends of shining India and the Indian economy’s 9 percent plus annual rate of growth, is inclined to make common cause with Mayawati who was repeatedly betrayed by conniving establishment politicians and avaricious cronies when she was chief minister of UP for brief periods on three earlier occasions.
Now the big question is whether Mayawati even if not in full measure, will substantially deliver the promises she has made to the woefully short-changed people of this Hindi heartland state. Given that she is steeped deep in the me-first self-advancement culture of India’s political class, it’s unlikely. But the lesson of election 2007 in Uttar Pradesh is that despite being continuously denied opportunities for advancement and betterment, especially meaningful education, India’s electorates are maturing and showing signs of being able to see through the divisive, self-serving, caste and identity arithmetic of the nation’s establishment politicians.
Rising desperation to escape India's politcians
The arrest on April 18 of Babubhai Katara, a BJP member of Parliament elected from Gujarat, for attempting to smuggle out a woman and child who paid a massive sum of Rs.30 lakh for being passed off as his wife and son to enter Canada on his diplomatic passport, has received saturation coverage in the media during the past few weeks and has blown the lid off an omnipresent human trafficking racket in the Indian subcontinent.
But in the thrill of the chase and excitement about exposure of this open, continuous and still unchecked racket, the larger question of why so many Indian citizens are willing to bet their all to illegally migrate to foreign countries to work in low-end jobs and suffer endless humiliation in hostile environments, has received scant attention. As our political leaders and editorial writers repeatedly inform the public, contemporary India is the second fastest growing major economy in the world, foreign exchange reserves have topped $200 billion and there are unprecedented employment opportunities in industry, trade and the service sectors. Yet why are millions of Indians from all segments of society ready and willing to shake the dust of the land of their forefathers from their feet and accept second class status in unfamiliar foreign environments?
This question is seldom posed by establishment leaders secure in their ivory towers of subsidies and privileges. But quite obviously the neglect, deprivation, pain and humiliation that millions of lay citizens of India suffer in their own native land is more than they expect to suffer in foreign countries. The plain truth routinely obfuscated by political leaders cutting across party lines and the media, is that the governance in contemporary India is so sub-standard in terms of maintenance of law and order, access to forums of justice, provision of civic and infrastructure services and availability of acceptable housing, education and healthcare, that despite the rhetoric of shining India, a growing number of Indians are ready to risk all to flee to countries where governance measured on these parameters is superior, even if the price of successful migration is less than first class citizenship.
Therefore the blame for the growing number of citizens across all classes ready to risk huge fortunes to escape from India needs to be laid squarely at the door of post-independence India’s political class which assumed mighty powers in the shape of central planning and a pervasive licence-permit-quota and controls regimen to conceptualise and guide the nation’s destiny. Yet half a century later, it is patently clear that the political class has failed the nation. Indeed the Katara scandal exposes the heartless duplicity of post-independence India’s political class which has not only driven millions of people to desperation by sabotaging the nation’s institutions of governance, but has few compunctions about deriving profit from assisting hapless citizens to escape a hell of their own making.
Yet the silver lining to this human trafficking scandal is that it provides a good opportunity for the intelligentsia and citizenry to begin the process of cutting politicians down to size. Desperate illegal emigrants risking everything to escape from India are not fleeing the country as much as its political class which has beggared the nation.