Ideology vs. debate

Sadanand Dhume complains in a recent article on WSJ.com that “[o]paque family rule is no way to run a political party, let alone a major economy and aspiring great power.”  In response, I posted the following comment:

Mr. Dhume describes the Congress party as “utterly amorphous” and as a “motley crew.”  The same adjectives can describe India and that too in a positive vein.  It is only appropriate that India’s largest political party shares the country’s characteristics of diverging views and vigorous debate.  In bemoaning the lack of “adherence to a coherent ideology” Mr. Dhume is implying a preference for the regimented and ideological RSS/BJP combine, which was thoroughly routed in the past election.  It is interesting that India’s articulate “chatterati” is complaining of the Gandhis’ inaccessibility in a Western newspaper.  That India does not care is also reflected in the verdict of the last election, when the Gandhis’ were as visible and accessible to the electorate as any other political party.

Sonia Gandhi and her politics

Vir Sanghvi, whose writing I have admired since his days as editor of India’s Sunday magazine in the early 1990s, has written an excellent profile of Sonia Gandhi.  He begins with a brief historical introduction but focuses on the source of Gandhi’s power, her role in running the country, and some of her ideological views, especially on the economy.  Must read.

On YSR again

When P. Sainath — the only hack truly covering agriculture and poverty in India — writes, I read with attention. In his obit of YSR, Sainath catalogues the Chief Minister’s contributions. One knows that YSR was something when a journo like Sainath laments his passing.

Several readers have been surprised — given the country’s growing cynicism of politics — with the widespread grief, deep anguish, and mass turnout in Andhra Pradesh following YSR’s death.  This blog’s readers have asked why because such adulation has, in the past, been reserved for the Gandhi family or movie stars-turned-politicians.  Three reasons why YSR was so popular:

1.  YSR made governance inclusive …

When the urban media was portraying the laptop-toting, World Bank report-reading Chandrababu Naidu as the country’s model Chief Minister, YSR embarked on a 1,500-kilometre padayatra to understand the pain, needs, and aspirations of Andhra’s poor and reminded the world that India continued to live in its villages.  In his first term, YSR delivered free power to farmers for five years; subsidized rice, oil, lentils, and LPG cylinders for families below the poverty line; constructed free houses under the Indiramma program; implemented a state-wide microfinance program for women self-help groups (pavala vaddi); provided state-funded health insurance up to Rs. 2 lakh (arogyasri), enabled the “Dial 104″ rural mobile health units, and introduced a state-wide “Dial 108″ ambulance service (YSR would often begin his 2009 campaign meetings by mimicking the siren); and vigorously implemented the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (the UPA government’s singular achievement in its first term) and created the Rajiv Udyogasri plan to create 25 lakh jobs by 2013.  To continue this governance-focused agenda, YSR was on his way to Chittoor to launch his new Racchabanda program, when his helicopter crashed.

2.  … invested in infrastructure … 

Without the media hype so common during Naidu’s tenure, YSR enabled seminal public-private infrastructure projects.  These include the metro in Hyderabad; state-wide power and irrigation projects; ports at Vadarevu, Nizampatnam, Gangavaram, and Krishnapatnam; airports at Hyderabad and Vizag; over a 100 SEZ projects; the real estate boom across the state; and numerous other private investments totaling collectively Rs 225,000 crores (or $55 billion).  YSR achieved all these without resorting to any of Naidu’s gimmicky video conferences, World Bank meetings, and high-profile advisors.  There is an interesting anecdote in this regard.  Apparently Sam Pitroda was invited for a prestigious lecture in Andhra Pradesh and YSR was invited to preside and benefit from the technocrat’s advice.  YSR graciously offered the use of a helicopter to ferry Pitroda back and forth but politely refused the tête-à-tête saying something to the effect that facilitating development was not “rocket science.”

3.  … and retained touch with people. 

Following YSR’s death, the media is replete with stories of his smile, confidence, and desire to visit people and identify ways to meet their needs.  Several other tributes have talked about how hard he worked throughout his tenure.  Of greater significance was his principle-based political vision, in particular his steadfast refusal to support Telengana as a separate state.  We need to distinguish his statements, often driven by realpolitik and pressure from Delhi, from his actions which clearly marginalized the separatist movement.  Finally, he eliminated dissidence within the Congress party, developed a new generation of young leaders, and contributed to the party’s national success in the 2009 election as I have discussed elsewhere.

Critiquing education reforms

In an urgent phone call Friday night, BJP President Rajnath Singh directed Murli Manohar Joshi to critique HRD Minister Kapil Sibal’s proposals to reform India’s education system. Joshi, whose own tenure as HRD minister in the BJP-led NDA government (1999 – 2004) was a disaster, responded promptly but with little gravitas.

India has a federal structure. Education is a concurrent subject. I want to know whether the states were consulted before the minister made these revolutionary announcements. Was it the advice of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE)? Has it been constituted at all? On what basis and on whose advice are these decisions, regarding a common board and making Class X examinations optional, being taken?”

What do public- private partnership and FDI in education mean? I accuse the government of abdicating its responsibility. Announcing sweeping changes without debate or consensus is shocking.

These schemes are directionless, illogical and speak of the minister’s inexperience … We can’t let the minister destroy education for the purpose of showcasing his talent in 100 days.

Joshi’s critique is limited to the lack of consultation and quickly degenerates into attacking Sibal.  It lacks policy alternatives and only reinforces popular perception of his lack of imagination, intellectual capacity, and pragmatism.  Sibal’s comments — as the ensuing debate has proven — were, in fact, a way to stimulate consultation and discussion.  To be sure, Sibal was only suggesting prompt action on the Yash Pal Committee Report on Higher Education submitted last week.

Various newspapers and magazines have suggested that the BJP recover from its recent electoral defeat by constituting a shadow cabinet to carefully monitor and critique the Congress-led UPA government’s policy initiatives and performance.  It is certainly a good idea that will check and sharpen policy measures.  However, to cite the BJP’s own Arun Jaitley, “sobriety pays” and that “[t]here should be no criticism for criticism’s sake.” Personal attacks of the nature made by Joshi only reinforce the party’s continued state of confused shock and further alienate voters.

A more substantive critique of the Yash Pal Committee report is here.

As an aside, I have always been sceptical of academics in India.  Their teaching is often mediocre and research much worse but yet suffer from unalloyed arrogance, delusional self-importance, and unexplained pessimism.  I have no reason to suggest the same of Yash Pal but I find the following from his report odd:

I would also like to disclose that before I agreed to get involved with this work, I had a conversation with the Prime Minister and got the impression that some out of the box thinking might not be frowned upon. Indeed, it was expected.

Why should a person of Yash Pal’s stature and eminence have to check with the Prime Minister if he could include “out of the box thinking” in his report?  Doesn’t his very appointment as chair of such a committee signal the need for “out of the box thinking”?  Is it an innocent example of name dropping or intellectual insecurity that stems from decades of parasitic dependence on the establishment?

Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy vs. Chandrababu Naidu

‘Tis the season of post-election analysis.  Over lunch at the Green Park in Hyderabad, the city bureau chief of a respected newspaper drew a compelling distinction between the politics of the victorious Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy of the Congress, and the vanquished Telugu Desam Party chief, Chandrababu Naidu.

Naidu’s policies as Chief Minister emphasized IT industry-led urban development compelling the young in the villages to pursue jobs in the cities leaving their parents unattended in their golden years.  Reddy’s pro-agriculture and socialist policies allow free medical care for the old (arogyasri) besides incentivizing the young to build livelihoods in the villages.

Singh is king

Jai ho.

Hope Azharuddin loses

My desire for the Congress to return to power is surpassed by the desire to have an informed and, most importantly, engaged polity led by our Members of Parliament. Celebrities, as discussed in another post, do not fit the bill.

I grew up loving Azharuddin’s batting and it heartens me that he is one of the few Congress candidates who is a serious contender in Uttar Pradesh. Nevertheless, his comments in Mukul Kesavan’s eminently readable (great writers make great journalists) profile show why I hope he loses.

I asked him when he decided to get into politics. “Last October,” he said. “My brother-in-law said to me, you’ve stopped playing cricket, you aren’t doing anything else so why don’t you join politics?” This was disarmingly candid and Azhar must have thought he had overdone the frankness. “To work for the people,” he clarified.

Delhi votes for development

India’s cities and its middle class have, unfortunately, played an enabling role in the rise of the BJP and its divisive religion-based politics.  (As an astute observer I admire said, “India’s middle class has degrees, no education.”)  Even so, they are marginal players, in broad terms, notwithstanding their explosive growth over the past 20 years.  This was evident in 2004 when the country’s predominantly-rural electorate rejected the NDA’s “India Shining” thesis.

Delhi was no different – and once the strongest of BJP bastions – but has become an interesting laboratory for the “development versus ideology” experiment over the past decade.  In 2008, Delhi’s voters returned a Congress government for the third time making Sheila Dikshit the country’s first longest-serving woman chief minister.  Over the past 10 years, Dikshit has zealously pursued a single-minded agenda transforming the crumbling capital into one of the world’s most livable cities.

In 10 years, Dikshit’s Congress government has doubled power generation (quadrupling it by 2011), water supply, and hospitals; tripled sewage treatment capacity; built (or is building) more than 130 flyovers and underpasses; switched over its bus transportation fleet to clean-burning natural gas dramatically reducing pollution; and implemented a world-class city-wide rail commuting system amongst other things.  This development track record has trounced the BJP’s ideological posturing in three consistent elections.

This is a heartening story because it shows that the strongest of ideological bastions can be stormed (and retained) with sustained political action emphasizing governance and development.  The validity of this political emphasis will be tested again in Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha seats.

Who will win in Uttar Pradesh?

As Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls today, the big question is – as in all general elections – “Who will win Uttar Pradesh?”  Historians and psephologists may cite several reasons but it is UP’s contribution of 80 seats (even after Uttaranchal’s separation) to the Lok Sabha that makes it a “decider” for Indian elections. 

Let me begin with a conventional version of UP’s political history.  Congress dominated the state until the mid-1980s by consolidating the Brahmin, Dalit, and Muslim votes.  Caste-based political outfits – the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) – wedged the Dalit vote out of the Congress coalition.  In the past 20 years, the SP has further segmented the Dalit vote retaining the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and consolidating Muslims alienated by poor leadership of their issues by an ineffective Congress (e.g., December 6, 1992). 

During the same time, the BSP consolidated the Dalit vote and came to power twice – first with the help of the SP and the BJP and, most recently, by clever division of the Brahmin votes.  The BJP, until, recently stewarded the Brahmin votes by leveraging Hindutva.  However, unlike caste, Hindutva has run out of steam and is no longer a vote getter.

This, however, did not happen by chance and my theory is the political leadership played a far more crucial role than most analysts will credit it with.  Until the mid-1980s, the state’s several powerful Congressmen – e.g., Govind Ballabh Pant, Kamlapati Tripathi, Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, Chaudhary Charan Singh, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, and Narayan Dutt Tiwari – in concert with the charisma of the Nehru-Gandhi clan ensured electoral successes.  Growing dissidence within the party along with Indira and Rajiv Gandhi’s frequent replacement of chief ministers and state party leadership eroded the political base allowing SP, BSP, and the BJP to make inroads. 

Kalyan Singh created BJP’s presence in UP, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati built the BSP, while Mulayam Singh Yadav has led the SP.  Of these, Kalyan Singh left the BJP, Kanshi Ram passed away, and Mulayam Singh Yadav is held hostage by advisers besotted by movie stars.  As a result, Mayawati remains the only state politician who understands UP and its ground realities.  This became spectacularly evident in 2007 when she secured a simple majority against all odds and expectations by amplifying BSP’s Dalit base with a large number of Brahmins and Muslims (akin to the Congress coalition until the 1980s).

Rahul Gandhi was pitched in that election as Congress Party’s primary campaigner but the party fared worse than the previous election.  Media reports, however, suggest that he has continued to work the grassroots in the state and is “hopeful of a surprise.”  For the first time in almost 30 years, a single Congress politician will be leading the party into a second consecutive state election.  For that reason alone, the Congress must be hopeful.

The BSP is certainly suffering some anti-incumbency.  The SP is regretting its “informal” alliance with Kalyan Singh.  The BJP is fighting dissidents and rebel candidates.  The Congress is relying on Rahul Gandhi who has been distracted by campaigning elsewhere.  State reports are suggesting that it is not the typical two- or three-sided fight in most constituencies in an election that is bereft of any single pan-state issue.  Instead, most constituencies have turned into a four- or five-sided contest making any sort of trend-reading unreliable.

One electoral outcome will beget an interesting question.  If the BSP does well by retaining its Brahmin-Dalit-Muslim coalition, would its two consecutive electoral victories signal casteism’s diminishing influence?

Can Chiranjeevi repeat history in Andhra Pradesh?

Chiranjeevi is more to Telugu cinema than Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh, and Aamir Khan put together can ever be for Bollywood.  This election will test if Chiranjeevi’s popularity will translate to votes for his Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) but the growing consensus is that his party will end up in the third place with 15-20 assembly and 0-2 parliamentary seats.  Disabused of illusions, Chiranjeevi himself is contesting from a second “safe” seat, Palakol in West Godavari district.

Palakol, near Chiranjeevi’s birth place, is where I spent numerous summers visiting my grandparents.  As children, my cousins and I would return from the late night shows excited by Chiranjeevi’s action thrillers while in recent times he has energized fans by attacking corruption in movies such as Stalin and Tagore.  In real life, Chiranjeevi has channeled his popularity to drive blood and organ donations so successfully that India Today included him on a recent list of 50 powerful Indians.

This compelling legacy is dangerously close to being destroyed by a carefully pondered but poorly implemented political entry.  Electoral success these days needs more than mass hysteria.  It needs a coalescing political issue or vision; a thoughtful but dynamic strategy; and diligent implementation by a band of organizers, campaigners, and strategists at multiple levels. 

Chiranjeevei, however, was following the template N.T. Rama Rao (NTR) created 27 years ago in March 1982 when the latter cashed in his popularity as a Telugu movie superstar to form the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).  However, NTR leveraged two key issues to channel his mass following into a landslide two-thirds majority in January 1983.  One was Teluguvari Atmagauravam (“Telugu Pride”), which had been hurting from a broad range of slights by the Nehru-Gandhi family beginning decades ago from the agitation for a separate state (e.g., Nehru in a letter to C. Rajagopalachari: “Some kind of fast is going on for the Andhra Province ….  I am totally unmoved …”).  The other seminal coalescing issue NTR exploited was the promise to sell rice to the poor for two rupees a kilogram, creating precedence for the blatant political use of extreme populism.

This year, the TDP too is hard at work on destroying its “Telugu Pride” legacy by allying with the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) whose sole political goal is the creation of the state of Telangana by breaking the region away from Andhra Pradesh.  This is, however, TRS’ second turn at the wheel.  It did well in 2004 by leveraging this issue and spent almost five years in power by participating in the Congress-led UPA government.  Why should the people of Telangana buy the TRS’ tired promises again is an open question?

In general, the Congress government’s performance over the past five years is viewed favorably.  It has certainly lost some ground in recent months and the high voter turnout may further impact its performance.  However, the TDP may not be the beneficiary because of caste polarization that has intensified further following PRP’s entry.  The kapu community typically aligns with the TDP but is expected to switch allegiance to PRP significantly impacting the TDP especially in the coastal districts.  Andhra will, most likely, see a Congress-PRP coalition government.