India, 2009 elections, Congress, BJP, Islamic Appeasement, Advani, Prime Minister, Jinnah, secular, Karat, China, Indian media

May 2009 Edition

India's Divided Opposition and the 2009 Elections

For those seeking an end to the cynical brand of vote-bank politics practised by the Congress and its allies, the results of the 2009 election could not have come as a biggger shock and disappointment. A weak and often frustratingly incompetent man would be free to return as Prime Minister and the Indian media's haughty and at times vicious Hindu-baiting would gain further legitimacy. Furthermore, a government that had in many ways failed in terms of India's legitimate and essential developmental needs would have to be endured for another five years.

In the wake of a series of Islamic terror attacks that had sunk business sentiment and derailed India's impressive growth engine, one might have presumed that the nation would have been ready to dump a political party whose insistence on catering to the most backward and reactionary elements amongst India's Muslims was posing a serious impediment in combatting the fiery menace.

But sadly, the opposition to the ruling Congress was divided and a section was led by a party whose leadership was already beholden to India's adversaries.

Notwithstanding his tall claims of standing with India's downtrodden masses, time and time again, the CPM's Prakash Karat had demonstrated that his greatest loyalties lay with the mandarins of Beijing rather than with the nation of his birth. Even as he had repeatedly expressed sympathy and solidarity for China's nuclear policy, he had mercilessly attacked India's nuclear tests in wilful disregard of India's genuine and legitimate security concerns.

When fears were expressed about the shoddy quality of Chinese imports (that were causing serious setbacks and delays in the provisioning of essential power projects) or when critics brought attention to the growing imbalance in India's trade with China, he remained unperturbed (or indifferent), and continued to push for expanded access to Chinese imports even as China continued to place all manner of covert barriers to imports from India.

When China sought to undermine India through its neighbors or in various international fora, Prakash Karat's response was to shoot the messenger or deflect attention elsewhere.

This was also his approach to those who sought to identify and isolate those Islamists who were aiding or abetting acts of terror in India (or elsewhere in the world).

Since the Indian Muslim intelligentsia had shown little inclination towards exposing or opposing terror cells in their midst, the responsibility of fighting terror rested almost entirely on the shoulders of India's Hindu majority. But rather than work to unite the Hindus in combatting the terror scourge, the CPM had assiduously championed the Quota Raj pushed by the Congress and its casteist allies that only divided and weakened the resolve of India's Hindus.

Just days before the results, the Chinese ambassador had visited CPI and CPM leaders in an obvious attempt to ensure that Chinese interests were well protected in any future governing configuration.

Rather than expose such insidious betrayals, several of India's regional parties that opposed the Congress (such as the BJD, the TDP and the AIADMK) joined in an opportunist and damaging alliance that could have neither solved the menace of terrorism (nor addressed any of the real developmental problems that had remained unaddressed or mishandled by the Congress).

This put much of the burden of providing a credible alternative to the Congress on the BJP, who (in hindsight) was unfortunately not fully up to the challenge.

Even though the BJP had electrified the nation with the successful conduct of India's nuclear tests, Pakistan's Kargil invasion had undermined the euphoria that had followed, and intense British and American pressure led to the BJP having to make a series of unwelcome concessions that damaged the reputation of its senior leaders.

Likewise, even though it was the BJP that had long argued for a dismantling of the License Raj (that had depressed India's industrial growth for decades), credit went to Manmohan Singh who brought in external liberalization simultaneously with India's domestic economic reforms that should have actually preceded any dismantling of India's trade barriers so that Indian industry could have been better prepared to dealing with foreign competition.

Furthermore, when the BJP partially rectified the neglect of India's woefully inadequate infrastructure and fine-tuned India's monetary policy to allowed for cheaper consumer and business loans, the benefit was enjoyed more by the later Congress regime.

Thus BJP's positive contributions were forgotten, and instead, it was remembered more for its inability to comprehend and alleviate the crisis that was engulfing India's peasantry due to ever-shrinking land-holdings and low agricultural productivity.

Its foolish insistence on promoting astrology had alienated important sections of India's scientific intelligentsia and its reluctance to stand up against the Quota Raj of the Congress and its allies didn't help matters. Had it offered support to the movement led by Youth for Equality - it could have offered a powerful antidote to the criminal and casteist politics that had invaded India's politically crucial gangetic belt.

Its inability to combat the image that it was a patriarchal party that stood for sexual prudery and endorsed state policing of sexual activites led to resistance from Indian women, sexually liberal first time voters, and biological minorities (such as Kinnars or those who were lesbian or gay)

So even as more and more Indians became disenchanted with the Sonia-Manmohan government, the BJP faced an uphill battle in winning back the favor of Indian voters. India's Hinduphobic media prevented voters from giving serious consideration to the BJP's pointed criticism of the Congress government's disgraceful record when it came to tackling home-grown and Pakistan-imported Islamic terrorism.

Even a leader like Mr Advani who had persevered for decades in the political wilderness to hold a candle for the liberation of the Hindu mind from centuries of Islamic assault could not overcome the power of the dynasty in the wake of the media barrage that had drowned out any opposition to its misrule.

India's mostly foreign-owned media was clearly working to sabotage Indian interests, but the vaste horde of India's politicians were more concerned about petty political rivalries or casteist or sectarian regional interests.

The situation was further compounded by what might have seemed like an innocent or inocuous faux pas in the minds of the supporters of the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Shri Lal Krishan Advani when he chose to label India's unforgotten nemesis Mohammed Ali Jinnah as "secular".

Although no one in India need have had any doubts about Mr Advani's psychological orientation towards the state of Pakistan, his
repeated assertions and elaborations on the theme of Jinnah's "secularism" had important intellectual and ideological ramifications that were probably missed by his friends and detractors alike.

In the realm of politics, the law of unintended consequences can come into play with an unimaginable vengeance that leaves many shell-shocked and stunned. In the destiny of a nation subliminal logic can often transcend what is immediately and superficially apparent.

For most patriotic Indians, Jinnah represented the ultimate in Machiavellian evil - an unreligious man who had ruthlessly and shamelessly exploited the sectarian religious mindset of undivided India's Muslim elite. In his obsessive lust for power, he had carried out a relentless and remorseless campaign of demonizing India's Hindus. India's Hindus (who had already been subject to more than 500 years of oppression at the hands of numerous Islamic invaders and conquerors) were subject to an exponentially esacalating sequence of false allegations - each more vile and nasty - that fuelled a series of violent pogroms against unarmed and helpless Hindus and Sikhs and culminated in the exodus of virtually the entire non-Muslim population from what is now Pakistan.

Coming soon after the BJP's "India Shining" slogan that had cost the BJP the previous election, this clean chit to Jinnah was initially greeted with a derisive and dismissive shrug for it is in the Indian tradition of not taking the inconsequential comments of a political loser too seriously. Nevertheless, for many Indians, the remarks touched off a raw nerve that would forever haunt the BJP's political campaign.

For any Prime Ministerial aspirant to suggest that such a monstruous villain (who also happened to be on the payroll of the colonial authorities) ought to be percieved as "secular" was an error of no small proportions.

Not only had Mr Advani failed to appreciate the depth of hatred that so many Indians felt towards Jinnah - it undermined the entire ideological and epistemological basis of the BJP's opposition to the shrill and increasingly vindictive pseudo-secularism practised by India's pro-Muslim political parties.

If an odious megalomaniac like Jinnah could be legitmized with such an epithet, then with what face could the BJP expose the numerous mini-Jinnahs who had arisen since he made his inopportune remarks. Having inadvertently given Jinnah a clean chit, it had become much more difficult to expose the new generation of Indian Jinnahs that had emerged in the likes of Mehbooba Mufti, A.B Bardhan, Antulay or Arjun Singh.

How could the BJP effectively counter a Mullah Mulayam, or a power-hungry Mayawati when its own leader was calling Jinnah secular? How could it seriously combat the intellectuals of Jamia and the veritable army of media sickularists led by the likes of the Barkha Dutts and the Rajdeep Sardesais?

What might have seemed like an annoying (but forgivable) idiosyncrasy on the part of the BJP leader to his compatriots had unwittingly invaded the sub-conscious of the body-politic and spawned an intellectual atmosphere in which the most rabidly communal were seen as secular - even as Hindus defenders against terror were seen as the violaters and the criminals.

Thus a Varun Gandhi could be jailed under the NSA, but the arrest of a terrorist from Azamgarh had to be projected as a grave violation of Muslim human rights.

Of all people, Mr Advani should have known that the Jehadi menace that emanated from Pakistani soil was but an inevitable outcome of the toxic brew whipped up by the nation's founding father, but like Gandhi and Subhash Chandra Bose earlier, the BJP leader had failed to correctly read the essence of the phenomenon that Jinnah exemplified.

The venemous implications that followed from Mr Advani's misguided articulation of the "Jinnah was Secular" theme had now snowballed into an avalance that shattered and destroyed the electoral prospects of the BJP.

India's diseased secularism needed medicine - but it could not be administered by misreading history. The character of a thing cannot be changed by merely changing its label. Jinnah was, in fact, the founder of Indian communalism.

To run away from that truth was to court disaster and exposed a very serious flaw in the character and judgement of the BJP leader.

Although the BJP had several very articulate and intelligent second-rung leaders, the BJP did not sell this point during the election. Instead, it tried to project Mr Advani as a "strong leader" - a claim that rang somewhat hollow with the electorate.

Had the BJP countered the Congress's blundering leadership with the message that the BJP had a strong and competent team of leaders, the spotlight could have been shifted away from Lal Krishan Advani and his Jinnah gaffe.

Now, as the BJP debates on whether it was the "message" or the "messenger" - it must not presume that the people of India do not wish to stand up to the menace posed by their enemies. It must first be clearer about its own understanding, and then find ways of communicating the truth more effectively. It must be prepared to reinvigorate its contacts with the Indian masses - and to rebuild the party in states like UP (or revive it in Rajasthan) - rather than fall into the trap of blaming leaders like Narendra Modi or Varun Gandhi who succeeded where others failed.

The strategy of winning the election by trying to win brownie points with a hostile media cannot succeed. It will take much more hard work at the grass roots level - something that the BJP has clearly neglected in recent years.

Electoral Notes:

Contrary to the media spin that the election represented a huge mandate for the Congress, it should be noted that the Congress received only 29% of the vote in an election where turnout was at a historical low in many states and where the election commission was doing its best to ignore polling machines rigged in favor of the Congress in states where it controlled the administration.

Furthermore, in several states, it won more because of divisions in the opposition vote than its own popularity.

In Andhra Pradesh, the combined vote of the TDP and the PRP in 18 seats clearly exceeded that of the Congress. In 9 seats, the votes polled by the BJP and the TDP/TRS combine exceeded the Congress vote.

The alliance with the CPI and the CPM appears to have been more of a liability since 3 of the seats that the Congress won with the greatest majority (in Aruku, Bhongir and Nalgonda) were the seats that had been assigned to the CPM or the CPI.

A united opposition that excluded the left could have reduced the Congress to a mere 2 seats in Andhra.

In Tamil Nadu, again, a divided opposition helped the ruling combine. In 10 seats, the DMDK/KNMK + AIADMK/allies vote easily exceeded the Congress/DMK vote. An alliance with the BJP could have helped in Kanyakumari, Ramanathapuram, Tirunelveli and Theni. On the other hand, the CPM turned in a miserable performance in Madurai.

In Orissa, in Bargarh, Sambalpur, Kalahandi and Nabarangpur the combined vote of the BJP and the BJD vastly exceeded the Congress vote. In Sundergarh, the BJD had left the seat for the CPM, but the BJP secured almost 4 times as many votes and almost won the seat. In Balasore, the BJP + NCP vote vastly exceeded the Congress. Overall, the BJP polled roughly 17% compared to the CPM's 0.4%. Had the BJD retained its alliance with the BJP, the Congress might have struck a blank in the state.

In Maharashtra, the renegade MNS (led by Bal Thackeray's estranged nephew) cut the anti-Congress vote and delivered 9 extra seats to the Congress alliance.

In 7 seats in Gujarat where the Congress won by fairly small margins, the opposition vote was split by a suspiciously large number of independents and minor caste-based parties that clearly sucked just enough votes from the BJP to secure narrow wins for the Congress.

Had the opposition to the Congress been united and included the BJP, it is conceivable that the Congress tally would have been reduced by 60-70 seats putting the UPA at 190-200 and the NDA at 260 - an almost complete reversal of the actual outcome.

Leaders like Jayalalitha, Chandrababu Naidu, Navin Patnaik and others must seriously ponder whether their unprincipled and opportunistic alliance with a witch doctor like Prakash Karat was really worth it. Not only did they fail their own states, they ended up putting their misguided egoes above the national interest.

While the BJP and the Shiv Sena will need to engage in considerable introspection, this election was as much a punishment for those that treated the BJP as an untouchable or pariah.

Indian Railways and the Lalu 'Magic'

Homophobia in India and the World

Globalization and Inflation

Inflation and Import Substitution

Lending Disparities in India

Educational Progress in Rural India

Quotas Versus Merit

Back for other selections from South Asian Voice for other articles on issues confronting India and the region.

Also see South Asian History or Topics in Indian History for relevant essays that shed some light on the history of the subcontinent.

For instance, see: Forced Conversions to Islam

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