The Tossed Salad

The election campaign is getting too personal and nasty for comfort. Far from focusing on the real issues, our great netas are spending time and energy taking cheap shots at one another. I suppose we deserve nothing else, knowing that we gave such people the power and position that they now take for granted. Many will argue that not all thieves steal alike, but that’s not really true is it?

The Congress is a party without any specific ideology. It’s main point being that it’s against the BJP. It usually believes in a “little give and take” to get along, which doesn’t really make sense most of the time. And yet it wins.

The Congress has an enviable crop of senior members, most of whom are urbane and educated enough to hold their own on televised debates. The congress routinely asks for votes in Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru’s name, although it should be remembered that Mr Gandhi was never a formal member of the party. And so it wins. I’m not saying that they’re not decent people; Manmohan and Chidambaram are solely responsible for India’s liberalization and all that came with it. But those two aren’t really “politicians” are they? Both are educated, polite and above all honest. Rare traits.

Then there’s the BJP that has far too many agendas to keep track of. The BJP has been accused of being behind everything wrong in this country and often with some, if not always good, reason. While others claim that the BJP is anti-Muslim, the BJP claims that it is just safeguarding the rights of Hindus. This begs the question as to whether or not the two are and can be mutually exclusive.

While Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Jains and Parsees all have agreed to follow the General Unified Code of Conduct, the Muslim community in India thinks otherwise. Apparently being equal before the law is against their rights, or so the All India Muslim Personal Law Board claims. The BJP’s steadfast refusal to bow down before this demand has earned them the tag of being anti-Muslim. The biggest issue is of course the Babri Masjid demolition and Godhra riots – the opposition’s trump card. These two blots on this country’s history will be very hard to wash away.

The other alternative is the Third Front – a joke in itself. This front is made of the Left and other regional parties whose alliances change faster than their leaders’ underpants. There is no hegemony, no common minimum program and certainly no unified agenda. They portray themselves as anti-imperialist and anti-communal. Comrades Karat, Basu and their ilk have filled the party with people who find it easier to blame everybody else for their failing and short comings and The Comrades, eager to make it big in New Delhi have embraced them with arms wide open.

As the world reels from calamity to uncertainty, this election will decide the future for 1.2Billion people – a full fifth of the world’s population. The least we can expect is decent leaders, so that we get to choose the best of the lot, not the least of worst.

Vedabrata Basu

[ratings]

[image courtesy: http://tinyurl.com/dzz4mo]

Author: Vedabrata Basu
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