Sunday, July 27, 2008

Kerala and the seventh standard ideology

I was born in the secular, sovereign ,republic of India. I had my education from a Catholic School where they never taught from religious texts. In fact, in my class, the vast majority of students were Hindus. We were taught the ideals of free speech, free religion and free ideas and most of us still posses these. We have never changed our worshipping habits nor have we enticed some one to change theirs. We have always believed in our Constitution. Then, why is that, when the developed nations are taking giant strides in the 21st century we are falling prey to issues that do not merit the kind ofmedia coverage they are getting.

The Kerala Seventh standard text book issue and the fall out of all the agitation- the tragic death of an innocent school teacher- is nothing but a shame on our psyche and our conscience. When there are so many developmental issues we could possibly focus on, why are we wasting our precious time on issues that are bound to put our clock centuries behind. Religion is a matter of personal choice- The Indian Constitution says that and we Indians tend to follow that. ( though in some cases, there are compulsions too). There are two types of people, those are religious and those are atheists. There are some atheists who believe that they can prove everything by science and they tend to mock worshippers. These people tend to occupy a higher moral and knowledge pedestal and criticize all religious activities. Some of them are hypocrites, whereby they secretly want their wives to go to temples and do pujas or prayers in their names and pose as atheists in the open. Now the second category of people are the hard core religious people who cannot tolerate dissent. They oppose anything and everything that supposedly pose threat to their believes.

I have personally not read the controversial contents of the seventh standard text book. But I am sure that lakhs of students /people would have already read this by now- just out of sheer curioisity. So now what does the opponents of the text book think now? Is Kerala going to be an agnostic state? If you analyze the annals of history, one would realize that the minds of students cannot be shaped by a certain chapter in some text book. It would definitely give a seed of thought to those young minds, but that is fair enough considering the fact that we are a secular nation. It would take some serious centuries old effort to change the beliefs, myths, customs and religious practices of a deeply spiritual country like India. So the critics of the CPI(M) needn't worry too much. There are management owned schools and colleges in Kerala that propagate , profess and quite enthusiastically encourage even students from other faiths to practice and convert to a different faith- that followed by the management. There are forced conversions all over India, often by enticement . Why is the UDF silent on these issues? Why can't they proactively take action against people who openly flout the soul of the consitution.

Only when the political parties move out of vote bank politics and focus on development oriented politics can we expect better days. The media has also not done justice to the nation by focussing on some trivial issues that generate unnecessary contribution. Let there be athiests and worshippers, let there be rightists and leftists, let people argue and counter argue- but please do not ever, ever take the life of an innocent parent of two childern in the name of petty politics. My heart goes out to Mr. James Augustine, headmaster of the Vallilapuzha primary school and his sorrowing family.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

The price of the deal

Welcome to the Indian General Elections-2009. This whole political drama taking place at the Centre is nothing but a curtain raiser to this mega show. Two parties who were at loggerheads for the last decade or so and whose leaders were invloved in verbal spats of no mean proportions have quite unsurprisingly come together. After all politics is the art of the impossible- yup, making impossible things possible. Six months ago, Congress and the SP could not see eye to eye and the SP was vehemently fighting against the deal both in and out of the Parliament. Let us see how things may shape up as a prelude to the mega political show of 2009.

As I had mentioned in my previous blog, the 2009 General election finale may well belong to the NDA and I had also mentioned that a week in politics is more than a life time. At this stage, one thing is absolutely clear. The NDA has been resurrected, albiet by default. Now the whole game is about forging the tactical alliances to bring it back to power. It is highly unlikely that the NDA by itself will come back to power. But it could get a comfortable majority by strategically allying itself with the respective Regional parties in the so called " swing states".

The BJP has 130 members in the current Lok Sabha. Considering that to be the worst performance of the party in this decade, we can comfortably say that the BJP might well land itself with about 170-180 seats in the next Lok Sabha. This time around, the party will put up a good showing in Karnataka, thanks to the Yeduriyappa government and the populist policies they would unravel in preparatins for the general elections. Given the fact that the Yeduriyappa government is in its honey moon period, the BJP will definitely put up a good showing there. The party might even better its performance in Gujarat thanks to the Moditva factor. If the Bomaby Muncipal Corporation polls are any indication, the party along with the Shiv Sena might put up a good showing in Maharshtra. This could transalate into a 40 to 50 increase in the number of seats for the party. This is a great baseline to start with. BJP might increase its seats in a few other states too thanks to the rising inflation and fuel prices. Perhaps a tinge of anti incumbency might play its part in some Congress ruled states too. However, the biggest area of concern for the party is UP. It will be quite difficult for the party to work its way around Mayawati Raj. The core constituency of Brahmin/Thakur ( upper caste) vote has already been wooed by the shrewd Mayawati. The Yadav vote , courtesy of Kalyan Singh might also be split evenly across the BSP, SP and BJP. This means that the only way BJP can rake in good numbers in UP is through tacitly allying with BSP. A tacit alignment is well a possibility given the fact that the new Congress -SP alliance has created a kind of bipolar situation in the State. But again, all this depends on the calculation of Mayawati. After the recent spectacular showing of the BSP in the Assembly elections, she might well believe that the BSP has a fair chance of garnering 50+ seats ( out of a total of 85) in the forthcoming general elections. For its part, the BJP might be savoring an alliance with Maya's BSP.

Another swing state for the BJP is Andhra Pradesh. In his inimitable style, the TDP supremo, Chandrabhabhu Naidu is playing his cards close to his chest. Given the fact that the Congress is his main opponent in the State, it is natural for TDP to align with the BJP. But Mr. Naidu is also weary of a rising BJP in the state. By now, the possibility of a third front-( in the lines of UNPA) is a virtual impossibility. The clever politician who he is, Naidu, might well be looking again at an understanding with the BJP. This might well be a good alliance as the TDP alone cannot upstage the popularity of the YSR government in Andhra. The Y.S Rajasekhara Reddy government is not facing anti incumbency at the moment- this is a fact. But the TDP-BJP alliance can definitely give the Congress led government a run for its money.

The next swing state for the NDA is Tamil Nadu. Technically Amma's party AIADMK is not part of the NDA. But however unreliable it might be, AIADMK is gravitating itself towards the NDA. This is potentially a significant threat to Karunanidhi and Co. The current Karunanidhi-Maran family fued is likely to impact the DMK greatly. Though the Marans do not have significant political clout, they control the media empire in TN. The advantage that the Marans' owned Sun TV and Dinakaran daily could contribute to Jayalalitha is enormous. Yes- with this alliance ( plus Vaiko's MDMK), the AIADMK/MDMK/BJP alliance will reap rich rewards in the state.

The last state that I would call a swing state is Bihar. Nitish Kumar's JD( U) appears to be strong in Bihar thanks to the hugely popular CM himself. Nitish Kumar is consistently finding himself in the top 5 CM list, thanks to efficiency and the clean image that he possess. Along with that, George Fernandes' Samata party might also finding its foothold again. In the highly caste ridden Bihar politics, the USP for the BJP/JD(U)/Samata is Mr. Nitish Kumar. Lalu's RJD seems to have no chance of staging a come back this time around too.

Indian politics is becoming increasingly bi-polar- With a solid Congress led UPA and a BJP led NDA. The smaller parties have no option but to gravitate to either of these two core magnets. I have a feeling that this might well be the last time when the Left held a significant clout during government formation. Given the fact that the BJP itself might land with about 180 seats and also given the fact that these swing states are going the NDA way, it wouldn't be too difficult for the NDA to cross the magical figure of 270!!! ( Guess who might be smiling).