India Positive Page 8
In the previous Bihar assembly election of 2010, the BJP–JDU combine secured 39 per cent of the votes. Opponents RJD and Congress competed separately, but still garnered 35 per cent. Seems pretty close, right? However, the BJP + JDU alliance won a staggering 205 out of the 243 seats in 2010 despite a vote share that was just five points higher than their competitors’. This was because the opponents of the BJP + JDU had competed against each other and their votes did not add up. But this time, the JDU + RJD + Congress combo landed 42 per cent of the votes and won 178 seats. The BJP and its allies got 34 per cent, and won only 58 seats. Again, an eight-point vote share difference led to a landslide defeat for the BJP.
So, does the official BJP line of ‘just bad arithmetic’ make sense? Not really. The BJP needs to remember only three numbers (in terms of percentage) if it wants to win elections: 25, 33 and 40.
25 per cent is the BJP’s cult vote share or the bhakt vote share. No matter what happens, even in the worst of times, the BJP seems to garner this percentage of the votes. In Bihar 2015, despite the drubbing, it had a vote share of 24.4 per cent. In Lok Sabha 2009, when UPA II won big, BJP still had a 25 per cent vote share. This is no mean feat. A cult following in at least a quarter of the electorate is something to be valued and preserved. However, this 25 per cent also consists of all the Muslim-hating, Pakistan-hating, homosexual-hating, feminism-hating, anybody-who-is-not-like-us-hating voters. These are voters who love Hindu supremacy and want beef banned. This core support is what the BJP doesn’t want to lose at any cost, for it defines them and keeps them credible in the worst of times.
However, here’s some news for the BJP people who seem to have got their arithmetic wrong—this 25 per cent is not enough.
I won’t go into value judgements on how the values held by some of these voters are regressive, bigoted and wrong for India. Few listen to moral arguments in politics. It’s not about morals, it’s about the math. Luckily for India, and unfortunately for the BJP, this 25 per cent cult is not enough to win elections. Also, this vote bank is maintained at a cost. It is because of them that Muslims, comprising 15–20 per cent of the electorate, do not vote for the BJP. The media doesn’t like this 25 per cent either, which in turn makes them hostile to the BJP whenever the latter panders to them. With the media being so powerful today, preserving this 25 per cent means upsetting the remaining 75 per cent of the electorate.
Hence, to win, provided the BJP’s opponents do not gang up against them, the vote share they need to secure is the second number—33 per cent, 8 points more than the core 25 per cent. This is what the BJP had in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, when the Opposition was disorganised, and this share helped them win big. However, the party had to work hard for this extra 8 per cent. It involved taking on a development-oriented agenda, engaging with industry, building support among the youth, working on the OBC vote bank, and projecting Modi as a capable leader while making some rather lofty promises. This 8 per cent non-bhakt vote came from fence-sitters who voted for reform and believed for once that the BJP would deliver it. Though small in size, this set of voters was crucial. It was also not unconditional in its love. Unfortunately, the BJP did not continue to nurture them after the election.
40 per cent is what the BJP needs to win when its opponents gang up, like they did in Bihar. That alliance is why, despite garnering 34 per cent of the vote, the party lost badly. Securing this 40 per cent is a scary scenario for the BJP. To pull this off, it not only needs to keep its cult base, but also fulfil the promises made to the non-bhakt 8 per cent and then win a further 7 per cent vote share from people sceptical of the BJP. One would have expected the BJP to demonstrate this with its exemplary performance after 2014. As the results show, it didn’t. If the Opposition gangs up again like it did in Bihar, it will be very tough going for the BJP in Lok Sabha 2019.
This is all the maths the BJP needs to remember—25, 33, 40. It needs to take a risk with its cult, and do something to please the crucial 8 per cent for now. Big bang reforms, real action against specific people who spread communal intolerance, and sensitivity on OBC issues will help. Lower taxes will too, as much of the 8 per cent consists of taxpayers.
Keep every percentage point of your vote share happy to stay in power, and build on that. Cults don’t win elections. Political parties which are inclusive and capable of pleasing different kinds of voters do. It is time the BJP understood this. Or it will fail the maths test again.
In these San-sad Times, Call a Virtual Session of Parliament
The ruling party, the Opposition and citizens must act together to ensure sessions of Parliament are not wasted
I don’t know what is more disturbing: the fact that entire sessions of Parliament are routinely washed out in our country, or that we aren’t as bothered by this fact as we should be. What can we do about it anyway? We didn’t like the previous government, under which Parliament had ceased to work. So we elected a new majority government. Now even this government can’t seem to make Parliament work. What are we to do?
Take Parliament’s monsoon session in 2015, for instance. Some blame the Congress: they disrupted proceedings, so it is their fault. Others point fingers at the BJP for shielding its ministers. Proving our opponents’ party wrong seems to preoccupy us more than the fact that an entire session of Parliament was wasted.
We should be worried. If India just needed to maintain status quo in its policies and laws, the disruption would have mattered less. However, India is nowhere near the nothing-needs-to-change stage. We haven’t had a strong round of fundamental economic reforms since 1991. We don’t have a 10 per cent GDP growth rate, which we need to fulfil the aspirations of millions of young people. Doing business in India is still extraordinarily difficult; until that situation improves, a spurt in job growth won’t happen.
What can we do? Well, the BJP, the Congress and all of us citizens need to change a few things if we don’t want to be stuck in this deadlocked democracy forever.
First, it is in the best interests of the party in power, the BJP, to make Parliament work. This government still doesn’t have a corrupt image, despite the current controversies. However, what it doesn’t need is an image of ineffectiveness—of a government that can’t manage the country’s affairs or work with others in order to do so. What could it have done differently, for instance, in the case of Parliament’s monsoon session in 2015? First, even before the session started, the BJP could have addressed the issues related to Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan better. It chose to remain silent. Yes, these controversies were not comparable to the CWG or 2G scams. However, there were infractions and errors of judgement in Lalit Modi’s case.
A simple way to test this is to ask: would the government do it again? If the answer is ‘no’, then a clarification at least would be in order, if not a resignation. In the Vyapam case, for example, there was a need to ensure a fair inquiry. If the BJP had accepted this fast, it could have come across as humble, receptive and responsive. More importantly, it could have played the controversy on its own terms and defused the Congress attack. By then it was too late, however, and the party acted after being pushed into a corner. Eventually, they had to relent and offer multiple explanations, including Swaraj’s, in Parliament. The BJP really needs to learn to play on the front foot, even when it has made mistakes. Moreover, it needs to go easy on the Gandhi family bashing. They have lost that game already, and the jokes are old.
The Congress is also at fault. In politics, the opponent’s weaknesses are fair game. Of course, when the ruling party is embroiled in controversies, it is a tantalising opportunity to attack. But the party tends to punch far above its 44-member strength. There is only so much politics one should play. The Congress should do the right thing during sessions of Parliament and let the essential bills pass. Sure, attack your political opponent, but don’t harm the country.
Finally, we citizens are also to blame. We are easily fooled into the ‘Congress did it’ or
‘BJP did it’ narrative. We forget that we are one country. There are no BJP bills or Congress bills, only good-for-India bills or bad-for-India bills. We should chide the BJP for not coming clean on controversies earlier, and also the Congress for placing politics above work. This constant taking of sides—‘my politician is always right, the opponent always wrong—’ is highly detrimental to democratic processes. Whether on Twitter or in Parliament, polarisation will get us nowhere. Instead, let us look at innovative ways to prevent washout sessions. Here are two suggestions.
First, let us demand a common agenda across political parties. Once that is hammered out, seeing it through should become a priority for Parliament. When common agenda items are under discussion, no disruptions should be allowed at all.
Second, it is about time we gave up some of the outdated, colonial formalities of Parliament and embraced technology. MPs can raise their hand to vote on bills, but if needed they can also vote using secure logins on their personal devices. Comments can be posted on Speaker-moderated virtual parliament groups. Citizens can view these comments, and judge the productivity of the sessions as well as the performance of their representatives. This will end the shouting matches and physical disruptions.
We don’t always have to run Parliament virtually, but the option should be available if the Opposition is playing havoc to the extent that entire sessions are wasted. Let us come together, get our act together and take India forward.
Netas, Do Us a Favour: Don’t Swap Favours
‘Favour’-based friendships between politicians and businessmen are detrimental to the greater good
In the Hollywood classic The Godfather , the eponymous character, Don Corleone, runs a mafia family business. One of his key business strategies is granting favours to people. There is an understanding that the person taking the favour ‘might’ have to return it another day. It’s a calculated move, yet the arrangement is pretty loose. The nature and timing of the return favour, and whether it will even be taken, is unknown. One of the Don’s most famous lines in the film is: ‘Someday—and that day may never come—I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this justice as a gift on my daughter’s wedding day.’
Powerful people work like that. They have a reserve of power, which they can use to help other powerful people and get help in return. It’s an amazing system to multiply power. And if you know India well, you know that our high and mighty operate in exactly the same way.
Money and power mix well. Hence, alliances of industrialists and politicians (often called ‘close family friendships’) are common. In particular, businessmen in highly regulated sectors tend to network with politicians more closely than others.
On the surface, one can claim there is nothing wrong with it. After all, what is wrong in making friends and helping them? Sometimes this help might be extended by one of the partners when the other is in genuine distress. Also, since the nature and timing of a return favour—or whether one will ever be taken—is unknown, who can find fault in these exchanges?
Such behaviour becomes even harder to classify as right or wrong when the help is not monetary in nature, as in the case of a politician being paid heaps of money for passing a shady tender. That would be a straightforward bribe, a direct give-and-take transaction, something most Indians understand as corruption. Favours are much harder to classify.
What then is the issue? Why do people get so agitated when DLF gives Robert Vadra cheap land, or if some ministers help Lalit Modi? Maybe the owners of DLF did genuinely love Vadra, and wanted to give him a gift to kick-start his business. After all, they didn’t ask for anything in return right then. Maybe the ministers are fond of Lalit Modi as a person and a friend, and all they want to do is help him out, while not technically breaking any laws. Isn’t it okay then?
Well, it isn’t. The problem arises because every time a politician (or his or her relative) accepts a big favour, a return favour is booked as due in their account. What the nature of that favour will be, and when it will be sought, is unknown. Similarly, whenever a politician grants a powerful person a big favour, it often means a favour was taken by the former before or will be taken later.
This business of exchanging favours with powerful businessmen is not what our politicians were elected for, in the first place. They were elected to do the country a favour. They are supposed to spend their time, energy and judgement, and use their power, for one purpose only—to take decisions in the best interests of the nation. When they trade favours with a chosen few, at some level, the nation is betrayed. Voters’ trust is eroded when they find out their leader is busy collecting and granting favours, supposedly in the name of friendship, but only to a select few.
It is the politician who is mostly at fault here, because he or she is representing the people. However, it is unfair to only blame the political class for this favour-swapping culture. We Indians love to take favours from the powerful whenever we get the opportunity. From booking railway tickets to getting government jobs, we have little hesitation in asking someone in power to help us, even at the cost of compromising fairness and merit. Our business community is at fault too, as they jump at any chance to cosy up to politicians.
From ‘harmless’ Diwali gifts and invites to weddings and parties, to offering their business resources for political purposes including election funding, clever businessmen are keen to do politicians all kinds of favours, only to have them return these someday. Sadly, the return favour sought by a businessman from a politician is often unethical. In such circumstances, our netas need to be extra careful and avoid the temptation of taking favours. There is no such thing as a free lunch; no businessman ever did anything for a politician out of sheer love.
All of us need to rethink our boundaries in friendships and relationships when it comes to favours. Are we as a culture going to place the greater good above personal need or greed? Or do we want to operate like the mafia, helping ourselves and those close to us, even at the expense of the nation?
The best strategy is to try and avoid taking favours, as that’s where the slippery slope begins for politicians. Bollywood is rarely the inspiration for what one should do in life, but one line from Salman Khan’s Bodyguard is memorable. ‘Do me a favour,’ he says. ‘Don’t do me any favours.’
Would be nice if our politicians put this line up outside their offices, wouldn’t it?
@chetan_bhagat
Expecting politics without unethical behaviour is like expecting Jalebis without sugar and oil. Theoretically possible, practically does not work. The best we can hope for is nothing illegal. Ethics work on twitter, not in hung houses.
561 replies/ 692 retweets/ 3,894 likes
@chetan_bhagat
Less bullets. More bullet trains. Keep rising India.
289 replies/ 749 retweets/ 6,049 likes
Terrorism and Extremitis
To stop terrorism, we must avoid stepping into polarisation traps set by the internet
Quick question. What do the following cities have in common: Brussels, Istanbul, Paris, Nice, Berlin, Orlando, London and Manchester. Well, apart from being prominent, affluent global cities, they have all been subject to major terror attacks linked to the Islamic State (IS).
These attacks have claimed hundreds of innocent lives. They have also created fear in the minds of millions of people. Cities like Paris and London are expected to be safe. If terrorists can carry out missions in the greatest First World cities, what hope remains for the rest of the world?
In fact, since June 2014, when ISIL proclaimed itself to be the Islamic State, it has ‘conducted or inspired’ over seventy terrorist attacks in twenty countries, a running total estimated by CNN. These figures do not include IS activities in its home base of Syria and Iraq, where thousands more have died in terrorist atrocities.
India has suffered from terrorism. So has Pakistan. And it turns out, the First World too is no longer immune.
There seems to be no solut
ion in sight. In many countries, terrorism has become a political issue. However, it tends to polarise and divide people rather than bringing them together to solve the problem.
In other words, the issue of terrorism today has become yet another casualty of extremitis, a disease endemic to the era of the internet. Today, on social media, it is difficult to be heard if you have a balanced, practical or nuanced approach to solving any problem. Things are either ‘amazing’ or a ‘disaster’. Modi is either loved or hated. Trump is either ‘100 per cent right’ or ‘completely stupid’. You are either a ‘patriot’ or an ‘anti-national’.
The argument that every situation might have pros and cons is considered a weak one. Truth and facts are irrelevant. Reason and logic don’t matter. What matters above all are your feelings, and which side you are on. Say hello to extremitis, a nasty by-product of mass social conversations.
The same social media that was expected to open minds and expose people to various points of view, has now become the world’s biggest polariser. The issue of terrorism is a case in point. Extremitis would have us believe that terrorism can only be one of two things. One, it is ‘completely the fault of Islam’, and hence ‘Muslims should be banned’. On the other side of terrorism extremitis are the ultra-liberals. They believe that ‘these terror attacks are not linked to a particular religion’ and those claiming otherwise are ‘Islamophobes’ and ‘racists’.
Thus, extremitis generates a lot of noise and juicy headlines. It doesn’t really solve anything. Meanwhile, the IS’s ever-expanding footprint covers new cities and countries, and perpetrates fresh atrocities.