Spengler and the next Indian premier By Raja Murthy
MUMBAI - After over-heated summer weeks of campaigning, long on personal
attacks and short on substance, (see
More than a tale of two personalities Asia Times Online, April 16,
2009) guessing who India's next prime minister will be is about as easy as
solving the decade-long puzzle on the identity of Asia Times Online essayist
Spengler.
My long-time suspicion is that Spengler is an ATol staffer, churning out blood
pressure-tickling articles while sipping coconut juice in a sunny Hua Hin beach
in Thailand. But varied guesses about India's next prime minister could be as
off the mark, or as accurate, as any Spengler identity guess. The latter is due
to
be revealed on Friday, April 17. (See And
Spengler is ..., Asia Times Online, April 17, 2009)
When the month-long voting process that started in India on Thursday ends, on
May 16, counting will start and results released. Frenetic political dramas are
sure to follow before the 18th prime minister of India is revealed.
I have told amazed local media colleagues, the ones who still think I am sane,
that the next premier could be Lalu Prasad Yadav, India's maverick railway
minister, a kingmaker in the last elections and a parliamentary funny man.
Never underestimate the shrewd court jester. During the bitter political
fallout last year over India's nuclear deal with the United States, Yadav
managed to keep cordial relations with both his warring coalition partners, the
Congress and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M). In one photograph
taken during the crisis, he was seen with his hands on the shoulders of both a
Congress and a CPI-M leader. All were laughing.
Such savvy to keep squabbling factions in good humor would prove devastatingly
effective after the election results are announced, and India's political
theater goes into hyperdrive over the formation of coalition marriages.
Besides, Yadav has a pan-India fan base. "Lalu Yadav would easily work himself
into power," said a chuckling R S Patil, a guard at the Bank of India branch
near Churchgate station, Mumbai. "He is a very street smart fellow."
While Patil told Asia Times Online that he would take time out to vote on April
30, the voting day for Mumbai, the general electoral mood in India's financial
capital was as varied as the "mixed vegetable curry" coalition likely to come
to power, as sales executive John Lobo termed it.
A Christian from the neighboring Portuguese-speaking state of Goa, Lobo said he
may not exercise his voting rights, as an expression of disgust at the current
crop of politicians.
However, Lobo's colleague Ravi Shinde, an office assistant and a resident of
Raigad district, said he would take leave and travel the 100 kilometers to his
village and vote on April 30.
Mumbai has expressed a strong anti-incumbent sentiment at street level. "I have
long been a Congress party supporter, but [Prime Minister] Manmohan Singh has
doing nothing for us poor people," said Darshan Das, a middle-aged tea vendor
near Eros Theater.
Das says he earns about 6,000 rupees (US$120) a month; the only income he has
to support his wife and four children. "From this 6,000 income, I spend 1,000
rupees monthly as hafta (bribes) to local policemen and municipality
officials to be allowed to sell tea here," he says. "Things don't change much
for us, whichever government is elected."
"It's difficult to predict who the next prime minister will be, but whoever
comes to power will be of no use unless they help people like us," said Ganga
Ram, a member of Mumbai's dabbawallahs (lunch-box carriers). In 2001,
the world famous home-to-office hot lunch delivery system was awarded a Forbes
magazine rating of six-sigma, equal to a 99.9999% accuracy rate in delivery.
(See India's
lessons in a lunch box, Asia Times Online, Sep 8, 2006) Ram, a resident
of suburban Ghatkopar, said he will vote.
In South Mumbai constituency, the area of the November 26 terrorist attacks,
interest in elections is much higher than last year, said voter Anil Patkar. "I
expect voter turnout percentage here will be the highest ever, at over 50%," he
said. The turnout for the 2008 US presidential election was 56.8%, the highest
since the 60.8% turnout of 1968 when Richard Nixon was voted into power.
Guessing who will form the next Indian government is big business for bookies,
an outlawed but thriving tribe. They are currently offering odds on the
Congress party grabbing around 150 seats and the opposition Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) bagging 120. A coalition needs the support of a minimum of 272
members in the 543-member Lok Sabha, the directly-elected house of Parliament,
to form a government.
But India's electorate has always proved an enigmatic nut to crack, with both
bookies and pollsters usually left wiping egg off their faces after the
election results are announced.
In 2004, the Mumbai-dominated bookie tribe illegally raked in an estimated US$5
billion in punters' money after predicting that the ruling BJP would win 175
seats and the Congress 150. But the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress won 150 seats, up
from 114 seats in the 1999 general elections, and formed a coalition
government. The BJP crashed down to 137 seats, from 182 seats in 1999.
The two leading prime ministerial contenders in 2009, the 77-year old economist
Manmohan Singh and the 81-year old lawyer LK Advani were both born in land that
is now Pakistan, and formerly undivided India. Singh was born in Chakwal
district, some 90 kilometers south of Islamabad, while Advani was born in the
southern port city of Karachi.
Both could be runners-up this year, as opinion polls have shown the electorate
would prefer a younger prime minister.
Either way, the prime minister-elect won't make too much of a difference. In
India, politicians are like the noisy, visible surf of ocean waves. It's not
the fleeting, fickle surf, but the deep, unseen, silent, strong, millennia-old
undercurrents that actually define and direct the direction ahead this nation
takes. India works despite its politicians, not because of them.
Manmohan Singh lasted the distance of his full five-year term, and won some
respect, because he is not a politician. But after starting to talk like a
politician during this campaign, voters could give him the usual nasty surprise
they gift wrap for egoistic leaders who think only they know best what is best
for the country.
For now, the next prime minister of India, the world's 12th largest and Asia's
third-largest economy, appears as difficult but less popular a guess worldwide
than the identity of Spengler. Advani produces 1.9 million Google search
results, Manmohan Singh fetches 2.8 million searches. And Spengler? 2.9
million.
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