Power is all Maya

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Mayawati's aggressive display of state power is at odds with a new demanding electorate Sitapur, UP: Between the circling helicopter and the massive crowds there is almost a telepathic connection. Seconds before the chopper appears, a sparse crowd blooms into a sudden multitude. Silence and murmurings mutate into chants and shouts. Scores of blue elephant shaped balloons dance into the air. Mayawati's helicopter hovers. On the ground buntings, flags, streamers, waving hands reach upward. The helicopter descends into a mammoth flash fiesta, where only seconds before there were just a few thin lines of dozing cadres. Waiting journalists (your columnist among them) blink in disbelief: but the rally ground was almost empty just now, where did the crowd come from? Crowds and helicopter embody the Mayawati paradox. The face of the Dalit revolution who now brazenly flaunts state power. Ruling in the name of the poorest....

Politics of shakti

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Decoding amma, didi, behnji and madam. Respect the Trinamool Congress, or else, warns the Ma Durga of West Bengal. Accept that Tamil Nadu operates according to its own enlightened self-interest, advises Puratchi Thalaivi of the AIADMK. Divide UP immediately and don't even think of claiming my Dalit votebank, declares the Dalit ki beti. Mamata Banerjee, Jayalalithaa and Mayawati today are the face of Indian women in politics. They along with Sonia Gandhi exercise total control over their parties, paradoxically both distant as well as grassroots leaders. They are autocratic. They are lonely at the top and they are one-woman shows. Each wields a unique eccentricity in order to rule and control. India's women politicians cultivate a designer madness, a well thought out insanity, to force their presence and personality in the brutally male dominated world of Indian politics. Sonia Gandhi perhaps does not quite fit the norm of....

The bad old days

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Nostalgia is becoming a destructive force An interesting finding emerged in the recent Hindustan Times CNN-IBN survey on the public mood. Only 53 per cent of an urban middle class section of opinion said India's ruling class is adapting well to a fast changing world. Almost half said that politicians are unable to embrace change because they lack vision. Are we Indians still afraid of change? Do we lack leaders who can chart a vision of change? Are we trapped, as a distinguished editor has written, in the "dangerous romance of nostalgia" by which we hark constantly to an imagined era of the 'good old days', wallow in perpetual hatred of the present and have no collective dream of the future? Today, an overload of shallow nostalgia (rather than an informed sense of History) is becoming an obstacle to change. The government's announcement of 51 per cent....

The 2G case is a morality play

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Lines from the recent 2G judgement denying bail to Kanimozhi and others are telling. "Kanimozhi belongs to the upper echelons of society and is also an MP," wrote trial court judge OP Saini, "By no stretch of imagination can she be suffering any discrimination on the grounds of being a woman." A court order on 2G also says: "If a person knows that after misappropriating huge public funds, he can come out on bail...it will only encourage many others to commit similar crimes in the belief that even if they have to spend a few months in jail, they can lead a comfortable and lavish life thereafter.." 2G petitioner Subramaniam Swamy has also said that the 2G accused are not ordinary people but billionaires and must be kept in jail to protect witnesses. The implications here are: rich elite women can suffer no discrimination.Those wanting lavish lives must....

The yatri and the messiah

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Annaji, join politics It's the week of the two As. Advani is on a yatra, Team Anna is campaigning in Hisar. LK Advani, the veteran yatri, creator of India's political Rightwing, has set off on his Jan Chetna Yatra from Sitabdiara in Bihar. Meanwhile, the indomitable anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare and his Team are openly asking voters to defeat the Congress, creating a fresh debate about Anna's political neutrality. LK Advani and Anna Hazare are marked by a sense of "mission". Advani is pushing at the limits of formal politics and opting for what many have called "extra-constitutional" means to further a political agenda. Anna pushing at the limits of the "apolitical" and willy nilly becoming an unelected politician. Both aim to be national symbols of the fight against corruption. Both are senior citizens making a determined bid to capture the hearts and minds of the youth and....

A class apart

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The powerful must speak the language of equality In the crowds at Ram Lila Maidan, at the height of Anna fever, there was anger against corruption, but there was also anger against the rich. An "elite class" milking the system, sending their children abroad, "looting" benefits was the particular target of rage. A troubled New India is screaming for respect and equality. Income disparities are becoming sharper than ever before. Even the age-old feudal relationship between the wealthy and their domestic staff is teetering on the edge of breakdown. In these conditions, an institutionalized elitism is taking hold of the powerful. Its an elitism that still does not speak the language of equality. The UPA particularly seems to scorn New India. "Real" people are out there in rural areas to be ministered to by Nrega and loan waivers. Cities, where the middle class is in angry ferment,....

Power Bahu

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As Sonia Gandhi recovers from her highly secretive surgery, there are justifiable questions as to why the Indian public is not allowed to know what ails the leader of the main political party. Had some brief details been made available then as at the time of Rajinikanth's illness, or during Amitabh Bachchan's 'Coolie' accident, there may well have been a spontaneous outpouring of public sympathy. This is a good time though to ask the question: What does Sonia Gandhi mean for the Congress? She is now almost irreplaceable. She's not only held her party together for the last 12 years, but achieved an almost unbelievable political turnaround for the Congress by leading it to two consecutive Lok Sabha victories. Her preferred style is silence. She hardly speaks to the press. She almost never speaks in Parliament. Like a good bahu, she places her final faith....

It's not all 'DK Bose'

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There is too much cynicism and negativism A stray insight sometimes goes unnoticed. Manmohan Singh's closed-door meeting with handpicked editors last month generated controversy about the UPA's communication deficit and its failure to manage perceptions. The PM's statements about readiness to be covered by the Lok Pal were deeply unsatisfying to a public longing to hear a more resounding clarion call for a more honest transparent India. Yet one statement of the PM needs deeper scrutiny. There is too much cynicism, said Manmohan Singh, and such an atmosphere of cynicism in the country is dangerous. The atmosphere is indeed overwhelmingly cynical and negative. An avalanche of negativism, bad blood and name calling seems to roll out of almost every public institution as well as from the citizenry. Mutual trust and respect has all but evaporated. The contemptuous language used by politicians seems to be mirrored by society. ....

Ram Movement Redux

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The rightwing revolution is here. The UPA has dispatched Ramdev to his ashram. The police action at Ram Lila Maidan was insupportable and the BJP has now gained a cause celebre. RSS and VHP have stood in full support of Ramdev from the start. Sangh parivar activists on Twitter are dubbing anyone critical of the Ramdev as a "Congress agent." The Ramdev phenomenon and to some extent the Anna campaign are part of a new revolution. This is India's rightwing nationalist revolution. It is rightwing because it is based on national pride and individual entitlement; it is a movement of the middle and lower middle class buoyed up by 9 per cent growth which now seeks a responsive, overtly honest government and a hard state. This rightwing revolution is closely linked to a Hindu consolidation spreading through society. Perhaps as a backlash to globalization, urban religiosity and....

Stars in the ground

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The last vote has been cast. The surveys are out. EVMs stand at the ready. In 48 hours, the voice of the Indian voter will thunder. In 48 hours we will know who has been chosen to rule in West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Assam. Verdict 2011 has been about local personalities. Every contest this time has been a presidential contest between local heroes. Parties, manifestos and national leaders have faded into irrelevance. Instead towering local personalities are the determinants of electoral victories. The 2011 polls have shown how desperately national parties need to nurture local leaders. They have shown that the era of the national parachutist from Delhi has come to an end. In Kerala, roars the Malabar lion, 87-year-old VS Achuthanandan. The CPM politburo in Delhi tried to deny him a ticket. But public uproar forced the lofty leadership at Left headquarters to eat humble....