HVK Archives: Elections in India and Israel
Elections in India and Israel - Times of India
HAROLD A. GOULD
()
29 June 1996
Title : Elections in India and Israel
Author : HAROLD A. GOULD
Publication : Times of India
Date : June 29, 1996
NOW that the national elections held less than a month
apart in India and Israel have been completed, one cannot
help being struck by how differently their respective
electorates dealt with similar problems - namely
inter ethnic tensions. Located on opposite flanks of the
Islamic world, the people of both predominantly Hebrew
Israel and predominantly Hindu India were
confronted in their respective national elections with a
choice between dealing with the Muslims in their midst,
through the mechanism of the secular state or the
ethnoreligious state. The choice has momentous
implications for the future condition of both India and
Israel and for the rest of the world.
Choosing to go the way of the ethnoreligious state meant
in both cases laying stress on drawing people apart,
heightening the cultural and political barriers between
the majority and the rest, thereby intensifying social
conflict by placing the destiny of their societies
increasingly in the hands of their most stridently
chauvinistic elements. In the case of Israel, this meant
turning to the Liked Party led by Mr Binyamin Netanyahu;
in the case of India, it meant turning to the Bharatiya
Janata Party led by Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee and behind
the scenes by the RSS cadres.
Choosing the secular state meant in both cases laying
stress on cultural and political accommodation, on
respect for difference, on equal rights and protection
under law for the majority and the minority communities.
It meant keeping power out of the hands of the cultural
chauvinists. To do this, Israel would have had to hand
the baton back to Mr Shimon Peres-led Labour Party so
that they could continue the peace process which had
begun to show much promise, and in the cause of which
Yitzhak Rabin had sacrificed his life. India would have
had to hand political power to some coalition adding up
to a parliamentary majority, sworn to maintain the
secular system of government, towards the achievement of
which Jawaharlal Nehru dedicated his entire public life.
Close Elections
Both elections were extremely close, indeed were virtual
political deadlocks. But by the slimmest of margins each
went in opposite directions, and by the direction each
electorate chose, made a significant statement about the
political prognosis for each society. Israel abandoned
the secular and instead chose the ethnoreligious option
by more than 30,000 votes. India stuck by the secular
and rejected the ethnoreligious option by a handful of
parliamentary seats after almost 400 million votes had
been cast. Israel, as a result, already faces a dark and
perilous future as its restored hard-line conservative
leadership has begun to try and reassert much of the
colonialism and paternalism that got the society into the
pickle it has found itself in the first place. The recent
Arab summit shows that Israel's outside opponents are
moving towards greater unanimity than they have displayed
in decades. The Hezbollah and other like-minded
extremists have been vindicated in domestic Arab eyes
with the consequent undermining of more moderate
elements
in Palestinian society for whom the peace process had
become both an article of faith and a political vested
interest.
Peace Process
Surely we will soon be seeing a resumption of the
intifadah as Mr Netanyahu's regime endeavours to resume
stealing Arab lands and reversing the evolution towards
an independent Palestinian state, and mutual political
dignity, in the name of the ultra-orthodox vision of
Judea - the Likud's equivalent of the VHP's Hindutva. In
the end, after it becomes apparent that such arrogant
bullying gets one nowhere in the post-Cold War world,
Israel will have to do the peace process 'all over
again, and on far less favourable terms than it got this
time around.
In a perverse sort of way, Israel's impending travail
should act as a laboratory for the coalition of
secularists that just barely kept Hindutva at bay in the
eleventh general elections in India. Analysts are roundly
predicting that if the Deve Gowda government flounders,
the door will open for the BJP to come in with the
majority it requires to do to India what the Likud is now
in a position to do to Israel. With their determination
to put Muslims and other minorities "in their place," as
the Likud, now proposes to do with the Palestinian Arabs
(all in the name of "peace security" and cultural
purism, of course), the divisions and their inter-ethnic
conflict will intensify and soon India will face its own
intifadahs. India has so far avoided such a tragic future
by the skin of its teeth by opting as marginally against
the ethnoreligious state as Israel has opted for it.
But will this last? The "laboratory report" forthcoming
from beleaguered Israel under the Likud should soon
inform India whether the strident political medicine
offered by the BJP is really worth the price in social
unrest. Surely it will contrast with the much more
palatable, and potentially far more harmonious, remedy
for multi-cultural accommodation (viz. constitutionally
assured human rights and political respect for all) which
the recently much-maligned secular state, presently
incarnated in India by the United Front (and in Israel by
Labour), has to offer.
(The author is with the Centre for, South Asian Studies,
University of Virginia, USA.)
Back
Top
|
