HVK Archives: Poll's over, or is it?
Poll's over, or is it? - The Sunday Oberver
B N Uniyal
()
December 28 - January 3, 1997
Title: Poll's over, or is it?
Author: B N Uniyal
Publication: The Sunday Oberver
Date: December 28 - January 3, 1997
The election is over. Only the formality of casting and counting
the votes remains to be gone through. Popular acclaim has already
hailed Vajpayee as the new prime minister. The vote in February-
March next will serve only to confirm that.
The year 1997 will, therefore, be remembered for having sealed an
electoral verdict even before it was delivered. Now 1998, the
year ahead, holds no secrets for us that we do not already know.
I am not indulging in divination: I am only deciphering the
popular mood.
I have half a mind to hedge the bet, the half which fears the
censure and ridicule of friends, acquaintances, and colleagues at
social gatherings for having made a fool of oneself. But, the
temptation to speak out what I feel is overpowering. I have
always believed that feelings travel faster than thoughts, and
feelings for the BJP are travelling fact throughout the country.
That may not be the way I think, but that is certainly the way I
feel.
What will a BJP victory or defeat mean, anyway, for the country
at this juncture? What the BJP defeat will mean is not difficult
to estimate. We shall have another ramshackle formation in office
in the name of a coalition under Sitaram Kesri or under Jyoti
Basu or, maybe, under Mulayam Singh Yadav. There are so many
adventurous men there on that side. A coalition like that,
whoever be its leader, will fail and fall as did every one of the
six such formations we have seen come to power and fall into dust
during the last two decades. The fall of such coalitions has been
inherent in the very nature of their formation.
Hatred for a common enemy may serve to bring disparate political
elements together, but hate alone cannot keep them united for
long. Once such an enemy is defeated, mutual bickerings are bound
to occur, forcing a parting of ways. The voters have seen this
happen so many times that it will be difficult to beguile them
into once again voting such a ramshackle coalition into office.
They have one and all discredited themselves in the eyes of the
people, who have so often reposed their faith and trust in them
and their slogans, slogans which now ring hollow in the voters'
ears.
Yes, all their slogans are now worn out. "Secularism-vs-
communalism" used to be their main slogan against the BJP all
this time. Today, even one of their own leaders, J H Patel of
Karnataka, is saying openly that the slogan has been flogged to
death and is no longer serviceable. Even the Muslims whom it was
coined to hoodwink no longer seem to be swayed by it. One wonders
how the Congress or the United Front partners will be able to
claim that the BJP is anti-Muslim now that Muslims from their own
camp are queuing up before the BJP office.
Another of their slogans, that of a "unitary-vs-federal" polity,
has been shown to be bombast for the people have come to fear
that their federalism may turn out to be nothing better than
fragmentation. The fear is deep in the minds of the people that
the country may break in their hands, that each state may begin
to pull apart from the union, risking the very future of a united
India. The recent sparking of unrest in the armed forces due to
the vacillations of the Gujral government has served only to
confirm these fears.
And, as for their claim of working a common minimum programme,
each of their 14 members, their own partners, has itself
discredited it through so many public statements in recent
months.
Perhaps, what is worse for them is that they have failed to
realize that what is worrying the people of the country most
today is the fear that continuing political instability at the
Centre may jeopardize the future of India in all respects. The
voters of the country have come to feel today that the. Congress
and the United Front just cannot give them a stable government.
The people are, therefore, worried about the unity of India, the
economic future of the country, the daily bread of their own
families, their own jobs and wherewithal. And, they are concerned
about the all-round social disorder and decay which has set in
the country during. the last some years.
These are common concerns of the people of the country, common to
all regions, all castes, all occupations, and all age groups.
Therefore, while caste and community interests and affiliations
may still be as alive in the minds of the voters as they so far
were, a collective will is, nevertheless, forming all over for an
alternative to both the Congress and the United Front which are
commonly seen as political twins, two bodies but one mind, two
formations but one style.
These are all the factors working in the minds of the people.
These are the factors which are pulling and pushing the voters
towards the BJP. Some are rushing to the BJP in great passion,
some with a feeling of helplessness, and some out of sheer
disillusionment and chagrin with the Congress and the United
Front.
If there is an apprehension about the BJP in the minds of the
people at large, it is whether or not the BJP will really turn
out to be different from the others, whether on coming to power
it will act and behave differently from the others or, like them,
it will also adopt the air and arrogance of the rulers of the
past, begin pursuing their rotten political concepts, and begin
copying their contemptible ways in all their vulgarity. That is,
whether a BJP government will really be a BJP government or
merely another counterfeit Congress government. The people today
see a disaster if the BJP turns out to be just another Congress.
Back
Top
|
