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| Saturday 11 October, 2008 |
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Gujarat, Moditva and religion
Yesterday morning, as I switched on the TV to catch up onGujarat election results, Congress seemed to be doing quite well. Trends for around 80 seats were available then, with BJP leading in around 40 and congress doing a respectable 35. The channels were predicting the possibility of a hung assembly and one even went to suggest that if cong can bag around 85 seats,they would even try to form a government of their own. The anchors tried to analyse what went wrong with BJP and Modi and what the congress did right. After surfing for a few minutes and finding no
new soundbytes, I switched off.
Cut to--- A couple of hours later, I switched on the TV again. The complexion had changed and how! BJP and Modi were in, big time, sweeping the elections, congress was out, routed is the correct word. The news anchors were suddenly trying to analyse what the BJP and Modi did right and what went drastically wrong with congress!
This was not intended to be a post about the news channels, but one of the many lessons from yesterday’s events – and a very
important lesson at that – pertains with these news channels. HOLD YOUR HORSES. At least till the time, you can stick your neck out and be sure it wont be ripped open. But in the age of constant Breaking News, I admit that would be asking for too much. Another important lesson is for the psephologists. Laymen like me can understand that subtle trends may not be detectable in large and heterogeneous society like India, or even Gujarat, but what
made you fail to grasp a goddamn wave!! The so-called scientific
methods of prediction may work in homogenous societies, but at least in the Indian context, they have failed too many times to have any reliability. Lastly, the losing party. I fail to understand how the Congress expected to do well in the polls, when they have been absent in thestate during the last four and half years of the BJP rule and have been active only during the last six months. And then how does one explain the absolutely stupid, Merchants of Death gaffe. If the leadership has any brains left, they would punish and sack the person who wrote the speech and hire new people forthe job. More importantly, Congress needs new agenda and a massive PR exercise if it wants to remain relevant to the rapidly changing Indian society. Buckling to the left is not helping either.
A new idiom, Moditva has been added to our lexicon. It would be
very interesting to see how this phenomenon pans out in the rest of India.The leadership of BJP will make a big mistake of taking only selective lessons from the victory and play the aggressive Hindutva card across other states. Added to this was Modi’s brand of clean and efficient administration, which I am damn sure they will ignore.
Modi has also emerged as an alternative to Advani, possibly a bigger one at that. For keen followers of politics and even Indian history, we might be living in very exciting times
P.S. On a tangent, I strongly believe religion whose concept has become outdated. It was a good idea in the olden days to bind contiguous areas of homogenous people into a cohesive unit for the betterment of the society at large. Unfortunately, religions have not been able to keep up with the rapid developments we have made. In fact, far more sillyly, they stick to the versions – initiated the religions of the Book and subsequently by the others– while ridiculing the advancements in our understandings of natural phenomenon. This dichotomy results in a fragmented society and becomes breeding place for fundamentalists like Taliban and even the Modis and Thakreys.
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