Elections again

Prof A N Sadhu
Time is a silent and swift escaper.  It is essential that man catches up with time, both with respect  to speed and also the efficiency. It is around five years since we had the last elections in the state and in the country and the bugle is again sounded  for the next elections. It takes around a  year to go into the preparations and put every thing else on hold. Likewise it again takes a year or so to settle down. What happens during the remaining period of time is known to everyone. There are some short term gains that the society witnesses just before the elections are announced. The  Ministers immediately get busy with inaugurating the road repairs, lane build up, community halls, even beauty parlours, jewellery shops and malls and make their intentions clear of contesting the next elections. How much has this model of democracy delivered to the people is not the matter of great assessment. Thanks to media, information flow has  considerably increased.
Coalition Governments have become the order of the day. Gone are the days when single party rule was witnessed at the Centre and in the States. The country  has watched both the forms of Government. The common man has nothing outstanding to record for both the forms. Single party rule smacks of arrogance and coalitions of indecisiveness and compromises. Had single party rule stood by the promises it made to the people, it would have become a permanent feature. It did not happen. Partly out of frustration, partly out of parochialism, castism and narrow ethenic and local pressures, the verdicts of voters became fractured, manifested in the electoral results which were not based on merit but narrow considerations, shaking the very foundations of what the constitution of the country stood for.  New terms like coalition  dharma were coined to justify the decisions which were not interests of the country but served the interests of the coalition partners and helped the council of Ministers to stay in power and share the  privileges at the cost of the common man. Corruption became rampant. Mafia groups developed in all sectors of the economy and  common man was driven to the wall. The nexuses so developed that even a few honest officers were suffocated and coerced into the acceptance of Mafia dictums. Durga Shakhti Nagpaul and Khem Paul are the two latest and vivid examples.
The Jammu and Kashmir also went the  way of the Centre. The coalition Governments had to be formed in 2002 and 2008 because no party could get a clear majority. I don’t think political scientists have, so far, developed  any tested theory of coalition governance with its established premises and principles. In the absence of any logistics, the present arrangement is purely based on convenience, connivance and compromise. How much harm has this model done to the country is not far too difficult to guage.
The way political system has developed in the country, demands that some re-thinking is done and efforts made to give a better and stable character to the country’s political process. Political leadership that addresses to  the current concerns alone and ignores  the development of statesmanship capable of building a futuristic view  will not hold such a country which has so much of diversity in it, on lasting basis. The vast majority of our people are unhappy, uneasy and uncomfortable with what they witness on the governance front. Unabated frustration among the masses has the portent of developing anarchy in the country which  will be devastating at this stage of history, or may perhaps, be a new beginning for a better order; time alone will tell.
We now talk of UPA or NDA and not Congress or BJP, the leading political parties of the country. The verdict of the people is clear; they have lost their faith in both the parties. The elections have now become a ritual rather than a democratic process to enable people to exercise their franchise freely and fearlessly. The way elections take place, it becomes a drama and not a dharma. Few months before the elections become due, political parties extensively use the print and electronic media to win the voters by putting up attractive advertisements to bias the objective assessment of the electorate, built during the preceding years.
Things are however changing. Wide spread literacy, on the one hand, and a large net work of electronic media, On the other, have significantly contributed to the awareness among  the masses about what is happening in the country; be it on the  law and order from, large scale scams, political violence and similar other things which have made the life uneasy and insecure for the common man. Expediency and not the ideology has become the determining factor. The revolt within the minds of the masses is building up and the trailor has already been watched in Delhi elections. People, mostly the beneficiares of the corrupt political system, may talk differently but Kejriwal has brought forth the ground reality of disgust among the masses. Forces are at work to destabilise the Kejriwal’s Government but, no matter, how long it lasts, it has served the purpose and unnerved the political vested interest. The fortcoming election is going to throw up a very complex situation on the political front and may compel the formation of ahotch-potch Government or may even force another immediate election or may be the electorate, evaluating all options, vote for a single party for a change and experiment with it before readying  themselves for a different alternative, the type of which has been witnessed in Delhi.
The position in the State is not different or better in any way. Two coalition Governments have been tested. People have taken careful note of their working. The state is in for another coalition Government. There are not as many political players in the state but new challenges may emerge and formulation of coalition may not be as easy as in the past. People had raised high hopes in 2008 when a young Chief Minister assumed office. His qualification, exposure and uprightness  had aroused great optimism about better and fair governance in the State. May be, he himself started with that urge but the excitement among the electorate is not visible. How will the voters behave at the hustings will be revealing and what will be its impact for the years  ahead will equally be revealing.

Follow our WhatsApp channel