Mountain of light

It is the year of the big elections what with both US and India going to elections this year. Its interesting as one compares the two democracies and sees how they countdown to the big day. It in some ways also serves as a reminder on how behind we are in the road to being a mature democracy. When George Bush came to power he was in some ways considered a minnow to politics and no one gave him a chance to make independent decisions outside of his coterie of advisors. There was ofcourse the famous Florida recount and loud murmurs of election rigging and what have you. I remember a friend in Washington telling me that when Bush came to Washington after winning the elections there was a big banner put up proclaiming. Welcome to the thief or something to that effect. I remember being horrified with the American public for picking up a man like him to run the US and in effect the whole world and worse of all, my favourite magazine The Economist backed him as a choice over Al Gore. This was the end of the world for as far as I was concerned. Four years down the line George Bush has belied all expectations and until a few months back very few doubted on his chances of running a second term. Call it good fortune, call it forgery of WMDs, call it spin doctoring but the man was and is a strong candidate for re-election.
Given this backdrop you would assume that very few Democrats would want to sacrifice their presidential aspirations in running against him. But no sir! They were queuing up as if it was the exclusive premiere to Lord of the Rings. They were angry Democrats who vowed to throw him out of power even if this was the last thing they did and they were egged on by even more angrier supporters. Some of these supporters have international exposure and are quite ashamed of the jibes they get for being Americans and all because of their current President. Most of these supporters are putting their money where their mouth is and if Bush still comes back to power then at least it wouldn’t be because of lack of effort from the Democrats’ side.

When Prime Minister Vajpayee came to power the general feeling was that this government would not last for five years and the fact that the BJP had little or no experience of being in power and that coupled with their temple agenda was a recipe for disaster. The Congress was waiting in the sidelines for the government to topple under its own weight and all it would have to do was to just walk in and stake its claim to glory, after all the power has always rightfully belonged to the Congress! Five years on the government has survived pretty well. It has survived a half-war from across the border and has unleashed a massive India Shinning campaign just a few months before it called for early elections. This is a sign of a very confident government which can do no wrong which is headed by a Prime Minister who has the Midas touch. Nothing affects this government.. communal riots, video exposes of corruption, scams everywhere, fiscal jugglery and its politicians mouthing all kinds of obscenities and everyone and sundry. This government gets away with murder and then has the gall to put out an India Shinning campaign. It is like an election campaign on taxpayer’s money.
Given this backdrop one would assume that the opposition would be raring to go at the party with a difference and its allies with all that it has got in its arsenal. It would have used these five years to garner support for this campaign and come election there would be no stopping the opposition from steamrolling the government. If only that had happened... I would have been the happiest person on earth. We would have seen an equal campaign from both sides and important issues being raised and debated about in various forums. Except as things stand now the current government is slated to come back to power and it is mainly because of a lack of effective opposition. A case in point - few days back was the second anniversary of Godhra and the opposition sat quiet through it almost as if it was afraid of antagonising the Hindus! The situation is so bad for the Congress that anyone who votes for it knows that her vote is a lost vote because even though it might help to win the odd seat, the party has no hope in hell to come back to power and what that does is that it pushes the fence sitters to the BJP and that makes the margin of defeat look even more bigger. Also the BJP will come back with such a swagger almost as if to say that the end justifies the means and whatever they have done over the past five years has been vindicated by the people and they have been voted back to power. I can’t bring myself to vote for the BJP no matter how good are the credentials of its local candidate. It is a mental block and if there ever was a mental block I was proud off then here is one. I am also not against BJP coming to power but what bothers me is the lack of an effective opposition which just lets the ruling party stomp its agenda through unfettered and uninhibited.