The unavoidable, all-pervading and frankly inane topic of banter these days - on TV, on Twitter, during lunch breaks, at social gatherings, in trains, on airports, on cab rides home, is Modi…and Rahul. Rather, Modi vs. Rahul.
Predictably, on one side of the debate are the zealous pro-Modi enthusiasts - old guards and recent converts; on the other side are the incurable liberals, the ‘pseudo secularists’, who are supposedly raging a crusade against Modi without telling us what the better alternative is, to India’s grave problems.
These contests at all times, draw moral equivalences, invoke the ills of one to legitimize or justify the sins of another and more often than not end up in unpersuasive finales where no one agrees with the other and no one agrees to disagree either. Its great intellectual amusement over a glass of drink this chitchat, and about as much political apathy the urban well-off voter is willing to shake off when it comes to participating in the real democratic electoral process.
Intoxicated as we are by our own false sense of profundity, proving clever points in these tête-à-têtes, what we tend to disregard is that most of us won’t directly be voting for either Modi or Rahul! Unless of course, we are registered to cast our ballot in Maninagar (presumably that’s where Modi will choose to stand from) or Amethi. So in principle, the debate, except for those residing in the aforementioned constituencies shouldn’t dominatingly be about these two men who disrupt our dinner table peace every day.
In fact it shouldn’t be about them for several reasons.
First off, by developing these national level personality cults and according needless credence to what they say about what they intend to do, we hazard subverting the liberated idea of a bottom up democracy. Our obsession with Modi and Rahul is in some sense reinforcing the imperialistic preeminence given to centralized governance, where the ‘ruling party’ calls the shots.
By fixating over our ‘preferred’ national figures, we could be undermining the merit and track record of good local leaders, as carried away by a national wave we ascribe support to the party that chooses a PM candidate of our preference, rather than a party that is doing good work at the local level. So for instance a constituency that has a BJP Member of Parliament who has done excellent work for the people, has a clean image and has governed well, but is booted out because of a national frenzy for the Congress’s Prime Ministerial candidate. How does that help?
Voting in a democracy is a complex phenomenon that depends on a host of social, economic, religious and political factors. But as an ICRIER study of 2004 titled "Economic Growth, Governance & Voting Behaviour" points out, the BJP won the Gujarat elections in 2002-03 because of the Post-Godhra riots more than anything else. It says “Non-economic factors such as the Gujarat riots clearly play a role in voter behavior.” This is also corroborated by historical events like the sympathy wave that helped the Congress sweep the 1984 and 1991 elections after the assassinations of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi.
This time, it’s not Godhra, or a sympathy wave but an anti incumbency factor coupled a decade of mis-governance and the emergence of a cult like figure that the nation seems to be breathless about. But putting someone in power in the hope that a decisive central leadership will solve our ground level problems will be imprudent. A central captain can make good policy (in a coalition, not even that), but it takes first-class foot soldiers to bring change.
As Michael Shermer, noted American writer says “almost everything important that happens in both nature and in society happens from the bottom up and not top down”. I could give you a list of examples that would prove his assumption in the Indian governance context – the transformation of Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra, the success of welfare schemes in Chattisgarh, Gujarat’s 10% growth mirrored against the 5% national average. These were local revolutions brought about by local leaders.
So let us narrow the scope of our impassioned debates and think of voting local, rather than national! In a choice between brazen appeasement and unabashed communalism, it is best to vote for grassroots governance, no matter what party.
That’s the real alternative to either Modi or Rahul.
