This is in reference with your editorial (‘Middle-class politics’, November 26) on the Delhi Assembly elections. It is a healthy sign of voter awareness if the issues in the elections are quite unrelated to identity politics and the voter is going to decide against or in favour of the incumbent government based on the quality of services provided by it.
Identity politics has played a major role in elections at least in the last two decades. A number of caste-, community-, region- and religion-based political parties emerged in Indian politics, which created and exploited identity vote-banks for winning elections. This hampered our democracy in two ways. Firstly, the voter’s identity and not merit became the main consideration. And secondly, with many parties in the electoral contest, fractured mandates became the routine rather than the exception in states; and lately in the Centre as well, resulting in coalition governments, which faced problems of their own kinds in terms of their functioning. However, of late, there has been a remarkable and reassuring change in voters’ approach. In many state elections held in the recent past, voters decisively rejected identity politics and also the politics of communalism. They voted for basic amenities, education, healthcare, general development, security and so on.
The menace of reservations is the product of identity-politics. It is good if a sizeable middle class has become more concerned about jobs and inflation rather than the divisive politics of reservations along caste or community lines.
M C Joshi, Lucknow
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