This election season stands out from the previous elections in many ways. For one, we are seeing a shift from ideology based alliances to convenience based associations. Second, the hype generated by shifting the IPL to South Africa to ensure security is putting the spotlight back on a supposed incident-free exercise of our democracy. Third, blame it on soaring ambitions, the number of contenders for the Prime Minister’s post seem unprecedented in the history of Indian elections. Fourth, political back-stabbing is at its all-time best. Fifth, the tectonic forces changing political equations are so strong that it is becoming increasingly difficult to predict the outcome when the results are declared the 16th of May this year. What is even more peculiar is the common knowledge that the jig-saw reshuffle will continue for much longer than the month of May and the new government will still stumble hard and fast to make way for re-elections.

Other less significant reasons that make these elections noticeable include a former UN diplomat Shashi Tharoor (former under-secretary general) contesting for Congress from Thiruvananthapuram, a certain Varun Gandhi making communal speeches in Pilibhit and landing up in jail, the subsequent Gandhi-family feud, the context of Mumbai’s 26/11, NREGS, global recession and economic crisis, post-sixth pay commission era, reservation debates, 123-nuclear agreement, the election of Barack Obama as the new US president (and his Afpak policy that directly impacts India), the upcoming Commonwealth Games in 2010, the showcase of wads of currency on the floor of the Parliament last year, the incessant terror strikes, the Talibanisation of Pakistan (Swat, now maybe Peshawar), soaring-to-sublevel inflation, attack on women in a Mangalore pub called Amnesia, the upsurge of outfits like MNS and Sri Ram Sene, pink-chaddi campaigns, Rahul Gandhi, etc. Public awareness is scaling high and the need of the hour is more accountable leaders. With the junta giving a green chit to a ‘none of the above’ voting option, the leaders are sitting up straight and taking action.

BJP’s dipping graph
Until as early as a few weeks back, another Congress-led coalition seemed to be the fore-runner in the race to the Parliament. After winning the crucial state of Rajasthan and even Delhi in the assembly elections, this belief was only strengthened for most of us. When a crucial ally like the BJD stranded the BJP mid-way, the sentiment was high that it was the end of road for the saffron brigade. Images of iron-man LK Advani pumping muscle by lifting dumbbells were serving no purpose. The right-wing allegiances proved to be the party’s nemesis. Talks of rebuilding the Ram Mandir were being dismissed as airy-fairy nonsense.

Crutch-less Congress
Just when the Congress was gloating at the steady demise of its opposition, the bee of bad luck came and stung the party too. The Left, after being dropped as an ally in the trust vote last year, under the leadership of AB Bardan and Sitaram Yechury formally inaugurated a Third Front. The non-Congress, non-BJP front was projected as a platform to host all parties with disturbed equations with the two biggies. The front found support from many former allies of the two parties. Then more recently a Fourth Front took shape after RJD, LJP and SP (under Lalu Yadav, Ram Vilas Pawan and Mulayam Singh) decided to take charge of the states of UP and Bihar. Mayawati’s BSP decided to go solo too. Congress was left out of the calculations. The biggest blow came in the form of PMK withdrawing its support and joining Jayalalitha’s AIADMK in Tamil Nadu. (Read more on alliances here).

Present Scenario
We all like to back the winning horse. When fortunes seemed to be turning against the UPA, media ire (for once) shifted towards the party. The otherwise calm Congress felt the jolts and straightened its back. With regained confidence, the BJP had a lot many things to say. It was interesting to watch Congress articulates like Kapil Sibal and Jayanthi Natarajan toning down the smirks and giving straighter answers. Others like Abhishek Manu Singhvi had slipped into rhetoric about the party’s dwindling fortunes. A nastier Manmohan Singh was seen dropping the façade of a subdued minister (on directives flowing from 10 Janpath of course) and lashing out at BJP’s PM-in-waiting Mr. LK Advani. Last I checked, things were as uncertain as ever.

My View
For a party that is trying to learn from past mistakes, the BJP ought to be treated with a little more respect that what we otherwise bestow on it. When the Hindutva plank failed to translate into votes, the party revised its strategy to developmental politics and addressing corruption. With strategists like Arun Jaitley and Sudheendra Kulkarni, the party still has a future reserved for itself. When Varun Gandhi first sprang up to spread communal hatred, the first reaction of the BJP was to distance itself from his beliefs. What subsequently followed was simply crisis management. (As noted earlier, alliances in modern India are a result of convenience and hence the divide that arose within the party over the issue was not unusual).

Then if one were to talk about the NCP, the track record isn’t exactly flawless. The biggest mistake that will hurt the Congress dearly in the elections is the inability of its ruled states to provide security for the next season of IPL matches. It is clear that Lalit Modi’s known intimacy to Vasundhara Raje cost him his presidency at RCA. It also sadly led to the repudiation of his brainchild, the Indian Premier League. Uncannily all Congress ruled states namely Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi communicated their inability to provide security for the event. A party that doesn’t think twice before mixing almost-sanctified sports with complicated politics at least needs a rethink.

The Commonwealth Games are another issue that needs to be analyzed. The third-term Congress in Delhi is finding it difficult to get ready in time to host the event in 2010. If our worst fears were to come true, the games would be transferred to another country due to the UPA’s inept disability, widespread corruption and disrespect for deadlines.

Next, the incidents of terror that this 5-year term of the government saw are aberrant. Never before had it taken so many jihadi attacks to make the government realize that its security measures were inadequate and its citizens unsafe. Border infiltration is peaking and it took a 26/11 for the Congress to dismiss its wardrobe-friendly home minister Shivraj Patil and reinstall P Chidambaram to take care of home affairs.

Criminals like Shibu Soren were offered Chief Ministership in return for trust votes. Morals were up for sale. As was proved by a CD unearthed after the shameful wads-of-money-in-parliament incident, money was offered in return for votes. Others accused in 1984 anti-Sikh riots like Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar and Kamal Nath have been made nominees for different LS seats in the coming elections. And these are just the cases that have been bought to book. The number of skeletons hidden away in the closet is anybody’s guess.

When Mangalore happened, Congress CM Gehlot from Rajasthan came forward and revolted against the ‘mall-culture’ (whatever that means). He brandished his intolerance towards two people holding hands in public and even increased the duties on liquor in the state to ‘discourage the culture of pubs and bars’. That aside, Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit (instead of admitting a lapse in security and stepping up measures) labeled all working women who came home late from work as ‘adventurous’ after the infamous Soumya Vishwanathan murder case. Now she has pitched her son Sandeep Dikshit to contest from East Delhi in the LS polls.

UPA, the same party that blames the NDA of being communal and polarizing the voter base, is guilty of recommending and implementing the infamous OBC quotas in institutes of higher education under Arjun Singh. The uproar and dissent that the move generated is still fresh in the minds. It is because of this inducement that the Gujjars in Rajasthan came forward and demanded a status change for themselves as well (read about how the author faced the wrath here and here). The incompetent handling of the issue cost the incumbent BJP heavily in the assembly polls. Meanwhile, the Congress was busy proposing (and in some cases implementing) quotas for Muslims in education and jobs too. So much for blaming the NDA of ‘dividing the society’.

Rationale for this post
I pen all of this down because I get slightly perturbed when I observe how people are completely writing off the BJP this season. Sure the party has had its share of gaffes and wrong alliances during the process. But who doesn’t? And sure it projects itself the wrong the way when it endlessly elaborates on the Congress’s mistakes instead of telling the people what it can do for them. But we need to accord the party some patience in terms of hearing and understanding what they mean to tell us. Advani’s challenge to Manmohan Singh for a presidential-style debate needs to be heeded too. Only a party that is sure of its agenda can come forward and dare to debate in public. I see people ridiculing the ‘Advani for PM’ ads on the internet as being rampant. Say I ask them if is it bad to be tech-savvy in the 21st century? At least he’s getting us to notice that he’s contesting through the most frequently used medium. Our attention captured is mission accomplished. Now assuming that it would irk some people was, admit it, unforeseeable for the old chap. My only appeal to the readers of this blog is to patiently hear the BJP out and not base their opinions on the old stereotypes. The changing face of the BJP, and more importantly the Congress, needs to be looked at carefully before we make up our minds.

Post script
Don’t get the author wrong, she’s not a blatant supporter of the BJP. She only believes that casting our votes on the biased images that we might have of our leaders would be unfair to people trying to usher in change. The Congress has been the mai-baap of Indian politics for a long time… but we need to be aware and educated about other party options that we might have. I know the Left wing and other independents would agree with my view. Although if you don’t, feel free to vandalize my comment section with your opinions. Bouquets and brickbats invited alike.

So much has been said about the Mumbai attacks and its aftermath that it seems almost blasphemous to not write something to that effect on Reflections. For the uninitiated, here’s a quick recap of the events that have now gripped the attention of the entire nation:

On the 26th of November, what started off as stray incidents of firing at Café Leopolds and VT Station (which the media misunderstood as a gang war), soon boiled over to a full fledged fidayeen attack on a city that we best know as the entertainment and commercial capital of the country. Mumbai was under attack again and the targets this time were the elite sitting pretty in high-end hotels namely the heritage Taj Mahal and Oberoi on Nariman Point. To hurt religious sentiments, Nariman House (a Jewish outreach centre in Colaba) was also carefully selected to be included in the list of fire. The perpetrator was Lashkar-e-Taiba/Jamaat-ud-Dawah and the modus operandi was to send a bunch of fidayeens to India through the sea route whose motive was to cause maximum damage before dying in the name of Jihaad. Once the siege ended some 60 hours after the attacks started, 173 were rendered dead and over 300 injured. The list of deceased included some influential names like Hemant Karkare (chief of Mumbai ATS), Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan and Sabina Sehgal (consulting editor, Times of India). Mohammed Kasab was the only one out of ten terrorists to be caught alive and his roots were traced back to a small village in Pakistan. The incident elicited some relevant (and some not so relevant) comments from politicians in India and condemnation from across the world.
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Who is AR Antulay and why he must resign
Abdul Rahaman Antulay is the 79 year old Minister of Minority Affairs, ex-chief minister for Maharashtra in the eighties, who demanded an investigation into the death of Mumbai Action Task Force chief Hemant Karkare. He questioned why an ‘intelligent, awe-inspiring’ officer like him agreed to get into a van with two of his colleagues (Ashok Kamata and Vijay Salsarkar), which is against the protocol, and proceed to a seemingly peaceful spot like Cama Hospital instead of the theatres of action like Taj and Oberoi Hotels. The ill-timed burst of inquisition has invited criticism from most quarters and now has the opposition demanding a resignation from Mr. Antulay for his irresponsible remark.

Now why is the remark ill-timed? For one, it comes at a time when India is trying to pin down Pakistan as the breeding-ground for these attacks. While Zardari must be trying his best to camouflage the civilian lack of control over the ISI by branding the terrorists as ‘non-state actors’, India was doing a good job of collecting evidence for authenticating its own assertions. Ex-PM Nawaz Sharif seemed to be playing ball too. Antulay’s remarks at a crucial time like this gave Pakistan the leeway to spin the arrow in our direction and blame India for not being serious about its crackdown on terrorism. A Pakistan Nation’s editorial blamed India of not trying to establish the truth behind the carnage by refusing to share the investigation evidences with Pakistan. It obviously also questioned the raised eyebrows on Karkare’s death. Clearly Antulay’s remarks were exploited by the Pakistani media to blunt India’s edge in the investigations.

Next, his remarks seemed to add another bead in the string of vote-bank politics that our leaders occasionally play. With the proposed insinuation that due to his involvement in the Malegaon Blasts, Karkare probably fell to a contrivance drawn by the Hindu right wing activists.. Antulay tried to generate himself some political capital within the Congress. In an attempt to build a political constituency for himself he, in a way, tried to divide the nation.

It also, to a certain extent, led to the weakening of the position of our liberal Muslim. Despite being a secular Indian, Antulay seems to have succumbed to the old web of conspiracy theories. The embarrassment that his utterance has caused to the country is reason enough for the Prime Minister to pass his resignation. The Congress, alas, is in a dilemma because firing him will cause them to lose a major chunk of their Muslim vote. Such is the tragedy of Indian politics. Icing on the cake is a regretless Antulay making regular television appearances and emphasizing that he is still ‘proud of his statement’.
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Why Kasab should get a lawyer
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab is the lone captured terrorist that carried out the Mumbai attacks. Now due to the availability of ample evidence and camera footage proving his crime, no lawyer wants to take up his case with the fear of losing it instantaneously. The few like Ashok Sarogi, Mahesh Deshmukh or KBM Lam who did come forward to take up his defense were scared away and had their homes vandalized by the Shiv Sena. In such circumstances, even the Legal Aid Panel has refused to defend him.

The argument that every accused is entitled to legal defense is an old one. Article 39-A of the constitution mandates equal justice and legal aid to all. Notwithstanding Ram Jethmalani’s statement that “even a hundered jethmalani’s can’t defend him”, we fail to realize that the sooner Kasab gets a lawyer, the sooner he will get convicted. A conviction without trial is invalid and for a speedy punishment for Kasab, a trial in the court to prove his guilt is mandatory. In an open-and-shut case like this, the only question that remains is… who will come forward to defend the indefensible?
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How the response to this terror strike has been different from the previous attacks
First I take the liberty of elaborating on the measures we took to safeguard our security after terror hit Mumbai. Shivraj Patil, the then home minister, was forced to resign due to inaction. Next came RR Patil for dismissing the incident as “a small thing common in big cities”. Vilas Rao Deshmukh filed his resignation next after accusations of repeated inactivity and bringing his son and producer-director Ram Gopal Verma for a tour of the Taj after the carnage. P Chidambaram was given the portfolio of the home ministry while Manmohan himself took over the finance ministry. Such a major rejig in the higher echelons of leadership showed that the government was finally serious about tackling terrorism. Measures that should have been initiated much earlier.

Next, the JuD was declared an illegal organization across the world and all their bank accounts were freezed. Pakistan had to stay in sync with everyone and (forcefully) ban the JuD on its soil too. Least to say, it lead to a furor. Along with these positive measures, some other developments worked to India’s favor. Secretary of state Condolezze Rice on her visit to the subcontinent warned Pakistan that lest it took some serious measures against terrorism propagating from its territory, it would get no support whatsoever from the US in any future endeavors. Other top officials from the United States, like Joint Chief of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, and some major countries seemed to recognize that Pakistani military camps were wreaking havoc on its neighbor and the issue had to be nipped.


The more our media publicizes the issue, the stronger the voices of dissent grow against Pakistan. Tough times call for tough measures and the time has come when the world woke up to the threat the ISI poses to global security. With each passing day, the pressure is increasing from the global community on our neighbor to find us the terrorists that made Mumbai happen. After the UN, the latest reports inform us of a meeting between the Interpol and Chidambaram to tackle the menace. What sets apart these attacks from the previous ones is the fact that Pakistan is witnessing a never-felt-before anger from India. Our proactive external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee went to the extent of saying that the country was not ruling out military action against Pakistan if it failed to act effectively this time around. For once, our politicians seem to be echoing the common sentiment that being silent, tolerant spectators won’t work.

The media seems to be making up for its irresponsible coverage during the carnage by not letting go of the issue this time. The amnesia that followed every attack in the past seems to have weaned out. The Mumbai story follow-up is the headline even almost a month after it happened. Talk shows, editorials and debates are still steamy about who should be held accountable. In a way, the fraternity is seeking an apology for all the blunders it committed while covering the 60-hour onslaught.


The uproar probably stems from the fact that the ambit of victims this time included even foreign nationals and the rich. And that the siege continued for much longer than it should have. Candle-light marches and peace protests staged by the citizens show that the ‘chalta hai’ attitude is passé. When terror comes so precariously close, we realize that the ‘it-could-never-happen-to-me’ syndrome is a thing of the past. Today it’s all about ensuring ones own safety. The stability of our neighbor scales high on our list of priorities to sustain our own interests. The sooner Pakistan realizes that its civilian government has no direct control on the army and ISI, the better it would be for them and for us. Because while denial leads to misconceptions… it is only acceptance that eventually leads to course-correction. And course-correction is what Pakistan desperately needs right now.