We are the people who rejoice every time Manmohan Singh takes stage. He is us. He is the success of education and middle class values rising to the top. Only, shudder, he failed to win a poll.
We, the non-vote bank. We, who must remember that Manmohan Singh rises because of Sonia Gandhi. Because of loyalty to the Family. We, who form no mass base.
Actually, you know, if you ask many like me, we are happy to be with the Gandhis and their Family-Is-All-ness than the Mayawatis and the Mulayams of the world. The Gandhis speak our langauge, they, we hope have our concerns, and they, we hope express it, in our words.
All that might be untrue. But if you go by pure instinct, Rahul and Priyanka, and Sheila Dikshit, and Salman Khurshid and Mani Shankar A. beat the Amar Singhs of the world anyday.
Analysts would scoff at such instincts, pundits would ridicule, but is what I'm saying any different from the way people in the villages of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, in fact, in most parts of small town and rural India vote?
Why does a Raja Bhaiya, renowned for throwing bodies of his opponents in a croc-infested pond, so violent and corrupt that he is called Kunda Ka Goonda, win elections? Why does Amar Mani Tripathi, accused of murder, get votes? Because their electorate vote for one of their own. It's the same logic that kept Lalu in power, that allowed him to argue that development is nothing. He brought something more to his voters - he was one of them, and for those who had been oppressed for centuries, to see one of them in power, to see a CM who kept buffalos in his backyard was intoxicating. It was a real sense of power. No roads or electricity could beat that.
Mayawati, by the way, does the same. Unabashedly corrupt, one could hardly argue that she stands for development. Crime-fighting, yes. Afterall, she was the one who put an end to Raja Bhaiya's goondagiri. But forward planning? Infrastructure ideas? Modernity? Mayawati, alas, is the quintessential behenji.
And people like me, well, we have always disliked the behenjis, now we are scared of them. They rule. We have no voice.
Truly, the masses have hit back and how. In fact, in many circumstances, I am almost apologetic about by background. It is sneered at. It is also 'firang', and 'angrez-loving', my love for the couplet and British poetry and world cinema, and, and... and everything, shunned by the Hindi heartland. The people who rule.
Let me tell you a story. I was covering a protest at a south Mumbai art gallery against the attack on the art student in Baroda. After an great conversation with the art critic Ranjit Hoskote, I stepped out telling my camera person who terrible it is that freedom of expression is being curbed by some goons. As a Hindu, and a practising Hindu at that, I feel ashamed, I said.
My camera person frowned at me and said - that's not true! What they have done is right! How dare they insult our gods!!
At that moment, and I am more than a little ashamed to say this but its the truth, I suddenly became acutely aware of the difference between my background and the background of the cameraperson. The thing is, he has many a leader in the political spectrum. I have barely a handful and as parties like the SP and the BSP rise, on a day when Rajdeep Sardesai is discussing if Mayawati could one day become PM, I am concious that I have no leader to look up too.
Priyanka Gandhi is far away. Rahul Gandhi has failed. Manmohan Singh is a puppet. I am aware that were a Lalu or a Mayawati were ever to become PM, I would have to choose to leave the country.
I, part of the first generation in India who have enough opportunities to work abroad anytime they want, and yet choose to work at home for less than 1/10th the salary. We do it because we believe we can push this country to great heights. For the first time, opportunities at home seem, though far less lucrative, attractive because we are building a nation. A confident nation that will beat the world.
And if we are to do it, we want to see a leader we can look upto. We need to see one of us. Mayawati cannot and never will be my leader.
This is a country that prides on it English-speaking, entrepreneurial youth. We who represent India to the world. But we don't vote do we? And why don't we? Because there's no one to vote for! Where is my leader? The truth is, I don't have one. And that, as sophistication deserts our politics, means perhaps one day I will have to leave.first published:May 13, 2007, 07:02 ISTlast updated:May 13, 2007, 07:02 IST
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Mayawati's historic victory has left me speechless. And scared. Her victory tells me once again how I, and people like me, have no voice in Indian politics anymore. We, the middle-class, educated, metro-bred, Christian-education raised, young. We, the backbone of the knowledge, entreneurial economy. We, who have no representation. We have no voice. We have no one who speaks our language, our idiom.
We are the people who rejoice every time Manmohan Singh takes stage. He is us. He is the success of education and middle class values rising to the top. Only, shudder, he failed to win a poll.
We, the non-vote bank. We, who must remember that Manmohan Singh rises because of Sonia Gandhi. Because of loyalty to the Family. We, who form no mass base.
Actually, you know, if you ask many like me, we are happy to be with the Gandhis and their Family-Is-All-ness than the Mayawatis and the Mulayams of the world. The Gandhis speak our langauge, they, we hope have our concerns, and they, we hope express it, in our words.
All that might be untrue. But if you go by pure instinct, Rahul and Priyanka, and Sheila Dikshit, and Salman Khurshid and Mani Shankar A. beat the Amar Singhs of the world anyday.
Analysts would scoff at such instincts, pundits would ridicule, but is what I'm saying any different from the way people in the villages of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, in fact, in most parts of small town and rural India vote?
Why does a Raja Bhaiya, renowned for throwing bodies of his opponents in a croc-infested pond, so violent and corrupt that he is called Kunda Ka Goonda, win elections? Why does Amar Mani Tripathi, accused of murder, get votes? Because their electorate vote for one of their own. It's the same logic that kept Lalu in power, that allowed him to argue that development is nothing. He brought something more to his voters - he was one of them, and for those who had been oppressed for centuries, to see one of them in power, to see a CM who kept buffalos in his backyard was intoxicating. It was a real sense of power. No roads or electricity could beat that.
Mayawati, by the way, does the same. Unabashedly corrupt, one could hardly argue that she stands for development. Crime-fighting, yes. Afterall, she was the one who put an end to Raja Bhaiya's goondagiri. But forward planning? Infrastructure ideas? Modernity? Mayawati, alas, is the quintessential behenji.
And people like me, well, we have always disliked the behenjis, now we are scared of them. They rule. We have no voice.
Truly, the masses have hit back and how. In fact, in many circumstances, I am almost apologetic about by background. It is sneered at. It is also 'firang', and 'angrez-loving', my love for the couplet and British poetry and world cinema, and, and... and everything, shunned by the Hindi heartland. The people who rule.
Let me tell you a story. I was covering a protest at a south Mumbai art gallery against the attack on the art student in Baroda. After an great conversation with the art critic Ranjit Hoskote, I stepped out telling my camera person who terrible it is that freedom of expression is being curbed by some goons. As a Hindu, and a practising Hindu at that, I feel ashamed, I said.
My camera person frowned at me and said - that's not true! What they have done is right! How dare they insult our gods!!
At that moment, and I am more than a little ashamed to say this but its the truth, I suddenly became acutely aware of the difference between my background and the background of the cameraperson. The thing is, he has many a leader in the political spectrum. I have barely a handful and as parties like the SP and the BSP rise, on a day when Rajdeep Sardesai is discussing if Mayawati could one day become PM, I am concious that I have no leader to look up too.
Priyanka Gandhi is far away. Rahul Gandhi has failed. Manmohan Singh is a puppet. I am aware that were a Lalu or a Mayawati were ever to become PM, I would have to choose to leave the country.
I, part of the first generation in India who have enough opportunities to work abroad anytime they want, and yet choose to work at home for less than 1/10th the salary. We do it because we believe we can push this country to great heights. For the first time, opportunities at home seem, though far less lucrative, attractive because we are building a nation. A confident nation that will beat the world.
And if we are to do it, we want to see a leader we can look upto. We need to see one of us. Mayawati cannot and never will be my leader.
This is a country that prides on it English-speaking, entrepreneurial youth. We who represent India to the world. But we don't vote do we? And why don't we? Because there's no one to vote for! Where is my leader? The truth is, I don't have one. And that, as sophistication deserts our politics, means perhaps one day I will have to leave.
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