A Serious Man

"What is TRUTH?", replied Pontius Pilate, when Jesus Christ affirmed in an ever-certain manner “Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice”. Coen brothers bring the same ambivalence to life and set it in Judea philosophy. & I am moved to write this because it's giving tough competition to Fargo as my favorite Coen's movie (Sorry, Lebowski fans!). I think I have a thing for mild comedies, characteristic and accentuated manner of dialogue deliveries (of the likes one can see in Oye Lucky Lucky Oye too), and a bunch of quirky characters out to create a mess everywhere. A Serious Man gives me just that, with an icing of contradictory situations raising doubts to everything around.

I would have missed many Judea connections in movie, but this cultural distance didn't stop me from enjoying so many of its scenes. The creepy but funny short dybbuk tale that starts movie, provides almost a perfect setting for what follows. Some of the scenes in movie stand out. In one of them, a young kid walks into a senior Rabbi's office and in the hallway's gallery sees Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac. His expressions change to fear from uncertainty as he approaches desk of Rabbi staring at him, only to find him reciting a couplet of 'Dont you want somebody to love'. This kind of unexpected and uncertain events are spread throughout the movie. No wonder, the protagonist Larry teaches Schroedinger's cat experiment in college.

& the best of all is the way movie ends, again, totally unexpected and uncertain. Just like the dybbuk story.

The Behenji

In India, temperature is soaring. While the sun is doing its bit, the election season is pushing up the mercury too. One of the leader that has suddenly caught the fancy of media in this election heat is Behenji - Mayawati. From the scholarly magazines like Economist [source], to feature pages of BBC [source] and to tabloid media of India [source], she is being biograph-ed, analysed, debated and usually hated in the comments section. This is in complete contrast to the last election in her home state - Uttar Pradesh, when she silently crafted the biggest electoral victory in UP in last two decades. This post is dedicated to her!

Leaving the arduous task of predicting her place in the South Block of Lutyen's Delhi to electoral pundits, I would just mention some things that had long crossed my mind for her and her nature of politics.

She is the worst nightmare of India's English speaking, 'The Hindu' reading and metro dwelling intelligentsia. She signifies to them everything that is wrong with Indian politics and her rise to national politics has left many of them sleepless. To me, personally speaking, politicians like her are a bulwark against class wars. This is also where, I believe, democracy plays out better than other forms of government. Her rise to power gives voice to the most marginalized section of the Indian society. A society that keeps a section of itself deprived of resources, dignity and power for centuries always risk facing a revolution or armed conflict from them. Democracy gives voice to them, and leaders like Mayawati helps ease that pressure.

Besides being a dalit, she is also a woman. Somehow, her gender has never been used like her caste to show her inability to govern or to gain sympathy from women voters. In fact, in Indian politics, gender is never a major electoral issue . Women in India do not particularly rally for a woman leader or men do not particularly shy away from voting a women. In western world, however, gender is always an issue in politics. There was a huge mass of women supporters behind Hillary Clinton when she contested the primaries. The fact was repeated many times that a women has stood for primaries for the first time. Many newspapers, likewise, came up with a biased coverage of her due to her gender. It was also mentioned in some news channels discussion that an awful number of people will not vote for her due to her gender, just as some others will not vote for Barack Obama for his race. Given the far more social independence that women enjoy in western society as compared to Indian society, this comes as a suprise. My take on this is as follows: In western world, especially in US, an individual is celebrated unlike in India where the caste, community or family is. In US, where caste and strong community bonding does not exist, it's the individual that is evaluated on their personal traits. Coversely, in India, the community and the family of that person is given more importance than the individual qualities. Thus, the baggage of her caste is so much more for Mayawati that her gender would not figure in electorate's mind while casting their vote. Corollary: She would be just as much despised by a Yadav woman in UP, as she is respected by a Dalit male.

The media used to hate her for her ostentatious display on her birthday bashes. Her diamond studded earings, mountain-sized cake were a focal point of derision by the columnists of many dailies. Agitated, they would ask - Why doesn't her voters get offended by these displays when they know they could never be as rich as her? There hasn't been any tangible evidence that shows that dalits fare better in her rule in terms of employment rate or financial status. Lately, she has also bonhomied with the upper most caste of Indian society - Brahmins. Her candidates in the current election are also mostly from non-dalit caste. She has diluted her stance of hatred towards upper caste, lacks any major developmental works in her current tenure, also hasn't done too much for the upliftment of dalits, whose cause she most vociferously espouse. Yet, her vote bank is said to be non-transferable! Why do dalits still vote for her, even though there are reasons for them to believe that she is using them to fulfill her political ambitions? The truth is - instead of getting offended, dalits love to see her display of wealth. Even if she never changes a single thing for them, they would still vote her to power. The reason is symbolism. For them, she symbolises everything that they had been denied for centuries. The sheer fact that somebody from their community could go on to reach this stature is enough of a good reason for them to vote.

Reading through the barrage of hate posts emanating from the urban youth in the comments section of most of the online media reports, I am surprised to see that many of them think of her as an uneducated and an illiterate person. I wonder where this misconception has come from. She holds two degrees, was a primary school teacher in a school in Delhi and was preparing for the civil services exams when his mentor Kanshiram spotted her furiously debating with Janata Dal leader Raj Narain and then walking out of that meeting in the constitution club of Delhi.

Dr. Ambedkar, while exhorting to his followers once said, "Political power is that master key to unlock all your problems". His statue of holding constitution in one hand with the other hand pointing towards Lok Sabha symbolises his message to his followers to educate themselves and gain political power. Dalits have given a lot to Mayawati and she has vigourously followed Dr. Ambedkar's statement of gaining political power. But what has she given back to dalits in return? Laloo Prasad Yadav gave a lot of voice to the socially backward Yadav community in Bihar but he didn't do any developmental work that would help them feed their young ones, or let them send their kids to school. In a same way, Mayawati may have given an iota of voice to dalits who can now sit in the main chaupal of the village, but she has still not started the developmental works for dalits. She has gained the master key but she is yet to unlock all the problems that beset Uttar pradesh and members of her own community. Instead, she is eyeing New Delhi. Personally, I think her ambitions for being a national player is well justified but it should have been supported by her work in UP. Just like Bihar's CM Nitish Kumar and Gujarat's CM Narendra Modi have a made a name for themselves for good governance, she should have followed suit. But she is more busy planning her next moves to check mate players in delhi. Like Sahir Ludhiyanvi wrote in one of his poems, "Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye to kya hai?", I ask of Mayawati - What if you even become the Prime Minister of India? What would that change? Would that uplift a community from the centuries of burden that they had to bear? Would that help a dalit to gain better education and compete in open market? Would that make India a more tolerant nation? Would that in anyway change this nation except some new parks and statues of yours and Dr. Ambedkar?

A Republic's Voters

India celebrates its 60th Republic day today. This day also, in my opinion, puts to rest the doomsday prophecies of certain world leaders and writers like Winston Churchill and Rudyard Kipling that saw balkanization of India soon after its independence. Situated amidst countries in South Asia that are ruled by monarchies, dictators, army rulers or a weak parliament, India has indeed emerged as an unexpected beacon of democracy for the region.

On the other hand, there are multiple reasons that call for an introspection as well. Has democracy really worked in India? I agree with Ramchandra Guha when he answers this as - yes, but 50-50. I was watching a panel discussion on CNN-IBN network [video link] today. The network also conducted a poll on various questions related to efficacy of politicians, government bodies and the overall results of democracy. The findings, as expected, were dismal with majority having lost their faith in the integrity of politicians and governmental bodies. I am sure the sample set for these polls would have been just as much a biased selection as the audience was in this show. But I agree that it is overall representative of the general mood of the public in India. So what is lacking in the "system" or the polity of India that most of us are losing faith in this?

Among a lot of gibberish that was said on the show, some of the comments stayed with me. One of them was by Salman Khurshid. He says that he finds it hard to win an election if he only does the right thing. He needs support from people who also force him to help them do illegitimate activites. Having seen elections and the political process from close quarters myself, I know how true Mr. Khurshid is when he makes that point. To elaborate, a candidate needs support from a lot of "workers" that usually belong to the candidate's party or are personally associated with him. These workers campaign for the candidate to the constituents, create a sellable image of his to the electorate and uses their relations and connections to improve a candidate's prospects. In the words of a two-time assembly elections contestant, it is the worker who actually fights the election. Indeed it seems so, as the most important duty of worker comes during the election day. He sits in the election booth as an agent of the candidate and overlooks the voting to make sure it is going on fairly or in the favor of his candidate. The real difference that he makes is in the votes from the electorates who skip the voting i.e. do not come to vote on the election day. An overzealous worker will liason with the polling officer a day before and get some of the unpolled votes poll for his candidate. He would also get some people to make sure that the unenthusiastic voters are encouraged and helped to come to the polling booth to cast their vote. So, a smart or a strong, in the literal sense, worker helps to improve the chance of a candidate significantly if not drastically on the election day.

This does not augur well for a democracy as it creates multiple problems. One of them is that it makes even more difficult for a newcomer without any workers to win election. The other is what Salman Khursid said - it forces the elected representative to be more representative of his workers than the electorate, thereby making a mockery of democratic principles. How can this be resolved?

I have known this factor for a while and thought over it a few times. Election commission of India has done a splendid job by releasing the affidavits of the election candidates on its website [link] since the last few elections. The affidavit contains the complete assets declaration and ongoing police cases, if any, of the candidate. This brings a greater transparency to the electorate and its easy access gives it a wider reach. ECI also releases further data like the number of votes polled at each booth, candidate-wise percentage etc. I would like to suggest to ECI, through this post, to also release the list of voters who voted on the election day. The voters are required to sign in the polling booth before casting their vote so the data is already being maintained by the commission for all the elections. As we have a closed ballot system in India, ECI does not keep a record of who voted for whom and this should continue to stay like that. Releasing this list of voters who polled does not compromise any of our democratic principles as far as I can see. I would also imagine that since election is a public exercise and a cornerstone of Indian democracy, the electorate would welcome such a move instead of raising privacy concerns. This list could potentially raise a hell storm when the voters will see that their votes were cast even though they did not visit the polling booth! A series of litigation might well follow and bring the ECI under a higher pressure to minimize such anomalies. This, in turn, will reduce the impact that the worker has on the election day thereby limiting the dependence of a candidate on the worker. The effects of this data could be similar, if not greater, to the effects of the Right to Information Act.

I might be naive in my thinking or projection here. I might even be totally misplaced on the legalities behind such a move. And thus, I wouldn't mind other's opinion!