akrishnarao

Tag: congress-party

  • The Trigger, The Thought Police, and The Electoral Battleground

    “Even though the gun is in the hands of the police, the finger on the trigger that decides whom to shoot is in the hands of those above,” renowned novelist George Orwell depicted a terrifying dystopian world in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984). In the system he defined as the ‘Thought Police’, those who execute decisions lose the power to think independently. They become like robots that do whatever the person above tells them. The administrative system in India functions precisely according to this formula. Not just the atrocities committed against the people during the Emergency, but many anti-people decisions are implemented in alignment with this ‘Thought Police’ system.

    When The Indian Express leaked 14 notes on September 24 sent by two Election Commissioners to various departments within the Election Commission regarding key decisions taken without their knowledge under the name of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list, it sparked immense outrage among the opposition and various anti-BJP sections in the country. Demands were raised branding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar a traitor and calling for him to be hanged. Even a newly born cockroach party called for nationwide protests. Curiously, two days later, the very same Election Commission announced that all their decisions were taken collectively. They also released a photograph of the three Election Commissioners meeting to the press.

    However, no matter how much hue and cry the opposition and other sections raise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah—who make the crucial decisions at the center—do not appear to be taking it all that seriously. Around the time the news broke in The Indian Express, Modi was holding a two-day high-level meeting with Union Cabinet ministers under the name of ‘Chintan Shivir’ at Sevatirth in Delhi. They discussed at length the administrative reforms they are going to undertake and the Viksit Bharat 2047 roadmap. On September 25, while the opposition was fiercely raging over the Express news, Modi participated in ‘Bhajan Clubbing’ on the occasion of Deendayal Upadhyaya Jayanti, singing devotional songs like Achyutam Keshavam and Radhe Radhe along with young men and women. Playing the kanjira himself, he immersed himself in devotion. Union Home Minister Amit Shah also participated in programs like the UP Trade Show, the launch of an LNG train in Ahmedabad, and an anti-terrorism conference, but did not respond at all to the opposition’s protests.

    No thinking intellectual would assume that the electoral system in the country is running properly simply because the three Election Commissioners announced there are no differences among them. Even Lavasa and Rawat—former Election Commissioners appointed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure—severely criticized the manner in which the SIR is being conducted. While Lavasa criticized the method adopted for conducting the SIR as unconstitutional and flawed, Rawat opined that the way the Election Commission is functioning is not proper and dark clouds are hovering over its credibility. In fact, how did the notes sent by the two current commissioners to various departments reach the Mumbai correspondent of The Express? Internal sources say that collecting notes from individual departments is difficult, and it is possible that either of the two Election Commissioners leaked all the notes in their possession. Be that asit may, these three Election Commissioners finally washed their hands of the matter by issuing a press release claiming everything is fine. In fact, it is not hard to guess which covert hand aided these three officials—who had not laid eyes on each other from last May to August—in patching things up among themselves.

    Until recently, only Congress used to criticize vote theft. But after the notes of the two Election Commissioners came out, various anti-Modi forces across the country began responding differently. YouTubers everywhere started extensively denouncing Gyanesh Kumar. However, it is impossible to say how long any controversy in the country survives. The NEET paper leak controversy subsided. No one talks about the donation theft at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. The levy charges on UPI did not get as much discussion as they should have. The ethanol-petrol controversy faded into oblivion long ago. Controversies keep coming and going one after another. Parliament sessions happening and getting disrupted has become normal. Now, it is hard to say how long anyone will talk about the irregularities happening in the electoral system. The less said about the judiciary, the better. When a judge spoke about the opportunity to appoint favored individuals as Election Commissioners, the Solicitor General retorted, “Aren’t you yourselves appointing people you like as judges in the collegium?”

    In the past, the opposition agitated fiercely over the Bofors scam for nearly two years, eventually leading to the fall of Rajiv Gandhi’s government. Regarding corruption during the UPA-2 regime, BJP did not rest until it carried out protests for over three years and brought Modi to power. The illegal deletion of 13 million voter names by the Election Commission, the unavailability of the central database to district and state officials, the CEC unilaterally filing appeals stating that the removal of 1.6 million voters was proper, and local officials being unable to restore deleted voters in the voter lists in Goa are indeed serious matters. But if the opposition cannot build a passionate public backlash against all these, there is little they can do. Why are the opposition parties—which argue that the BJP won the elections in Bengal, Bihar, and Haryana largely due to massive voter deletions—failing to organize public protests in these states? Can a situation capable of arousing public consciousness like the Bofors scam and the Watergate scandal ever arise regarding electoral irregularities?

    It is hard to say how many people are fighting for the right to vote in India. At least 3 million (3 crore) people in the country have not registered themselves as voters. Among those who registered, if we consider the names removed by the Election Commission under the guise of ‘SIR’, only 860 million (86 crore) voters remain out of the total 990 million (99 crore) voters. Even among them, based on the statistics of the last general elections, only 66 percent—meaning 330 million (33 crore) people—do not even show interest in casting their vote. In fact, the Election Commission’s job is to increase public awareness for voting. But enthusiasm is being drained away because of the ‘SIR’ process. Who has the interest to answer various questions and run around government offices? The population aged between 18-35 in the country is around 350-400 million (35-40 crore). But how many of them are voters? Do the opposition parties and intellectuals have the power to make the people, especially the youth, agitate to register themselves as voters? Will migrant laborers and youth traveling to various places and abroad for livelihood have the eager desire to vote? Even those who express opinions on social media in our country are doubtful to exercise their right. Even those who once told people to boycott elections are now talking about the right to vote.

    Perhaps knowing this is why Modi and Shah appear to be watching the ongoing debate as mere spectators. In this country, every party builds a voter base dedicated to itself and subjects them to promises, welfare programs, allurement, and emotional appeals accordingly. With the database under control, it is not impossible for the Bharatiya Janata Party—which devises a booth-level strategy—to know state-by-state who will vote for them and who will vote for their opponents. The party may believe that the deletion of votes resulting from the ‘SIR’ process undertaken by its own shop may not cause significant loss to their favorable majority votes. Furthermore, they might think that the more the opposition makes a fuss over the lost votes of a certain section, the more their own majority votes will consolidate. Amidst this squabbling for votes, no one cares about actual electoral reforms. No one is interested in the thousands of crores of black money flowing lavishly in every election. Nonetheless, it would be a welcome development if the protests built by the opposition and Gen Z on the functioning of the Election Commission bring even the slightest jolt to the system.

  • The Uncontainable Anger of India’s Disillusioned Youth

    “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history,” said Mahatma Gandhi. India now seems to be moving toward an indefinable change. The siege of Parliament on the first day of the Monsoon Session in the national capital on Monday by activists of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP)—who have been protesting for a month demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, holding him responsible for the NEET question paper leak—must be called a monumental development in recent times. Despite setting up four-tier barricades, deploying large-scale forces of the Rapid Action Force, CRPF, Delhi, and Tripura Police, closing metro stations, and shutting down the internet, the Cockroach army, thousands strong, charged up to the gates of Parliament. Even as the police beat them severely, the young men and women displayed sheer daring. The young people lying with injuries at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital are direct witnesses to Monday’s brutality.

    It is clear that the Modi government, which remained unmoved despite a decade of attacks and criticism from the opposition, has been put on the defensive by this incident of the cockroach rebellion. A BJP MP said that it is not important how many people participated in the movement launched by the Cockroach Party, but how much impact it had. “My father is a very important leader in the BJP. However, the unfolding developments are not very healthy…” said a youth who participated in the Jantar Mantar protest. “Where politicians fail, children will question,” said a student.

    In reality, the Cockroach Janata Party is not an organization. It is a crowd of directionless young men and women in the country’s contemporary history. Those who came to the protest at Jantar Mantar or participated in the procession did not come because someone paid them. No one arranged buses or trains for their arrival. The discussion happening merely on social media made them set out for Delhi. They did not come raging only over the NEET question paper leak. The young men and women who came were simply fed up with the problems faced by youth—especially unemployment, meager salaries, systemic flaws, and the machinations of political parties. Those who came to the Jantar Mantar protest site did not have a specific goal. Youth aged between 14–28 cannot be fitted into the mold of Left or Right ideologies. The Emergency is not part of their experience. They do not know about Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan, who once united the opposition. They lack even the experience of the Mandal and Kamandal movements. They have no memories of events that happened three decades ago. Struggling with contemporary issues, unable to decide what to do, with an uncertain future, and arriving with various questions… they are not bound by any traditional rules. Over the past four weeks, this protest platform served as a space where they asked their own questions and provided their own answers. That protest was widely publicized on social media. Examining alternative media sources makes one understand how concerned the youth were about the health condition of environmental activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has been on a hunger strike for more than three weeks.

    Believing that the opposition lacked credibility, that there was no alternative to them, and that whatever they did would pass, the Modi government seems to have underestimated the emergence of the Cockroach Janata Party. The Modi government was easily able to deal with the long-drawn protests by farmers over farm laws and Muslims over the Citizenship Amendment Act. It did not listen even to the cries of female wrestlers who questioned the assaults committed against them. Whichever movement occurred in the country, it adopted various means to damage its credibility. It berated the protesters with various names. The Modi government thought it would be enough to treat the surge of youth protest as a law-and-order issue and suppress it. As the Cockroach Party protest was reaching its peak, Delhi Police Commissioner Satish Golcha was removed and replaced by Anurag Kumar, who until then served as Special Director (Intelligence). As the in-charge of the Jammu & Kashmir desk, he played a key role in dismantling terrorist activities in Kashmir. There is no surprise in such a person attempting to suppress the youth protest with the same mindset.

    During the UPA government’s tenure as well, young men and women flooded the streets against the Nirbhaya rape incident. However, back then, social media was not as influential as it is now. There is no doubt that social media today has become an alternative media for the public. In fact, when Modi came to power, the BJP IT Cell carried out various campaigns to mobilize people, especially to inflame the emotions of Hindus. In particular, it made extensive use of WhatsApp groups. Today, those IT Cell campaigns seem to fade before the social media in the hands of the Gen Z generation. This development proves that if any campaign is not aligned with the sentiments of the people, it will not last long.

    The current generation has not failed to notice that the promises with which Modi came before the people have vanished into the background, and emotional issues have become the main agenda. Leave aside the failure to create jobs; they are closely observing the inability to conduct even exams properly, the failure to provide quality education, and the resorting to numerous machinations and unrighteous wars solely for the sake of power. Nevertheless, there is no evidence to say that the current generation is placing the opposition, especially the Congress, on a pedestal. It is an undeniable fact that for a decade, the Congress and other parties have failed to ignite public anger against Modi. However, no one expected that youth would step up where the opposition failed. If the Congress party had acted as a strong opposition and reflected the aspirations of the youth, the Cockroach Janata Party would not have emerged. It is an interesting point that many forces that failed to confront Modi are now visible in the Cockroach army.

    Strangely, on the first day of Parliament’s Monsoon Session, people did not care about the bills the government intended to introduce or the issues the opposition wanted to raise. The ‘Chalo Sansad’ call given by the Cockroach Janata Party received immense publicity. In a way, this development questioned not only the existence of the government but also the existence of the opposition. Congress leaders, who had been silent all this while on the Cockroach Janata Party protest, making a hue and cry about the lathi charge on the youth, or Rahul Gandhi protesting in front of the Prime Minister’s residence, are all part of Congress trying to prove its own existence. Time alone will tell whether Congress will resurrect itself as a strong opposition learning from the experience of the Cockroach Janata Party. Even for Modi, it is fortunate for the opposition to exist at least to some extent. Otherwise, there are chances of more entities like the Cockroach Janata Party being born.

    Moral responsibility has become an unacceptable taboo in present times. Today, there are no leaders like NTR, who made the entire cabinet resign because the budget was leaked, nor are there ministers who take responsibility and resign for train and plane accidents. When Dharmendra Pradhan is constantly utilized to win elections for the party, how can he focus on his ministerial responsibilities? It is true that Dharmendra Pradhan, who efficiently strategized for the BJP’s victories in Bihar, Haryana, and Bengal, did not manage his ministry efficiently. However, that mistake is not entirely his. Treating their party’s victory in elections as a matter of life and death and diverting all energy and skill in that direction is the cause of the failure of leaders like Dharmendra Pradhan. Will the Modi government act with sincerity at least now to take responsibility for the mistakes committed and build public trust in system institutions?