The electioneering for the 15th Lok Sabha polls has been thoroughly disgraceful. Not in the last sixty odd years has one witnessed so such mud-slinging, so much hatred openly exhibited as in these insufferably tormented weeks of national elections. It is all very well to say that all this is inevitable in a democracy, especially in a democracy such as India, involving so many linguistic and caste divisions, the like of which just do not exist anywhere else in the world. In that sense India is unique.
But surely, we are a grown-up nation with a sophisticated citizenry that doesn'thave to belied to or lightly treated? But that is exactly what has been most noticeable throughout April till mid-May to one'sutter disgust. The crowning shoddiness of it all was the announcement that the Italian businessman-cum middleman Ottavio Quattrocchi, the only surviving suspect in the Bofors pay-off case, has been dropped from the Interpol'swanted list at the behest of sick CBI. Why did the CBI have to behave the way it did? Couldn'tit have waited to wash its hands off the case till a new government came to power in June 2009? Where was the hurry?
According to a former CBI Director, Joginder Singh, the investigating agency had documents which showed that Quattrocchi had allegedly received $7.2 million in kickbacks in the Bofors Scam. The Indian police wanted him. Quattrocchi ran away from India with the connivance of the Congress government then led by PV Narasimha Rao. The CBI tried to get him extradited first from Malayasia in 2003 and later from Argentina in 2007. On both occasions it failed. Did it really try hard? No one can say. Was the matter of his release of such importance that the UPA government could not wait? Or is it that based on reports from various centres, the Congress came to the conclusion that it would probably not be returned to power and the Gandhi family would do well to bestow one last favour on a friend before the UPA calls it a day? That looks more likely. Can it really be that the Congress has tried hard to capture public imagination but has failed at the polling booth?
The voter turn out has been from poor to miserable. Most of the time it has hovered round 50 per cent, which is not much of much. It would appear that only those who were firmly convinced that their favourite party should get into the government seat in Delhi, cast their votes. And the finger points towards the BJP. But why, one would like to know, has the voter count been so low? Could it be that disillusionment has set in on a vast and unsuspected scale among the electorate? And what can that be attributed to?
The truth of the matter is that few?if any?parties displayed any vision to present to the public. Nehru could speak of establishing a socialistic pattern of society; Indira Gandhi could speak of garibi hatao, no matter what a fake promise it was and turned out to be. Rajiv Gandhi won on an emotional issue?the assassination of his mother?but by the time he had to face another electorate, Congress had got entangled with the Bofors Scandal. Since then it has lost its way in the thickest of coalition politics. What is frightening to think is the likely kind of coalition of forces that might come to power with no conceived perception of what the future holds and how to meet its requirements. The concept of Third and Fourth Fronts, in the very nature of things, is an affront to democracy. With neither the Congress nor the BJP expected to get a clear majority, the prospects of some one from the feckless fronts making it to the Prime Ministership pose a painful possibility. What have we come to? What kind of vision can a coalition of visionless parties run by third rate politicians present, precisely at a time when a tremendous sense of purpose in the seat of power is called for as our western neighbour is due to break into pieces?
Can a collection of the whole miserable lot of jokers provide a leadership that is so momentously needed? Where international relations are concerned, they are not just illiterate: they are untutored duds and total failures. We need a Prime Minister with an intellectual and political sophistication unmatched in the past who can deal with an aggressive United States and demoralised Pakistan. The tragedy is that no one seems to have understood the sub-continent'simmediate needs. Each petty political party has only one aim: to capture a share of power at Delhi for purely selfish ends, not for building a new India. And such a new India almost overnight as it were, seems a distinct possibility as we witness events in Pakistan. What if it gets drowned in chaos? What if it breaks up into its component unites? What if the United States takes over the reins of office in Islamabad?
It is well to remember that at the height of the Vietnam War it was the United States that was practically running the country. If the Taliban is not destroyed in the time stipulated by Washington, what can one expect? The marginalisation of the civil administration?such as it is ? of Zardari? Will the Pakistan Army allow itself to be ordered around by an Islamabad?based Viceroy appointed by Barack Obama? And how long can such an administration last? Will the chasm between the barbaric Wahabbi-centred Taliban and a liberal Muslim middle class grow to a point where the latter can cry for Indian help?
Pakistan has reached such a stage that it needs to be liberated not only from a vile Taliban but also from the United States, a victim of its own past policies. Can India then be the liberator? What should be its role in the coming weeks and months? Can any coalition government really face the issue confronting it next door? What if there is a reverse migration, with liberal Pakistani Muslims streaming in their thousands into Indian territory? There are several possibilities that need to be taken into consideration. Punjab may not wish to come to India. Sind may.
What our politicians must realise is that right at this moment we are living at one of the nodal points in history when two nations born in the midst of hatred and distrust can become, if luminous statesmanship is exercised, one again, not through bloodshed but through the exercise of natural historical forces undreamt of in the past. We Indians have to look beyond the immediacy of who will rule in India and hand over power to one who has the will and capacity to work towards establishing a scamless India from the heights of Hindu Kush to the wavewashed shores of Kanya Kumari. History beckons and warm, friendly India must play its role in re-writing it.
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