The rise of non-issues is the surest sign of impotent politicians. It seems incredible that serious politicians should believe that the urine of a cow and the content of a cake will determine the fate of Madhya Pradesh. You have to be truly contemptuous of the voter to believe this.
A mistake made by Rajiv Gandhi opened the way for religion to resurface at the top of the political discourse. Rajiv Gandhi confused, as many Congress leaders had done before him, the interests of Indian Muslims with the interests of Muslim fundamentalists in the Shah Bano case. The courts had granted an impoverished and aging Muslim divorcee from Bhopal called Shah Bano a pittance as alimony. The husband argued, in essence, that he was not answerable to Indian courts. Instead of seeking the wisdom of those who had dealt with Islamic law and knew that social legislation was amenable to reinterpretation in changing circumstances, Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress, driven by fear of losing the Muslims, inspired legislation that overturned the courts and maimed the credibility of the government. Then, having surrendered to the Muslim extreme, they thought they would appease the Hindu extreme by opening the locks of the disputed place of worship at Ayodhya at the point where the Babri Mosque was located.
L.K. Advani is not a politician who stares a gift horse in the mouth. Plus, he knew that this gift horse had solid teeth. He was the president of the BJP then, and with extraordinary craft, he created a movement out of still air. Advani gave the comatose BJP a second life, or perhaps its first one. When the storms of the Ayodhya movement finally calmed a bit, the BJP had beached on the threshold of power. It was helped of course by some more significant mistakes, but the course was set in 1988 and 1989.
Success, in politics as elsewhere, breeds imitation. One might reasonably expect others in need of resurrection to inject religiosity into their electoral campaigns. But the journey from Ayodhya to a cake at a Hanuman temple suggests that this idea may have run its course, for it has dribbled into the ridiculous.
The incident has all the excitement of a silly season. Apparently Uma Bharti, a maverick who is leading the BJP in the coming assembly elections, offered a cake, gifted by saffron supporters, as a sort of birthday prasad to Hanuman at the Jam Sanvli Hanuman Mandir in Betul. The Congress, with the help of helpful newspapers, threw up all its hands in horror. What was a cake, that foreign threat to Indian culture, doing in a mandir! This cake, moreover, was made with unholy non-vegetarian eggs! Soon, some of the wilder supporters of the chief minister, Digvijay Singh, were hinting that there might even have been beef in the cake. Since even beef-eating Christians do not beef up their cake, we can safely discount this last allegation. But what to do about the eggs? According to in-depth investigations done by selected newspapers, Uma Bharti’s fan club had tried to get a completely vegetarian cake, but could not find one. (I can’t think of a bakery that would readily have on offer a cake made of gobi.) So, rather than visit the birthday girl without any cake at all, they risked the possibility of egg on their face and turned up with cake and candles. The cake was presented to Uma Bharti, candles were lit, and presumably the cake was eaten in front of the deity.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I cannot quite believe that Uma Bharti, who made her name as a strident advocate of the demolition of the Babri Mosque, wanted to insult five thousand years of Hindu culture when she lit those western candles on a western cake. So what is the controversy meant to prove? That she has betrayed Hanuman? That she is a turncoat Hindu? That this makes her unworthy of being in politics? That Digvijay Singh would make a better chief minister because he would never ever ever ever eat an egged-cake before Hanuman?
This is pathetic.
Here is a list of reasons why Uma Bharti might not make a good chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. She has no experience in serious administration. Her tenure as a Union minister has been marked by a degree of excess and edginess that has forced the prime minister to give her portfolios where she can do what might be called least damage. She is in fact a better politician than a minister, and ideally suited for a party role rather than a responsible government job. Her sense of balance is not always sound, and if proof were needed it lies in the fact that she has demanded a CBI inquiry into the cake incident. (The CBI should not be trivialized in this manner; it is a police agency with some credibility, which will not survive if it ends up investigating how many eggs have been soaked up in cakes.) Her political record is such that minorities and tribals will be alienated by her presence, and that cannot be healthy for her government. Why cannot Digvijay Singh argue his case on substantive grounds?
The answer to that question could be very discomforting. Is it because he has lost the argument on real issues that false ones are being kicked into the air? He is a savvy leader, who knows how to work any constituency, from the elite to the starving. Five years ago, when he was seeking re-election, he did not need to think of cakes and cow urine, and so there was no hint of either.
It is not that the electorate is indifferent to such froth. People enjoy gossip, and if they can laugh at anyone who takes their votes and leaves them to their fate then they will do so at every opportunity, irrespective of party loyalties. But people do not cast their votes by the drift of bubbles that escape from froth.
The difference between fickle and serious politics was illustrated by Digvijay Singh’s neighbor Ashok Gehlot. Rajasthan’s chief minister did not seek a confrontation with Praveen Togadia, but when “Trishul” Togadia crossed a civil line, Gehlot did not hesitate to stand by the law. He does not have the flamboyance or skill of his fellow Congress chief minister, but Gehlot’s firmness will be remembered long after Digvijay Singh’s cake has turned into dust.
There are no absolute theories in politics, and which factor influences the voter to which extent is a problem that gives more headaches than can be counted. But there is enough empirical evidence to suggest that an emotive issue works only once in a very long while, and only when it is supported by visceral, gut-wrenching events. No amount of trishul distribution could change the mood and help the BJP in Himachal Pradesh. One gets the feeling that all the cakes in the world, with or without eggs, may not help Digvijay Singh this time.
The voter’s equation with any government is clear: he wants a better life in return for the vote. He measures the quality of life in specific terms: infrastructure (electricity, water, roads), services (cleanliness, health care, education) and that very visible invisible called law and order. This is the ideology of life. This is why Sheila Dikshit is the one chief minister who is going to do well in the coming elections. In her five years in power in Delhi state, she has skillfully skirted any temptation toward pandering the voter on non-serious issues, and stuck to her agenda of creating a better life for the citizen of her state.
The most stunning electoral defeat in the history of democracy occurred when Winston Churchill was demolished by Labour just after he had led Britain to victory in World War II: the electorate trusted Churchill with guns and courage, but not with bread and butter. George Bush Sr. won the first Gulf War and thought he had re-election wrapped up. In a famous story, he gathered his senior advisers a couple of months before the 1992 elections and said, with a big smile, “Can you imagine Bill Clinton sitting in this chair?” Everyone guffawed. Clinton sat in that chair for eight years and would have remained longer if the law permitted him to do so. George Bush Jr. has been told by his wiser friends (there are a few who do not belong to the Pentagon-Bible Belt lobby) that the fact that the two million jobs that have been lost in America under his watch may count more with the electorate next year than the fall of Baghdad. Clinton created 23 million jobs in his eight years; that is why he remained popular till his last day in office. Such instances are replicated in every democracy, and it is evident that these facts have not been lost on the BJP-led coalition in Delhi. Vajpayee and Advani are putting together a cogent package on core bread-and-peace issues as they prepare to face the electorate next year.
There are instances in electoral history where a party on the wrong side of this ideological divide has managed to reverse sentiment, but that is extremely rare. The coming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are going to be normal. Normal elections are generally bad news for the party in power, as the BJP discovered in Himachal Pradesh.
The wonder is that trivia continues to remain irresistible. Trivia creates news. It does not create election results.
Arab News Opinion 27 April 2003
