Difference between Modi wave and Anti-Modi Sentiment is ..... Power & Politics/The Sunday Standard/April 27, 2014

Difference Between Modi Wave and Anti-Modi Sentiment is About 100 Seats

The Indian meteorological department is a whimsical prognosticator, failing to predict the weather—including storms—quite often. Fierce arguments break out over its efficacy, but with fewer loyalists than cynics. A similar battle is on over political forecasting, with fewer takers for contrarians. Fair weather birds have started migrating to safer climes, so that they can be sighted and counted, while prancing and preening in the changed weather. From boardrooms to newsrooms, Gujarat CM Narendra Modi is seen as manna from heaven; one who can redeem India’s miserable millions, including the richie rich, from despair. The media has already crowned Modi India’s next PM. Ironically, those who vilified him as a monster a decade ago are now scrambling to either sit next to him or bask in his shadow. Undoubtedly, Modi is one of the most successful and effective CMs who have delivered on many fronts without facing a single corruption charge in the last 12 years. Nevertheless, his marketing skills, coupled with schisms in the BJP, made him the most sought-after leader in the world’s largest democracy.

In the age of instant data creation and ready-to-offer opinion, political astrology has never been so easy. If there are 10 people in a drawing room, at least seven are willing to wager their last paisa on Modi as PM. Most of them hate the BJP, but they feel India deserves Modi. If one calls it a Modi Wave, another terms it an impending tsunami, which will uproot evil outfits like the Left, AAP and Congress. According to various opinion polls, self-appointed pollsters and academicians, Modi would gather a maximum of 280 and a minimum of 225 seats. No logic, however, is offered for this calculation. Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India’s most popular non-Congress leader ever, couldn’t win more than 183 seats for the BJP. Even in 1977, when the entire north and west India was united against the Congress, the rookie Janata Party couldn’t seize more than 285 seats. In 1989, V P Singh, riding the Bofors scandal, could muster just 140 seats; that too with the support of the BJP and Left. In 2004, the same oracles had written off the Congress, which made a triumphant comeback. Now, traumatised, it is paying a heavy price for non-governance and scams. Nor does it have regional satraps who can swing an election its way.

The anti-Congress vote is making Modi India’s most probable PM. Predicting seats, however, is more difficult that winning them. Since Modi appears to be contesting all the 400 BJP seats, the outcome will be decided by his popularity and acceptability. If there is a wave, it should be visible in all the seats and get converted into winning numbers. A close analysis of around 50 constituencies reveals that Modi is a premier brand name. The numerical difference between a Modi Wave and the anti-Modi sentiment is about 100 seats (see graphic). The BJP would undoubtedly emerge as the single largest party. But its capacity to form the government on its own is the real issue. The BJP is likely to snatch seats only from the Congress and not from any major regional party. It is in a direct fight with the Congress in less than 250 seats, out of which it already holds over 100, and the Congress around 150. In order to cross the 200-mark, the BJP has to gain at least 100 seats from the Congress, which could lose around 20 of its 116 current Lok Sabha seats. The BJP is in no position to take seats away from Mamata, Mayawati, Jayalalithaa, the Left and from the Northeast parties. This can happen only if Modi can break caste, community and regional barriers, which his promoters are confident about. If the Modi wave is able to demolish traditional voting patterns, the BJP alone could cross over 240 seats. But if Modi fails to successfully exploit anti-incumbency disgust and convert his personal popularity into votes, the BJP may not even cross its current record of 180 seats. If he fails to break Vajpayee’s record, he will be seen as leader with more hype than substance. His detractors and even some of his current companions would turn around and say the NDA lost in 2004 because of the Modi factor and has failed now because he converted the battle into Modi vs the Rest.

 prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Battle 2014 is between visible Modi ...... Power & Politics /The Sunday Standard/April 20, 2014

Battle 2014 is Between Visible Modi and Invisible Club of Other CMs 

May 16 will mark an inglorious rite of passage. The top-down economic model of an outgoing Prime Minister will fade into a lugubrious sunset. It could also, perhaps, signal the debut of a bottom-upwards political model in Indian parliamentary democracy. If opinion polls and media hype are proved right, India would have a PM who is not the nominee of any New Delhi cabal. For the first time, the power to choose a head of government appears to be shifting from Lutyen’s Delhi to state capitals. For the first time, no political party can stymie the anointment of a grassroots leader as India’s 15th Prime Minister. It is certain that either a sitting or a former CM would move into 7 Race Course Road. Though Narendra Modi is the only CM who has been officially declared as a PM candidate, others like J Jayalalithaa, Mamata Banerjee and former CMs such as Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Chandrababu Naidu consider themselves credible candidates for the catbird seat. In the new political taxonomy, old is gold and experience is bliss. Instead of powerful party forums like parliamentary boards, it will be a formidable club of current and former CMs who would not only choose the next PM from among themselves, but will also dictate the colour and size of the next government.

Modi is not the only CM in the fray who aspires to be PM, but he is the only CM to contest without quitting his post. Twenty-nine other former CMs are seeking entry into Parliament from various states. Karnataka, with six former CMs in the ring, tops the list followed by five from Uttar Pradesh. Three are from Uttarakhand; two each from Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand. Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Northeast, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh have one each. Of these, there are three former women CMs. The JD(U) has chosen Ram Sundar Das, a 90-year old former CM from Bihar, to fight under its standard. Arvind Kejriwal, 49-year-old and 49-day CM of Delhi, is Modi’s challenger in Varanasi—he is not only the youngest but also has the least governing experience among former CMs. Sushma Swaraj had served in the same job for less than 100 days. In Karnataka, H D Devegowda and elder son H D Kumaraswamy have been CMs. Since Lalu Prasad is barred from contesting elections, his wife Rabari Devi—a former CM—is engaged in her maiden contest for the Saran Lok Sabha seat. The other former CMs in the fight are Purno Sangma, Babulal Marandi, Shibu Soren, Farooq Abdullah and Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The maximum number of this fancy fellowship belongs to the BJP with 10 former and sitting CMs. The Congress has put up eight former CMs. Undoubtedly, the former is totally committed to installing Modi as the next PM, but two former saffron CMs Rajnath Singh and Sushma are considered to be powerful alternatives in case Modi fails to make it. Others in this genre are Uma Bharti from Uttar Pradesh and Shanta Kumar from Himachal Pradesh. The BJP has also chosen three former CMs from one picayune state, Uttarakhand, to join the MODI4PM battle. In Himachal Pradesh too, the situation is the same. In Karnataka, Sadanand Gowda and B S Yeddyurappa are fighting to secure their seats. The beleaguered Congress has also chosen former CMs to bolster its electoral prospects. It has asked Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and Ashok Chavan to contest from Maharashtra, Dharam Singh and Veerappa Moily from Karnataka, Amarinder Singh from Punjab, Giridhar Gomango from Odisha, Ghulam Nabi Azad from Jammu and Kashmir, and Shankersinh Vaghela from Gujarat.

It is not just mere coincidence that the two national parties have made their old and tested former state satraps pick up the poll gauntlet. Ironically, both outfits have been verbosely vehement about the role of new voters and young leaders, but when it came to selecting crucial candidates, over 70 per cent of party tickets were granted to leaders 65 years old and above. Most of the contesting former CMs are in their late 60s; some even in their 70s. Both Modi and Rahul are convinced that by fielding these venerables, their outfits would not only win their own seats but also ensure the victory of their favourites elsewhere. And their spheres of influence would come in useful in determining the formation of the next government at the Centre.

In case none of the contesting former CMs make it to South Block, one of the running CMs would claim the Prime Minister’s chair. Only two regional parties—the TMC and AIADMK—have formally announced the candidature of their respective liege ladies, Mamata and Jayalalithaa, because both leaders can capture over 30 seats each in their states. Prominent non-BJP and non-Congress leaders have already started informal power parleys with various current and former CMs, including Mulayam Singh and Mayawati. Their objective is not only to stop ‘Ab ki Baar, Modi Sarkar’, but also to promote a third alternative. Now it appears that Modi was aware of the combined power of the Chief Ministers’ Club. While unfolding his model of governance, Modi promised that he would constitute a council of chief ministers, which would take decisions in the national interest and protect the stakes of all states. But so far, he hasn’t found any traction as other CMs feel that their experience in dealing with PMs is superior. Almost all other former and current CMs, barring Naidu, have spurned Modi’s indirect overtures. In the next couple of weeks, it would be evident that the battle of 2014 is not between Modi and Rahul. It is not even between the Congress and BJP. It is between a highly visible Chief Minister like Modi and a wily, invisible club of other chief ministers. Who will make it to New Delhi? The jury is still out.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla
 

Bread and Butter have expiry dateds ....... Power & Politics/The New Indian Express/April 12, 2014

Bread and Butter Have Expiry Dates, But Divide and Rule is Forever

It’s a battle between two paladins belonging to two political potentates jousting bitterly to capture the throne room in 7 Race Course Road. Azam Khan and Amit Shah have nothing in common by way of ideology, culture or governance. Amit is known as the Hanuman of BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Damodar Bhai Modi. Azam is famous for doing malevolent communal combat on behalf of Netaji Mulayam Singh Yadav. Both Modi and Mulayam have given complete freedom of expression to their cohorts to the extent that both liegemen are able to alter national political discourse and dictate the agenda for Elections 2014. If there are individuals who can define and rewrite ideologies, there are others who can erase them with equal aplomb.

Azam and Amit have come to symbolise the politics of hate and revenge. While the latter is facing legal scrutiny for his alleged role in the Gujarat riots, Azam is under investigation for making communal remarks against the Indian Army. Ironically, both have held preponderous positions in party and government. It is not a coincidence that neither of the two is known for providing good governance. Their expertise lies in the art of intimidation using all available instruments of power and persuasion. With Azam and Amit engaged in a combat of epithets, Uttar Pradesh is the only state in which elegies for issues like development and good governance are already being composed. Other parties are parroting the divisive discourse discharged by the differing duo by offering a slightly refined version of their minatory monologues, which are dividing voters along communal lines. Two weeks ago, Akhilesh Yadav, perhaps India’s youngest CM, was holding forth on technology, highways, metro rail and hospitals as his agenda for governance. All the political parties hawked women empowerment, health, education, law and order and child welfare as the main attractions of their manifesto bazaar. But A&A brought the focus back on themselves and delegated their leaders into mere poster boys.

For the past two weeks, A&A have successfully altered the contours of political debate. As Uttar Pradesh with 80 seats would decide the nature of next government, the divisive duo is leaving little to chance to polarise the electorate. As Amit’s electoral road map upholds, it is evident that he was chosen not to just set up and revive a highly divided and demoralised BJP in UP, but also to convert the battle ground into They vs Us. From the choice of candidates to the selection of talking points, Amit has successfully ensured that the UP elections be fought using emotional issues riding the hardcore Hindutva gestalt. According to party insiders, he played a key role in persuading Modi to fight from Varanasi, the undeclared capital of hardcore Hindutva. It would be for the first time that an outsider—and that too a backward caste individual like Modi—would be contesting from a Brahmin-dominated constituency. After touring the state for over a month and confabulating with various middle-level BJP satraps, Amit convinced his leadership, including Modi, that UP could be won only if the party is able to revive the Hindutva forces, which gave it 58 seats in 1999 and brought the BJP to power in the state in 1992. Amit had done his homework well. Even in 1967, the Jan Sangh won over 90 seats in UP because of the police firing against Hindu saints who were protesting against cow slaughter in Parliament in 1966. BJP has always performed miserably in UP whenever it didn’t play up core issues like Ram Mandir, Uniform Civil Code etc.

For Amit, Muzzafarnagar came as a Ram-sent opportunity to reap a huge electoral harvest. A fiery orator and a master strategist, last year’s riot was the glue he used to unite Hindutva forces. Read the subtext of his speech carefully, which was carried by both the electronic and print media. He told party workers, “The election is about voting out the government that protects and gives compensation to those who killed Jats,” and used the words badla (revenge) and izzat (honour), perhaps deliberately. He followed it up with yet another provocative remark—“By voting for Modi, you will be doing two things. You will bring him to the Centre and you will uproot Mullah Mulayam from Lucknow.”

If Amit was determined to unite his hardcore base, how could Azam drag his feet? After all, he was given the mandate to ensure that minorities came out in full force to vote for his party. He even invoked minority supremacy in the Army’s role in the Kargil war. Of course, it was for the first time that a minority leader was asserting that Muslims were as powerfully nationalist as the saffron brigade. Claimed Azam: “Those who fought in Kargil weren’t Hindu soldiers. In fact, the ones who fought for our victory were Muslim soldiers.”

Azam and Amit wouldn’t have taken to confrontationist communal posturing unless their promoters gave them the nod to change the direction of political engagement. During the past few weeks, there has been a competitive bid by leaders of almost all the parties to acquire Muslims leaders as magic mascots at any cost. If Modi and his brigade were displaying retired Muslim civil servants and disgruntled Muslim leaders from Bihar to dispel the widely believed perception about Modi’s unacceptability among the minorities, Congress president Sonia Gandhi invited Imam Bukhari to her home to seek his support for her party. Interestingly, the Election Commission received more complaints from various political parties on religion being used to influence voters than it did in the last two elections. The maximum numbers were from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. It is clear that over 250 million voters in 120 seats of both heartland states were being wooed not to make them more prosperous but to preserve their religious identity as vote blocs. For Indian politicians, issues like bread and butter have expiry dates. But what lives forever is the policy of divide and rule. The next few weeks will see more and more Azams and Amits who will excoriate and dominate the political markets.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me  on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Manmohan is History....... Power & Politics/The Sunday Standard/April 06, 2014

Manmohan is History, but Last Leg of Advani's Run Begins May 16

It’s a spellbinding tale of two titans riding into the sunset. One has a record for being the third longest-serving PM. The other has an unfulfilled dream of making it to 7 RCR even after two elections. PM Manmohan Singh and L K Advani, the titular chairman of the inactive NDA, have become pariahs in their homes. Even the claqueurs they promoted and protected during their shining days treat them with disdain. In 2009, both were star campaigners for their parties. Both were declared their party’s PM candidates in advance. Congress never missed an opportunity to market Manmohan as India’s consensus builder and global leader. Advani was hailed as strong and decisive regnant—the real inheritor of Sardar Patel’s legacy. Every piece of publicity material of both parties carried their pictures proclaiming their seigniory.

Come 2014, and their own parties do not want them. As Bob Dylan sang, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”, the coup de théâtre is that both LKA and MMS—hailed as architects of a resurgent BJP and a prosperous India respectively—are now perceived as destroyers of the edifices they raised. The names of neither leader appear on the list of their party’s key campaigners, submitted to the EC, even as a mere formality. There is no demand for either of them to address rallies. If Narendra Modi, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have spoken at over 200 meetings each, Advani and Manmohan aren’t expected to address more than 20 each.

The reasons for the ignominy of each leader are different. Advani has been in politics for over six decades. He led a movement, which brought his party to power in 1996 under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He groomed the current leadership of the BJP by appointing them CMs and giving them national responsibilities, even at the risk of ignoring the claims of senior satraps. The BJP’s Iron Man of Yesterday holds the world record of undertaking the longest-ever yatra for the purpose of uniting his party and carrying the Hindutva message through the country. Advani, along with Vajpayee, made BJP what it is today. Advani was, in fact, its soul and body; Vajpayee its moderate face. But the party’s poor performance in 2009 and Vajpayee’s infirmities forcing him to opt out of tasks of politics led Advani’s position to become vulnerable. The first sign of his plummeting acceptability was visible during the recent Assembly polls in which most BJP chief ministers were unwilling to invite him to campaign. Moreover, portraits of both Advani and Vajpayee, which used to hold permanent pride of place in the party’s publicity material started to vanish from electoral horizons of saffron states. Now, one can hardly find Advani’s picture on a poster or a hoarding put up for a BJP candidate.

Modi’s supporters have ensured that his bête noire doesn’t share any platform with Gujarat’s lord of the ascendant in any part of the country. So far, the old warhorse hasn’t been invited onstage to any rally in which Modi is main speaker. In a cruel irony, Advani—BJP’s leader, ideologue and philosopher—has been reduced to being just another name in the list of over a dozen members of the parliamentary board. The sanguine suzerain who carried BJP out of political untouchability and brought over 20 parties to its fold is today not even consulted or informed about alliances with other parties, which still respect him more than any leader in BJP. His inability to anticipate and understand the winds of change within his own party led to erosion of his supremacy. Never did he expect that his followers would stab him in the back one day.

A leader who once had the veto over the selection of even a member of a state Assembly has been denied the right to choose his seat. Advani, however, still commands a following among the old guard and a sizeable section of middle-level cadres who see in him a leader to admire—one with frugal habits and simple living. Prominent leaders like Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and over a dozen state party paladins still regard him as the symbol of BJP’s ideology. It is thanks to them that he has survived in the party and is still seen unleashing his oratory at rallies. It was the small but formidable support Advani commands within the rank and file that forced Modi to accompany him when he went to file his nomination from Gandhinagar. To the dismay of detractors, Advani continues to be an institution and not just an individual.

On another front, it is Sonia Gandhi and Congress which made MMS what he is today. The PM has never been seen as a person with political mettle to lead his party. Sonia appointed him PM because he was apolitical and wouldn’t pose any challenge to the Gandhi Parivar. During the UPA’s 2004-09 reign, he delivered on governance not because of his administrative prowess but primarily due to the effect of the global economic upsurge. MMS provided multinationals an easy market for making fast money and gave them concessions to create services and invest in markets instead of manufacturing. As the winter of global recession set in 2009, India’s vulnerability was exposed; the national growth rate plunged to a decade’s record low of less than 5 per cent. His introverted paralysis led to his failure in leading the government. Yet, his pickthank megaphones never missed an opportunity to blame the Gandhis and dual centres of power for the massive failures and scams hobbling the UPA. For the past few months, many of his ministers have been defying him. They found excuses for not inviting him to any of their ministries’ functions. Now portraits of him—so prominent in 2009 posters of the Congress—have vanished. If Advani still holds a place in his party, the Congress is eagerly waiting for MMS to make a graceful exit. The party had been dropping myriad signals, which forced the PM to announce his retirement way before the elections. While it is certain that MMS will be history after the polls, the writing of the last chapter of Advani’s 60-year-old political Yatra will begin only after May 16.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Admitting anyone in Party poses a Threat .... Power & Politics/The Sunday Standard/March 23, 2014

Admitting Anyone in Party Poses a Threat Not only to Moditva But Also Modi Himself

Colonel Sona Ram surely doesn’t belong to GenNext. At 71, the former Congress Jat general has been chosen by Team Modi to replace 76-year-old BJP Rajput warhorse Major Jaswant Singh. For the BJP, former finance, external affairs and defence minister is a loser. But Sona Ram who lost his Assembly election as a Congress candidate from Rajasthan just six months ago is suddenly an asset. It is true that he has excelled himself in acquiring assets. As a Congress MP in 2004 from Barmer, Sona Ram’s election affidavit revealed assets worth Rs 1.53 crore which had, presto, risen to Rs 3.11 crore when he filed his nomination as the Congress candidate for the Baytoo Assembly segment. As a member of the ruling Congress, his assets saw a behemothic rise when he was re-nominated in 2013, having zoomed vertically to Rs 17 crore. Next, let’s take Jagdambika Pal, a Congress defector from Uttar Pradesh to the saffron bandwagon. He was elected from Domariyaganj twice in 2004 and 2009. His assets were just `10 lakh in 2004 but crossed almost Rs 5 crore in 2009. He holds the world record for being the only UP leader to have perched briefly on the chief minister’s seat for just 24 hours. Ironically, both Atal Bihari and L K Advani had sat on dharna in front of the Rashtrapati Bhawan against his midnight installation as chief minister.

The dilemma of debate begins here. Does the BJP’s hearty welcome extended to Sona Ram and Jagdambika Pal punctures its claim of a Modi wave sweeping the country? Or does it signal its growing acceptability among various sections of the political spectrum?  Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between the two extremes. Accepting defectors from the Congress does betray the BJP’s tremulous state of confidence, since this would mean it is not sure that its own trusted and loyal workers would ensure a win in these constituencies. Already, the party has bolstered this impression by letting its leaders choose ‘safe’ seats for themselves at the cost of even replacing those who had earlier won these constituencies. Now the race is on to hug, kiss and make up with anyone and anybody. The BJP’s witenagemote is snooping around to sniff out for any form of dissident and disgruntled elements in other parties and admitting them into their fold. Horse-trading and party hopping is unfortunately de riguer on the eve of every election. Since the Ruling Party of India (RPI) is perceived as a sinking ship, many of its members are making a beeline to the BJP headquarters—former diplomats, army officers, senior retired civil servants, culture vultures, cine stars and opinion writers; all expecting some crumbs in case the saffron flag comes to fly over Delhi. Most of them have been the UPA’s megalomaniacal megaphones and have competed to paint Modi as the monster for most of the past decade. It is because of the choreographed entry of fair weather birds that the original development thrust of the Modi-for-PM campaign is getting diluted. On top of it, the BJP is now even brokering electoral weddings with those parties which are opposed to its ideology of nationalism and a united India. Even committed party cadres feel sandbagged by the recent decision to align with five Dravidian parties, which have been associated with the LTTE. But in its endeavour to erase its stigma of untouchability, the BJP leadership doesn’t mind embracing them to prove its adversaries wrong. Undoubtedly, the party cannot expect to win a single seat in the south unless it finds a credible confrere. The party won both in 1998 and 1999 because L K Advani was able to add trustworthy allies like the DMK or AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, BJD in Odisha and TMC in West Bengal. Later, the BJP also forged alliances with Ajit Singh’s RLD and JMM in Jharkhand. It was for the first time that over a dozen regional parties with formidable local clout accepted Vajpayee’s leadership and unconditionally supported his government.

In its desperate search for winning friends and influencing people, the BJP appears to be changing both colours and contours. For the first time, it is undergoing a massive metamorphosis. The new BJP would not be a party led by ideology-led leaders. It is facing a serious threat of a takeover by those who had no connection with the Sangh Parivar. The speed with which former Congressmen are being admitted in the BJP, the day is not far when people may find it difficult to tell one from the other. So far, only economics had erased the difference between the two national parties. Soon, they will also physically look alike. The BJP sees leaders like Advani, Jaswant Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, Kalyan Singh, Arun Shourie, Uma Bharti and more as liabilities, while defectors like Sona Ram and Jagdambika Pal are perceived as the most productive assets. The party has sidelined many veterans in various states to accommodate opportunists. Even an indirectly favourable statement made by Mehbooba Mufti, a highly vociferous supporter of separatist tendencies thanks to her political compulsions, is interpreted as an endorsement for Moditva. A few inaudible and disjointed words spoken by M K Alagiri, Karunanidhi’s rebellious son, are projected as rising support for the saffron party. These are good omens for the BJP but it also means that it doesn’t mind making deals for the sake of acquiring power at any cost at the Centre. The art of making compromises was so far the monopoly of the Congress. It did not hesitate to strike an accord with Sharad Pawar, who had resigned from the Congress over the issue of Sonia’s foreign citizenship. It welcomed the DMK, which was accused of supporting Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins. The Congress, however, has never been as liberal in admitting BJP leaders to its fold as the BJP appears to be, getting tainted and infamous Congress leaders into its clasp. It is now time for Modi to assert himself. Does he want a party of committed cadre, which believes in his development agenda and decisive leadership? Or will he allow the party to admit anyone who would pose a threat not only to Moditva but also challenge the authority of Modi himself.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Only way Messenger won't be shot.... Power & Politics/The Sunday Standard/ March 16, 2014

Only Way Messenger Won't be Shot is if the Message Delivered is Truthful

The message is increasingly becoming irrelevant. Now messengers are targets. Political parties will welcome any herald as long as the words brought are the ones that cheer. The political narrative of the General Elections has become a saga of ugly confrontation. Now leaders not only insist on choosing the messenger, they also dictate the message. Arvind Kejriwal, the progenitor of a novel politics of change, has set a precedent by announcing his intention to send all renitent media to jail. His anger may have been well placed. After all he is new to politics and has also been a media darling, unused to improbation. Most of us saw little wrong in his style or substance because he was fighting to engender a clean and transparent establishment. The press gave him maximum exposure before and after he joined politics. He and his party were cynosures of the media’s adoring eyes. Once Kejriwal stepped into active politics, each and every move came under the media’s unforgiving lens. As much as his questioning of pedestal pendragons were given prominence, queries raised about his party also got equal billing. The same yardsticks applied to probing his adversaries were used on his effervescently successful political outfit too.

But the gap between conduct of crusader Kejriwal and the rest of the political class seems be diminishing fast. As leaders acquire clout, acceptability and legitimacy, they start behaving like monarchs. They forget arrogance brings agony. Once Kejriwal became part of the system, his party adopted the same tactics as mainline parties of intimidating critics. His mission may be diametrically different, but his methods are the same as of his opponents. He perhaps believes that if other political outfits can dictate terms to the media, why can’t he with a clean track record. The media is now confronted with a situation in which the establishment has forged a coalition to defame, deter and decide its survival.

 

With the enormous growth of the media forcing it to adopt the perilous path of competitive journalism, parties have acquired the monopoly in deciding content of not only the electronic media but also of print. They now decide which anchor or club of reporters should be obliged. They also dictate kind of analysts to be invited for discussions. Should any channel exhibit defiance, they would spread the word that it should be boycotted. Moreover, parties have made it almost impossible for journalists to cover events unless the content provided by them is used without raising questions—a trend started by BJP’s PM candidate whose team understood the economic weakness of the Indian media. The BJP was the first to provide controlled feeds of rallies addressed by Modi to be telecast live for hours. For months, viewers were not informed that the ‘live’ footage was in reality provided by the party. When Rahul Gandhi learnt about the practice, a copycat Congress hired dedicated camera teams and asked the channels to carry footage the party provided. Even a regional leader like Mulayam Singh Yadav could persuade the electronic media to broadcast his rallies live using a captive system. But Kejriwal’s meetings received coverage without a penny being spent. Thus, by laying out their terms, political parties escaped the usual media scrutiny on their functioning.

Earlier, interviews of those who were herded to the rallies would be carried; empty spaces in the audience shown; and the focus would be on the hidden aspects of choreographed election events. Now the spotlight is only on the leader’s speech followed by a debate by a panel that includes collaborative columnists. Kejriwal perhaps has a point when he alleges that the media has become uncharitable to him because he is questioning the role of tycoons in the elections and the influence of big business on media coverage. For decades, the Indian media has been quite charitable towards India Inc. Barring a few exceptions, the media has abjured following corporate shenanigans and malpractices, in contrast to the vigour it brings to any dissection of the political system. But Kejriwal and supporters feel journalists have been partial towards select leaders; at the same time running a campaign against political parties.

Most newspapers and channels treat some leaders as sacrosanct compared to others even in the same party, and have unknowingly carried stories fed by them without questioning their intentions. According to media researchers, three individuals—Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi—have been given over 60 per cent prime time coverage by channels and over 50 per cent space meant for political news in the print media. According to a TV analyst, for the past seven months, Modi directly or indirectly has grabbed over 600 hours of TV space, against over 450 hours by Kejriwal and less than 300 hours by Rahul. Interestingly, the media has given extensive coverage to AAP’s second-rung leaders and a few BJP satraps while ignoring stalwarts like Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj and Nitin Gadkari.  In spite of getting such extensive publicity, none of them have spared the media. If Kejriwal has now chosen it as his latest target, the media must also share the blame. The Indian media has survived many sinister attacks on its independence. It will overcome many more if it places less emphasis on bytes, speeches, selective opinion, collusive debates and promoting class leaders at the cost of grassroots leaders. The messenger, too, would then survive the might of any political nemesis if the message delivered is truthful, irrespective of colours and contours.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla