India’s future political masters

arsa · #1 Monday, January 12, 2009

Priyanka Bhardwaj
1/12/2009

The run up to India’s general elections in summer 2009 requires a legislative majority within the democratic idiom. Most analysts agree that the ‘pack of three’, Rahul Gandhi, Mayawati and Narendra Modi will play crucial roles in the world’s biggest democracy India.
Rahul Gandhi, Congress scion
In 2008, 37-year-old Rahul Gandhi became the Congress party general secretary, considered a pivotal post. This is believed to be a ‘grooming program’ for the future Prime Ministerial candidate.

Rahul is the fourth generation scion to India’s first political family the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has led the Congress Party for 124 years and dominated the political landscape for 4-decades of independent India.

Rahul’s great grandfather, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, grand mother, Indira Gandhi and father Rajiv Gandhi, were India’s Prime Ministers, and mother, Sonia Gandhi, heads the governing coalition and ranks among the most powerful global politicians, according to myriad polls.

In the 2004 general elections to the Lok Sabha (popular house of Parliament), Rahul picked up the dynastic gauntlet from the Amethi constituency, in a northern state of Uttar Pradesh (UP).

The shy, bespectacled, Cambridge educated, toured the dusty, pot holed heartland of UP that supports a population of 170 millions, more than the combined population of Russia and Australia, when his mother Sonia nursed a weak health.

Desperate to carve a niche, Rahul’s speeches have a characteristic sprinkling of ‘change and development,’ taking on corruption, secularism and employment. His induction has infused the party with a ‘novel, youthful zest’..

Displaying nonchalance, despite security fears, in a spotless white ‘kurta-pyjama’ (loosely fitted traditional Indian attire) he has moved around constituencies, nibbling a snack, washing it down with indigenous drink, ‘lassi, at wayside snack shacks.

Yet, he could be mistaken to be a movie star, given the crowds that follow.

Reportedly, it was when Rahul said ‘enough is enough’ in the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist strikes in November that the federal home minister was replaced.

Rahul’s active support to another emerging young politician, Omar Abdullah, who now leads the Jammu and Kashmir government following successful elections, last month, could be a prelude to a nationwide leadership role.
Mayawati, dalit queen
Economically underdeveloped but politically very forward, UP throws up many PM contenders.
After consolidating in UP, the incumbent chief minister, Mayawati, dubbed as the “Dalit (Untouchable) Queen”, has initiated the process of stamping other states by her presence.
Her unique ‘social engineering’ has broad based her vote-bank to upper castes and millions of lower castes ‘have-nots’ who face economic, socio and religious oppression even in matters of using a common well or praying at temples..
Mayawati’s antecedents can be traced to a ‘dalit’ family of nine children, living in a state of ‘absolute nothing’.
Many believe her political momentum could win her appreciable seats in the general elections which would a ‘revolution,’ as per some analysts.
Her popularity could gain her enough leverage in a hung parliament, even catapulting her to the top job.
Appointing technocrats, cracking against crime, inaugurating India’s biggest highway projects, parks and statues celebrating her party, publishing her autobiography, she has been applauded and criticized alike for following a ‘blatant authoritarian stick’.
There are graft allegations against her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for siphoning off development funds.
In December 2008, national attention was drawn to the brutal killing of a government engineer who refused/failed to pay Rs 5 million to a BSP party leader, in the name of Mayawati’s birthday celebrations.
Gaining some notoriety for her whims, personal aggrandizement, expensive homes and total authority, she holds the dubious record as the highest tax payer among politicians (her income supposedly contributions by well wishers) equaling biggest film stars.
Her controversial plans for building a shopping mall next to the Taj Mahal, $100 million Park in Lucknow in honor of her party’s founder could corrode her base.
Yet in UP, where regional caste aspirations, sleaze and scandal have been galore, Mayawati’s ambition could translate into rule from the center.
Narendra Modi, saffron rock star
Chief Minister of Gujarat for the third time, 57 years old, Narendra Modi’s name exudes charisma and controversy.
Absolutely unstoppable on the development front, the man held ‘responsible for the carnage of 2,500 minority Muslims’ in 2002’, is also a right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) veteran and labeled as the “rock star” of saffron politics.
The Supreme Court has compared him to Roman Emperor Nero, a legendary king who played his lyre while Rome burned and Washington has denied him a visa for violation of human rights.
Modi started his political career as a RSS pracharak (pro-Hindutva outfit aligned to the BJP) and joined the BJP in 1987.
Skilled in political maneuvers he was instrumental in the formation of a BJP government in Himachal Pradesh in March 1998.
Modi took over Gujarat when the state was reeling under the 2001 deadly earthquake and stagnant growth. He passionately overhauled the administrative apparatus and adopted cost saving exercises.
Agricultural production increased; it is not fortuitous that today the milk to Singapore, potatoes to Canada and tomatoes to Afghanistan are sourced from Gujarat.
Modi also persuaded Ratan Tata to relocate his small Nano car manufacturing plant to Gujarat from West Bengal in 2008.
Connectivity and industry have been his agenda; in the first year of his tenure the state clocked 10 % GDP growth and sustains its high rank in development and living standards.
Analysts such as Ashis Nandy has commented in Outlook magazine that Modi may be ‘nursing pan-Indian ambitions by retooling himself as a typical, middle-class politician and in five years he may have a fair chance of making it to the top at the national level’.
Aware that he is the BJP trump card after Advani, who is the prime ministerial candidate, Modi minces no words on security and advocates punitive measures against pan-Islamic militants, such as Afzal Guru, whose death conviction in the Indian Parliament attack in 2002, is yet to be carried out.
``If you (pro-Muslim Congress party) don't have the courage, send him to Gujarat. We will hang him here’, he has said.
His oratory skills appeal to Hindu masses who savor his style, humor and temper. They cheer even as he slams the Congress for suggesting there was no proof of Lord Ram's existence during a recent court battle, among other issues.

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