So is it all over bar the shouting? Not quite
The poor reputation of Janus, the Roman god of doors and beginnings, is quite undeserved. Janus was not double-faced simply because he had two faces. He could look east and west simultaneously without swiveling his head; but this was clarity, not deception. His hindsight helped foresight; the charm of a door is that it enables you to go in as well as go out. January is named after Janus: one year disappears, another enters.
As India’s electoral fog begins to clear this January, we can see that how precisely cause begets effect. The substantive failures of 2013 are shaping the general elections of 2014.
India’s economy began to creak and collapse much before, but it was in 2013 that Indians were firmly convinced that problems which could have been resolved were allowed to accumulate into a serious crisis. An economic freefall is not some theoretical statistic for the voter. It translates into specifics: prices rise, jobs evaporate, confidence falters, hope evaporates. Voters blame governments rather than traders for a price rise, because they expect government to control profiteers, not surrender to them. A slump in economic growth aborts future jobs and threatens existing ones. These are bread-and-vegetable issues. It was in 2013 that governance and the economy became dominant factors in the gradual process through which voters make up their minds before a general election.
Many voters are, of course, still swayed by partisan emotion. But a significant majority will be influenced, in 2014, by calm logic. This is already evident from the opinion polls bouncing around media, predicting an NDA victory, and reaffirming Narendra Modi as the preferred favourite for prime minister.
As India’s electoral fog begins to clear this January, we can see that how precisely cause begets effect. The substantive failures of 2013 are shaping the general elections of 2014.
Try this sequence of questions: Who can set the economy right? Not those, surely, who created the problem. What kind of government can turn things around? A stable one, capable of taking tough decisions. Can a remorseful and repentant Congress lead a stable coalition? Not likely: its own numbers have plummeted to less than half of 2009 in opinion polls, and allies are either breaking off or increasing their distance from Congress. Old reliable DMK has preferred isolation. Sharad Pawar’s NCP has told Rahul Gandhi to cool off on accusations against Narendra Modi over the Gujarat riots. Partnerships from Kashmir to Assam are in disarray. The one eager ally, Lalu Yadav, poses more questions than he answers, since he happens to be convicted of corruption. The torch of honesty cannot catch fire in Rahul Gandhi’s right hand, if his left is clasped to the ashes of Lalu Yadav’s reputation.
Can a Third or National or Partial Front patched through the strain of contradictions work? However which way you do the math, the numbers do not add up. There will be regional spurts in states like West Bengal, where Mamata Banerjee will win a handsome number of seats; but despite rhetoric this will not be sufficient to seed a post-election coalition. In any case, the times are too fragile, and voters across the country are not in a mood for experiments. Can Arvind Kejriwal, whose muffler will have to be discarded as the season changes, offer stability? You know the answer.
No prizes for guessing who’s left. Narendra Modi might not be able to walk on water, but at least he can walk on land, unlike the competition, which stumbles disconcertingly whenever it tries to move at all.
Congress lost the governance plot not just on the economy, but also on Telangana. The impact of a disturbed Andhra, another long-form story of 2013, is much larger than the size of one state. The chaos in the south is not the best advertisement for firm governance in a year when voters want tough decisions.
Narendra Modi might not be able to walk on water, but at least he can walk on land, unlike the competition, which stumbles disconcertingly whenever it tries to move at all.
So is it all over bar the shouting? Not quite. Narendra Modi has attracted voters because he is the outsider, poised, in their wish-list, to cleanse Delhi of corruption, end dithering and propel the economy forward as happened in Gujarat. The one thing Modi cannot afford to do is slide into the syndrome of politics-as-usual as he expands from regional concerns to national priorities. He cannot abandon the old school, for that is where present politics lives; but he cannot look stale even before he has begun. It is a tight-rope walk.
Modi will need some dexterity to evade the siren call of Delhi’s prime-time sin, sycophancy. There is a scathing Urdu couplet, written by a Karachi poet, Parwin Shakir, who died in 1994 at the young age of 42, which describes Delhi perfectly: Basti mein jitne aab gazida thhe sab ke sab/Darya ke rukh badalte hi tairak ho gaye (All those in town who were terrified of water/ Became expert swimmers when they saw the river change course).
This is the double-face that becomes dangerous once January is over.