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Of Gobbledygook and Balderdash

I've spent a strangely listless, out-of-sorts kind of month. Done very little work and have not been able to shake a pervasive lassitude, an inertia. It's been puzzling and worrying, besides inexplicable. A few days, OK, but a whole month? Then again, I recall that's how I drifted through college. But that's a story for another time.

Anyway, I think I know why I felt the lassitude, and I think it's in the past now. I believe what got me down was this election we've just been through, this seemingly endless exercise in Indian democracy. Yes, I can see it in retrospect. While we were caught up in elections, I was pretty dispirited: by the prospect of the same set of elected faces returning to the same legislative seats, by the gobbledygook that passed for issues and debate, by the mere thought of weeks of this stuff that stretched interminably into the future.

But now those weeks are over. The whole exercise is over. I already feel better, more energetic. True, it's essentially the same insipid grab-bag of faces who have got themselves elected, even in about the same numbers apart from a couple of dozen seats. But at least we'll hear less gobbledygook. OK, scratch that. At least we'll hear different gobbledygook. Well, scratch that, too. Before I go back to being listless, let me at least revel in what's best about the elections: they are over.

Of course I'm not thrilled with the results. But there are things about them to be happy, even grateful, about. Let me pick three. Or three and a half.

One, Subramanian Swamy lost his deposit.

Moving right along from that spot of joy. Two, the assembly results in Maharashtra. Despite the Congress split, despite the abuse that flew back and forth between the Congress and Sharad Pawar's party, despite candidates from these two parties clawing into each other's vote shares in virtually every assembly constituency in this state -- despite all that, the Shiv Sena and the BJP still came home with less assembly seats than each won in 1995. The Sena had 73 seats then, it has won 69 this time. The BJP had 65 then, 56 now.

As for the Congress, it had 80 as an undivided outfit in 1995: it has 77 today after being split. Pawar's NCP has 58. Think about what might have happened if the Congress had not split. It would have had those 135 (77 + 58) seats. It would have also had several more where the split vote has sent a BJP-Sena candidate trudging across the finish line first. In short, with a united Congress, this election would have been a gigantic rout of the BJP-Sena, nothing other than what they fully deserve.

As it stands, the result is a mighty slap in the face for the worst government this state has known. I say that knowing it's high criticism indeed, considering Maharashtra has suffered previously under the likes of A R Antulay, Vasantdada Patil, Sudhakar Naik and somebody Patil-Nilangekar who tried to fudge entrance exam results so his daughter could waltz into medical college. Thackeray and his gang's misrule of Maharashtra has made those men look like angels, made much of Maharashtra yearn for them. Which is a feat in itself.

Three, Sushma Swaraj lost. In a political spectrum filled with pompous, artificial gasbags, it's hard to pick one whose pomposity stands above the rest. But if I was forced to do it, a serious contender would be this self-righteous lady who appears to believe that an enormous bindi makes her more Indian than everybody else. I am dismayed that Sonia G is an MP today, but I am thrilled that she beat Shrimati Swaraj and her nonstop whinnying about swadeshi versus videshi. She had nothing else to offer the people of Bellary. Unless you count her appeal for votes because she is a "daughter" of India whereas Sonia G is a mere "daughter-in-law." How much more empty of content is it possible to make an electoral contest? How much more slyly reminiscent of the worst aspects of our culture?

And after losing, Shrimati Swaraj carries on in the same vein. Regardless of her loss, she told her television interviewers, the real issue in Bellary was swadeshi versus videshi. Not roads, or electricity, or water, those things the constituency visibly needs? No, said Sushma-ji, first the people must decide about swadeshi and videshi and then all the rest will come.

It's a mystery to me how a woman like this, a long-time and tested politician, is so utterly out of touch with the thoughts and hopes of her voters. People the country over are crying out for the basics -- water, electricity, so forth. In Kanpur they were so agitated about them that they flung dung at their sitting MP. You'd think the lady with the bindi would take note. But no. Parrot like, she goes on and on about foreign origins. In so doing, she showed Bellary just how Indian she herself is. Indeed, the voters there did decide about swadeshi versus videshi. They decided first of all that the Shrimati is as much of a foreigner to Bellary as Sonia G is. Bindi or no bindi. Swadeshi or videshi. In other words, it's a non-issue. It should be a lesson to her, but somehow I know it will not be. Good.

Speaking of issues and non-issues. Three-and-a-half, the precipitous comedown for those pompous pontificators who went on and on about how the voter must learn to make a distinction between local issues and national ones. Thus MPs, like that Kanpur dude attacked with dung, must not be troubled by local issues because they must concentrate on national issues, and this precious distinction is the essence of democracy.

Cowdung and balderdash. The pontificators don't know the first thing about democracy, or about people. Of course each of us is most concerned with what's happening around us: cleanliness, health, garbage, water. It is obscene to ask a member of one of Andhra's hill tribes, whose homes are (according to one study I have) on average 50+ km from the nearest primary health centre, to vote based on foreign policy. Besides, every MP is allotted a huge sum of money to spend on development work in his constituency. Not, truth be told, on the Kargil war.

And with the neglect of the little issues that our politicians have perfected over the years, telling us all the while about big issues like temples and name-changes and foreign births and the foreign hand, citizens are incensed. Those who choose to ignore that sentiment, like Sushma Swaraj, or to pretend it is misplaced, like the pontificating lot, do so at their own peril.

I don't know that elections offer over-arching lessons. But surely every succeeding election in India tells one growing story: that the people want their elected representatives to pay attention to their local problems. In this election, it was certainly the story of Swamy, of Maharashtra, of Sushma Swaraj.

And pay no attention to the pontificators. Yes, certainly: me included.

Dilip D'Souza