Is an educated MP important?
By Harish Bijoor
What is the role of the educated man in politics?
The question is thrown up all the time. Particularly in the urban context of our political lives. Remember, in the rural context education means something else altogether.
Urban folk love to talk the language of education. Formal education. As of all us really know, there is formal education in the format laid out for most of us in India by Lord Macaulay decades ago under the tutelage of the British. And then there is informal education by which norm every one of us in urban or rural area alike is fully educated. The older we get, the more rustic and the more diverse our sets of experiences, the more educated we are!
The question then is: Do educated leaders make a difference? Are educated leaders better for India? Are educated leaders less corrupt than un-educated ones? Are educated leaders more focused on public good than un-educated leaders?
A quest for the answers will need to take us through a quick journey of politics in India over the last seven decades.
I guess we started with a healthy mix of the educated. It is educated leaders who were pursuing reasonably lucrative professions, such as Barristers, Advocates, Doctors and Educationists who led us on in our thinking process that dominated the Freedom struggle. Education played a big part then. Opinion leadership mattered and those that led the way were intellectuals who were educated. Educated people who commanded a great deal of respect. And this respect came from the fact that not only were they educated, but the fact that they threw to the winds their respective lucrative professions to join the realm of public service and the cause of nationalism at large with a passion. This drew big respect from the masses at large.
As the decades went by, and as India settled into a democracy that was getting to be truly representative of its masses, as mandated by the Constitution of India(framed by these very educated people who helped steer the nation to freedom), education became but a non-important qualification to own in order to occupy the chair of public representation. And rightly so.
Just imagine that you represent a constituency that is totally illiterate in the formal sense, totally impoverished and totally deprived. Let’s say in Bihar. The true-blue representation of this consistency is best done by a person who can emote the local mood, mind, tone and tenor. True-blue representation meant education of the formal kind was not important at all. In many ways, the representative would be a person who could capture the imagination and trust of the electorate at large. A demagogue would do. A person who really emoted with issues at the ground level would be the best person to have as a Member of Parliament representing the area.
Our entire system of seat reservations and indeed every covenant of our affirmative action processes at play in India ensured this got deepened into the polity at play.
As the decades crawled by, we have had a wide spectrum-set of people occupying the hallowed position of a Member of Parliament, a Member of the Legislative Assembly or the Council of a State. And these cascade down to every level of local self governance we have in place.
The current debate is really an urban one. It is all about the empowered urban person saying that education of the formal kind instills a sense of right and wrong. It is the urban clamor that says that an educated person is more concerned about social work. And of course the end argument that an educated person is less corrupt than a person without the flavor of a formal education.
I do believe all of this is wrong. The most corrupt of our politicians are possibly the most educated. Those that do precious little for the electorate have also been the most educated, at times. In many ways, education really does not matter.
What matters is the ability to emote with an electorate. An ability to forcefully represent. An ability to be honest. An ability to be inclusive. An ability to stand by a cause. An ability to be un-relenting in the pursuit of social good.
If all of this is available in an un-educated (of the formal kind) man or woman, so be it. And if all of this is not available as part of the trait profile of the educated, so be it.
Education is an ethos. Those without a formal exposure to education have it at times. And those who have had a formal education have it not, at times.
Harish Bijoor is a Brand and Political strategy specialist.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com
Mobile: +91 98440 83491
Showing posts with label Lok Sabha 2009. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lok Sabha 2009. Show all posts
Friday, April 10, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Caste Mathematics in Indian Elections
Caste is an equation
By Harish Bijoor
Why is caste a part of Mathematics? Why is Caste an equation at all?
Come election time and Pundits of every hue (and here I am not referring to a particular caste, please!) are forever busy totaling up the numbers. Totting up the numbers of every caste spectrum there is to examine within a constituency.
As an aside, do you know for instance that there is a Caste Map of India that actually maps the caste equation of every constituency, listing out detailed splits of every caste there is? And this sells like hot cakes during an election. The base buyer is the Political Party, the individual candidates and of course the Psephologist at large, who is trying to grasp at whatever there is that paints a profile of the political battle-ground.
What is this Caste politics all about? And why should it be there at all? Is it for real? Does it really work?
My involvement in election-strategy work across the last decade tells me it does. It works in Bihar (which has a 90: 10 Rural-urban skew), just as it works in the newly carved out Bangalore Central (which has a 5: 95 Rural-Urban skew). Bangalore Central the Parliamentary Constituency, not the Mall!
Caste politics is not as old as most of us believe it to be. Right up to the elections of the years of the 1970 series, elections were largely fought on issues. Issues that were truly national and issues that were economic even. Come the years of the 1980’s series, in came the dominant role of the Caste. In many ways the Mandal debate spurred it all on.
Caste is today a major factor in every constituency. Tickets are doled out on the basis of caste. Caste in many ways dictates the 'winnability' factor of many a candidate. Over the last twenty years plus, the dominance of the caste factor in election-day performance is something that has risen its head like nothing else has. While most thinkers would ideate and say that the Caste factor is all about narrow jingoism and that it is vanishing altogether, the ground reality is totally different. Caste is consolidating!
Caste today is growing in appeal. Growing in the depth of passion that a voter indicates towards it as well. Every electorate is drawn out today into Caste blocks. Take Karnataka for instance. Our 5 crore plus population is spread out across the two dominant caste factions of the Lingayat and the Vokkaliga, each sharing a 17 and 15 per cent share in that order. Add an 8 per cent Kuruba vote to that. Garnish it with a Muslim vote of 10%. And divide that into the Shia vote and the Sunni vote. Add a sprinkling of the Christian vote. Segment it into the Catholic and the Protestant vote. Cover all of this with the umbrella of a 23 per cent Dalit vote, and the delightful dish of Karnataka caste politics is complete.
Every state of the Indian Union is witnessing a resurgence of caste based politics. Why?
In a rather simplistic manner of an answer, it is indeed all a part of the affirmative action syndrome at play at large, particularly with the specific legislative actions that have resulted in the polity that is India over the last two decades.
Every caste block and faction is really looking at the elections as a representative process that throws up leaders who represent causes and issues that are largely skewed in favor of or against the caste blocks at large. The reservation of seats syndrome has deepened the fissure. Allocations of ministries by governments that occupy the seat of power, the allocation of portfolios to bureaucrats on the basis of caste blocks and indeed the entire cascade of governance that follows is a reason for sure.
The reality as I see it on Ground Zero of electoral politics is a simple one. The key fact is this. Caste blocks vote not for political parties, their manifestoes and the debates that ensue. Instead, caste blocks vote for leaders. If the leader is a Vokkaliga, there is swing in the Vokkaliga heavy constituency. And if there are two dominant Vokkaligas pitted against one another, this is where the votes fracture. And that’s when you need to look at all those dummy candidates your party will put up to fracture the vote of the opponent as well. The fun begins.
Spin doctors of political parties who sit in the back-rooms typically work out the caste equation on their unique low-tech caste-calculators all the time, right up to the date of withdrawal of nominations. The thinking gets deeper and deeper still. If there is caste, remember there is sub-caste as well. The complexity deepens.
Why is caste important in Indian politics then?
When there is no one big issue at hand to vote on, one lapses back to caste. If and when there is, the voter will vote on the issue at large, like in the good old days just about Partition.
If for instance there is a war with Pakistan today, India will dump caste-based politics for that one election, and will vote with its heart in the issue. And then get back. To basics.
Harish Bijoor is a Business and Political-strategy specialist.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com
Mobile: 0 98440 83491
By Harish Bijoor
Why is caste a part of Mathematics? Why is Caste an equation at all?
Come election time and Pundits of every hue (and here I am not referring to a particular caste, please!) are forever busy totaling up the numbers. Totting up the numbers of every caste spectrum there is to examine within a constituency.
As an aside, do you know for instance that there is a Caste Map of India that actually maps the caste equation of every constituency, listing out detailed splits of every caste there is? And this sells like hot cakes during an election. The base buyer is the Political Party, the individual candidates and of course the Psephologist at large, who is trying to grasp at whatever there is that paints a profile of the political battle-ground.
What is this Caste politics all about? And why should it be there at all? Is it for real? Does it really work?
My involvement in election-strategy work across the last decade tells me it does. It works in Bihar (which has a 90: 10 Rural-urban skew), just as it works in the newly carved out Bangalore Central (which has a 5: 95 Rural-Urban skew). Bangalore Central the Parliamentary Constituency, not the Mall!
Caste politics is not as old as most of us believe it to be. Right up to the elections of the years of the 1970 series, elections were largely fought on issues. Issues that were truly national and issues that were economic even. Come the years of the 1980’s series, in came the dominant role of the Caste. In many ways the Mandal debate spurred it all on.
Caste is today a major factor in every constituency. Tickets are doled out on the basis of caste. Caste in many ways dictates the 'winnability' factor of many a candidate. Over the last twenty years plus, the dominance of the caste factor in election-day performance is something that has risen its head like nothing else has. While most thinkers would ideate and say that the Caste factor is all about narrow jingoism and that it is vanishing altogether, the ground reality is totally different. Caste is consolidating!
Caste today is growing in appeal. Growing in the depth of passion that a voter indicates towards it as well. Every electorate is drawn out today into Caste blocks. Take Karnataka for instance. Our 5 crore plus population is spread out across the two dominant caste factions of the Lingayat and the Vokkaliga, each sharing a 17 and 15 per cent share in that order. Add an 8 per cent Kuruba vote to that. Garnish it with a Muslim vote of 10%. And divide that into the Shia vote and the Sunni vote. Add a sprinkling of the Christian vote. Segment it into the Catholic and the Protestant vote. Cover all of this with the umbrella of a 23 per cent Dalit vote, and the delightful dish of Karnataka caste politics is complete.
Every state of the Indian Union is witnessing a resurgence of caste based politics. Why?
In a rather simplistic manner of an answer, it is indeed all a part of the affirmative action syndrome at play at large, particularly with the specific legislative actions that have resulted in the polity that is India over the last two decades.
Every caste block and faction is really looking at the elections as a representative process that throws up leaders who represent causes and issues that are largely skewed in favor of or against the caste blocks at large. The reservation of seats syndrome has deepened the fissure. Allocations of ministries by governments that occupy the seat of power, the allocation of portfolios to bureaucrats on the basis of caste blocks and indeed the entire cascade of governance that follows is a reason for sure.
The reality as I see it on Ground Zero of electoral politics is a simple one. The key fact is this. Caste blocks vote not for political parties, their manifestoes and the debates that ensue. Instead, caste blocks vote for leaders. If the leader is a Vokkaliga, there is swing in the Vokkaliga heavy constituency. And if there are two dominant Vokkaligas pitted against one another, this is where the votes fracture. And that’s when you need to look at all those dummy candidates your party will put up to fracture the vote of the opponent as well. The fun begins.
Spin doctors of political parties who sit in the back-rooms typically work out the caste equation on their unique low-tech caste-calculators all the time, right up to the date of withdrawal of nominations. The thinking gets deeper and deeper still. If there is caste, remember there is sub-caste as well. The complexity deepens.
Why is caste important in Indian politics then?
When there is no one big issue at hand to vote on, one lapses back to caste. If and when there is, the voter will vote on the issue at large, like in the good old days just about Partition.
If for instance there is a war with Pakistan today, India will dump caste-based politics for that one election, and will vote with its heart in the issue. And then get back. To basics.
Harish Bijoor is a Business and Political-strategy specialist.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com
Mobile: 0 98440 83491
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