The genius and innocence of the Indian voter

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>vaidika1008 (AT) hotmail (DOT) com >[bJP News]: The genius and innocence of

the Indian voter >Tue, 15 May 2001 10:32:04 -0400 > >Title: The genius

and innocence of the Indian voter >Author: Francois Gautier >Publication:

Rediff >May 15, 2001 > > The landslide victory of Jayalalitha in Tamil

Nadu shows > there are other factors influencing the Indian voter apart from >

performance and logic. These factors could be summed up > thus: blind adulation

for film stars, dynastic effect, adoration > of the shakti element and the myth

of the Aryan. > > As everywhere else in the world, there are two kinds of

voters > in India: the rural voter and the urban voter. The Indian urban >

voter votes with his mind -- that is, he is mainly influenced by > his atavism

-- parents, education, background, etc -- and by > what the English-speaking

press says. > > The rural voter -- who, it should be remembered, forms 80 per >

cent of the electorate -- votes with his heart, although he may > be in some

ways influenced by what the local language > newspapers say -- which often take

up blindly the opinions of > the English-speaking press. > > It is both a

wonderful and terrible trait, because, since 1947, this innocence has > been

taken advantage by many different sorts of politicians, who have used four >

kinds of factors. > > 1. The adulation of films stars: Films stars are

enormously popular in India > and are akin to demigods. Since the early

Sixties, certain film stars, with no > political qualification, ended up as

chief ministers of the southern states -- often, > with disastrous

consequences, because they needed a lot of demagogy to sustain > their image of

demigods and had to resort to heavy subsidies -- rice at Rs 2 a > kilo, free

distribution of saris, rickshaws, free water for the farmers etc -- thus >

emptying the state coffers while they were in power. > > Furthermore, they were

often authoritarian, corrupt and did not give back to the > people one inch of

the adulation and respect they enjoyed (and the money they > looted from them)!

> > 2. Dynasty and sycophancy: Dynasty is a Western word which does not > really

correspond to the Indian reality. And sycophancy should rather be called > the

bhakti spirit which is a 5,000-year-old spiritual tradition in India. > > This

extraordinary bhakti tendency of the Indian people means they tend to > worship

anybody who they feel has an aura about him, or her, no matter his or > her

personal faults, no matter if he or she is a fraud -- or half a fraud. It is a

> marvellous principle and it has worked for millennia. In the guru-chela >

(guru-disciple) relationship -- you surrender to the divinity in your human

guru > and attain realisation through him if your surrender is sincere. > > But

it does not work in politics because politicians do not even have a gram of >

the aspiration and realisation of gurus and they tend to cheat heavily on their

> bhaktas and do not deliver the goods promised. This concept of bhakti, >

coupled with the old maharaja tradition, has ensured respect for 'royal

families,' > or dynasties, such as the Nehru family, whose members did not

necessarily > possess the qualities to be good politicians, or rather knew very

little about > India. > > 3. The Shakti phenomenon: There is also amongst

Indians of the > subcontinent a very strong tradition to worship the female

element of the divine, > who takes up many forms: Mahakali, Mahalaxmi,

Mahasaraswati, Maheswari, > etc. > > It's a bit of a paradox, because Hindu

women in India can also be ostracised and > persecuted, but, nevertheless, have

always played an important role in the > history of the country: there are more

women MPs in India than in France, for > instance. It is this Shakti phenomenon

that allowed Indira Gandhi to govern this > male-dominated country with an iron

hand for nearly 20 years; and this tradition > has even survived in the

neighbouring Islamic states, such as Pakistan or > Bangladesh. Witness Benazir

Bhutto or the two Bangladeshi begums. > > But again politicians such as Benazir

Bhutto, whose promises proved empty and > who was more word than deed, misused

the shakti given to her by innocent > voters -- if we may say so. As for Indira

Gandhi, she too fell victim to that > extraordinary shakti tendency of the

Indian people, and became more and more > isolated towards the end of her

reign, bitter about losing her beloved son Sanjay, > suspicious of the constant

sycophantic atmosphere around her and slowly losing > her sense of reality. > >

It is again this element that has brought Jayalalitha to power. > > 4. The

Aryan myth: According to the theory of the Aryan invasion, which is > still

taken as the foundation stone of the history of India and which was actually >

devised in the 18th and 19th century by British-related linguists and >

archaeologists, the first inhabitants of India were good-natured, peaceful, >

dark-skinned shepherds, called the Dravidians, who had founded what is called >

the Harappan or the Indus Valley civilization. > > They were supposedly

remarkable builders -- witness the city of Mohen-jo-Daro > in Sind, Pakistan --

but had no culture to speak off, no literature, no proper > script even. Then,

around 1500 BC, India is said to have been invaded by tribes > called the

Aryans -- white-skinned, nomadic people, who originated somewhere > in western

Russia and imposed upon the Dravidians the hateful caste system. > > To the

Aryans are attributed Sanskrit, the Vedic -- or Hindu -- religion, India's >

greatest spiritual texts, the Vedas, as well as a host of subsequent writings,

the > Upanishads, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, etc. > > This myth divided

India for ever and pitted against each other the low-caste, > dark-skinned

'Dravidians' and the high-caste, light-skinned 'Aryans', a rift that > still

endures. The Muslim invaders, the European colonizers, the missionaries > and

finally the Congress, each exploited to the hilt for their own selfish purpose

> this artificial divide, as recent linguistic and archaeological discoveries

are > proving that there probably was never any Aryan invasion. > > Since

Nehru, all Congress leaders have been constantly elected on caste and >

religion basis and, lately, power-hungry politicians, particularly in Bihar,

Uttar > Pradesh or Kerala, have also used this schism to get to power by

pitting castes > and religions against each other. In Kerala, for instance, the

Communists have > become masters in that exercise. This obsession of the

dark-skinned Dravidian -- > or low-caste Indian for the 'Aryan' or white could

also explain the fascination > that the rural voter has for Sonia Gandhi, the

White Lady, Aryan par excellence > (or even Jayalalitha, who is quite

fair-skinned). > > Voting with the heart is a unique quality and it is this

innocence, these > spontaneous tendencies of bhakti or shakti in the rural

Indian, which make the > greatness of India, its santana dharma -- and not the

pompous, secular, > left-leaning intellectual in the comfort of his flat in New

Delhi or Bombay. No, > what has to be changed is the system which allows

power-hungry politicians to > exploit this purity of heart of the rural voter.

> > This whole election has been a waste of time, money and energy; we know >

today that it needs at least a crore to be elected an MP and that this >

automatically eliminates the honest, the pure of heart and the sincere. > > As

Danielou wrote in his History of India: "... on top of the Partition tragedy, >

there is the other calamity of modern India -- namely, that under Nehru's >

leadership, it chose to turn its back on most of its ancient institutions,

social and > political, and adapted blindly and completely the British system,

constitutional, > social, political, judicial, and bureaucratic." > > And as

India's Great Sage, Sri Aurobindo, also reminds us: "In ancient times, > there

always was a strong democratic element in India, which certainly showed > a

certain similarity with Western parliamentary forms, but these institutions >

were INDIAN." > > India should then go back to the wisdom and the innocence of

what constitutes > the base, the soul and the essence of this country: the

rural masses. And, like in > ancient times, but couched in modern forms, the

rural voter should elect what he > knows directly: the panchayat leaders of his

village, town or community; in > turn these leaders will elect those who will

represent them in the state level and > so on until the top, so that so much

money and time are no more wasted on > useless elections which throw-up the

same old politicians. > > Thus, the wisdom of India will go once more from

bottom to top -- and not from > top to bottom, as it does now: a huge, complex

country ruled by a minority of > corrupt politicians enjoying the artificial

trappings of power in this arrogant, > superficial and totally decentralised

city that is Delhi, having forgotten that they > were elected by the rural

people and for the rural people.

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