February 23, 1998

What an election; no agenda for change and an Italian housewife for a star.

By Tavleen Singh

So it's here. The week in which the world's largest democracy conducts its 12th general elections. It's a week for the history books and, seen close up, what a tacky, tawdry business history turns out to be. We like to think of political change as something momentous, consequential, even melodramatic. Yet, look at the choices we have before us in this election and you begin to wonder if it is really so.

On the one hand we have a personable, apolitical Italian lady, her two energetically waving children and a slightly gloomy son-in-law. They represent the most powerful dynasty to have ever ruled India. They offer us mainly what the Italian lady's mother-in-law offered us all those years ago: unity in diversity, secularism instead of communalism (never mind those hundreds of communal riots) and the ancient proposition that only the Congress can give us a stable government and without the Congress India will disintegrate.

We have heard all this so many times before that we veterans of many general elections have done a double take. Could it be, could it possibly be that Indira Gandhi is back among us again? There is that same rapid, skippy walk up the stairs, that same masculine watch on the wrist (goodbye Cartier), that same attempt to belong to every state by saying a couple of words in the native tongue and wearing a humble local sari.

But there are the differences. There is all that talk of "my haasbund"; Indira Gandhi never mentioned hers. There is also the shatoosh shawl draped delicately over the humble sari. Now that is something the old Mrs Gandhi would never have done, even if she knew the average Indian had no idea that the smallest of these shawls costs a minimum of Rs 20,000. Incidentally, trade in shatoosh has been banned by the Indian government for environment-friendly reasons. Tch tch tch Sonia. Naughty, naughty.

But who am I to complain when there appears to be a nationwide consensus that Sonia Gandhi has been the star of this election. That it is she who has "set the agenda". What is this agenda? She has demanded that the Bofors papers be made public. What most people do not know, though, is if these papers are made public then India will not get the next instalment -- since the Swiss government gave them to us on the condition they be used only in a court of law. The next instalment is vital since it could tell us exactly who Ottavio Quattrocchi, Sonia's former best friend, was collecting the Bofors money for.

Other items on the agenda have been apologies for the Babri Masjid demolition and Operation Bluestar. Both are in bad taste when you consider the thousands of innocent people who died on account of these monumental Congress blunders. Would Sonia accept an apology from the LTTE for Rajiv Gandhi's assassination?

If Sonia has been the star of this election, it has been due mainly to the BJP's pathetic inability to come up with a better campaign. It was almost as if the BJP was taken completely by surprise by Sonia's decision to campaign and so had no time to offer us something that sounded less like an ancient Congress war cry: able leader, stable government. This is what the Congress has offered us election after election for 50 years. Really, the BJP could have come up with something more imaginative.

It could have thought of something more specific than "good governance". A few ideas, for instance, on what the BJP would like to do about the fact that India has the largest number of illiterate people in the world. Will the party insist on compulsory primary education? Will it jail people who employ children instead of sending them to school?

Or healthcare. Does the BJP have a new plan? Will it increase spending on rural health and sanitation so that our people do not continue to die of diseases that are preventable in most other countries? What of infrastructure? On tackling unemployment in our villages by setting up agro-industries? On economic reform, other than "reforming the reforms"? On rural poverty? On urban decay? The reason why a more specific agenda is necessary is because in the states the BJP has so far ruled, it has ruled so much like the Congress that nobody has been able to tell the difference.

The election has been, essentially, a contest between the Congress and the BJP -- because it is now given that the rump United Front (UF) will collude with the Congress to form the next government in Delhi, if the need arises. This will happen despite Sonia having condemned the UF for being nothing more than an ineffectual collection of squabbling parties. Lofty thoughts on the need to keep India secular will, undoubtedly, be expressed if this Congress-UF coalition is formed. Actually, secularism is barely an issue any more since even the Shiv Sena has proved it can be very secular once it comes to power.

The funny thing is the BJP started out as most likely to win this election. If it now succeeds in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory it will have only itself to blame. If an apolitical Italian housewife manages to defeat India's biggest, best organised political party then Indian politics is clearly a farce. Perhaps, as Rabri Devi has proved in Bihar, we no longer need politicians to rule India. Perhaps all we need are a few more housewives. Do you see what I mean about history being a tacky, tawdry business when you are actually living it?

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