Indian politics appears to be in utter chaos. India is wedded to
coalition rules. Coalition, by definition, (in Indian perception) means
instability. Instability again is normally considered to be bad.
Consider the following view:
Indian politicians are selfish, corrupt, short sighted, criminal etc.
One can think of many more adjectives and there will be one politician
who will fulfill the qualification. They are immature. They believe that
they can take the Indian voters for a ride for ever. They can commit all
the crimes and still hope to be elected again and again. This belief may
have been formed by the facts that :
The Congress party was repeatedly voted to power till the year
1977.
There is no alternative. When everyone is corrupt, the voter has
no choice.
Indian voter is far more mature. He has thrown out the mightiest of
the mighties. He has thrown out once mighty Indira Gandhi. When the
Janata party misbehaved, it was also thrown out. The politician never
learnt that the people have come out of their slumber. He kept on
misbehaving. The voter kept on throwing out the ruling party. The
politician always kept on trying all the corrupt tricks to win the
votes. He kept on giving promises. Nobody tried the simplest trick of
serving the people. He did not hesitate for a moment before forgetting
his promises. And the voter who is no longer fooled by any promises
keeps on throwing out the rascals.
The fact that the voter is alert and is throwing out the rascals is
the reason for optimism.The politician will have to learn. He will
learn. In his own interest. In India things move slowly.Very slowly. But
then an elephant can not run like a tiger.
Coalitions have for the first time taught the Indian politician to
consider the views of the others also. The 'Minimum Common Programme' of
the United Front Government in the year 1996 was the first attempt in
Indian politics to arrive at a consensus. After Indira's dictatorship
and Rajiv's autocracy, this was a refreshing experience. It was the
voting pattern that had forced the politician to try for a consensus. A
party with a clear majority would have never done that.
Uncertainty is good. It makes you alert. It forces you to take
action. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh did in their first three years
more liberalisation than any other Government had ever done
post-independence
Not giving a clear majority to any party is the voters' way of
telling the politician that "We have rejected all. You better
start behaving or remain on the tanter-hook for ever."
I do hope the situation arising out of voters' anger will force
the politician to start serving the people
Iraq -- U.S.
March 98
U.S. claims that it wants to destroy weapons of mass destruction
possessed by Iraq.
Whatabout the fact that the U.S. has far more weapons of
mass destruction than Iraq has! And in the post World War II era U.S.
has attacked more nations than Iraq; used more weapons of mass
destruction; and killed more people!