The Indian Parliamentary Election 2019 = My irreverence is irrelevant

Many venerated Kannada poets had described the relationship between Karnataka and India as that between a mother (India) and her daughter (Karnataka). Kuvempu’s famous lines are often quoted “ಜಯ ಭಾರತ ಜನನಿಯ ತನುಜಾತೆ, ಜಯ ಹೇ ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಮಾತೆ”, in translation means “To the glory of daughter of Mother India, to the glory of Mother Karnataka”. Navodaya poets (protagonists of the Modern Kannada Renaissance, born between 1880 and 1930) either directly took part in the freedom struggle or were deeply influenced by the circumstances of those times, and their verse intended to inspire solidarity among subcontinental peoples fighting the British colonial oppressors. Today, 72 years since Independence, I am emotionally detached from 1947. I have tremendous respect for the sacrifices made but, I wish to re-imagine the real relationship between my home state and my home continent, as the one between an earthen pot containing water (Karnataka) and the air it is in contact with (India). Both need each other. I am proud of the fact that I can maintain an objective position on the parliamentary elections in India and more importantly remain equidistant from all political parties.

There is very little to choose among the parties (regional and the glorified regional). Some are deluded by pan-India nationalism (built on incorrect premises), some have always indulged in repugnant nepotism (pandemic), some play the card of minority appeasement (built on incorrect premises), some are violent on the streets and some are violent otherwise, and most politicians today are consummate pan-selfie narcissists. My apologies to the critically endangered, honest, patriotic, and conscientious politicians, who are probably in Utopia (=no place).  The main electoral issues should have been the following and none of the political parties care for these issues.  If the Venn diagram of Indian constitution (involving Union and State sets) is redrawn in the near term, other visible problems will be addressed satisfactorily in the medium term.

Mahatma and the mute spectator:  M K Gandhi would have loved to vote in an election, perhaps may have burnt his voter’s ID, while protesting the dropping of thousands of names from the voters’ list, occurring mysteriously before most elections in India.

Centralisation problem and the lack of real federal politics:  Demand for federal autonomy is wrongly projected as state vs. centre politics by the ill-informed, blind-folded, antisocial elements (pseudo national, pseudo secular, and hollow beings, and you don’t have to remind me that I too am hollow and shallow).  Federal politics stands for real devolution of legislative and administrative power to state-level administration. This requires constitutional reform.  The Constitution of India has three lists of legislative and administrative power – the Union list, the State list and the Concurrent list.  The central government (The Indian Union) handles defence, foreign affairs, banking, railways, etc. The State government (Karnataka in my case) handles public health, policing etc.  Finally, there is the Concurrent List, which should be reclassified as the contentious list, includes many subjects, 4 that are most contested are education, demography, environment, and commerce. The constitution gives the last word to the parliament (Union) when legislating on subjects under the concurrent list. Demography (composition, quantity, citizenship, rights to services and related issues), and education (syllabus, language, cultural heritage, nativity, opportunities, and related issues) must be fully federal subjects, alas they aren’t. Commerce can remain in the concurrent list but the State should have more say on the tax revenues generated in its territory. Banking and Railways must be moved from the Union list to Concurrent list so that both the State and Centre consult each other before making any policy changes. (To demand full devolution of power, let the state assemblies perform better in areas where they have full autonomy.  How about policing for a starter?) Sadly, the election cacophony for 2019 parliamentary elections inspires no one.

Environmental degradation:  All parties running for power have destroyed our natural environment in the name of directionless short-term development.  Environment (forests, rivers, land, and sustainable practices) remains in the concurrent list and for what?  Neither the state nor the Union have made any concerted effort to protect the environment. All have allowed their cronies to loot and plunder natural resources. People do not realise that drinking water crisis is worsening every year (all over India).  MPs get subsidized (free) bottled water in the parliament canteen. Our forests are being converted into private amusement parks by these politicians. Our lakes have been encroached by these very politicians and their sponsors from the real-estate mafia. Our state government land is given to people from other states in India for building illegal high-rise buildings, which are unsustainable and dangerous from all angles.  The inhabitants of those high-rise buildings (the neourban aliens) think that they are entitled to clean drinking water, clean air, and traffic-free roads wherever they go. The underclasses are no different. They stick to their unreasoned ways (whatever those are) and cry when they think politicians ignore them after the election.  People who choose to defecate in the open, who urinate on the compound of a school, who enjoy spitting in public places, and who ride on their two-wheelers on pedestrian paths should not cry.  They get what they deserve.   I too deserve what I get, being what I am i.e., the ever-complaining (but not so influentially), self-centred, irreverent, and irrelevant lower middle class.

Election for North India and by North Indians:  This parliamentary election is about North Indian politics and useless issues for the South. It is true that South Indian elections are awash with black money, some candidates are spending 100s of crores in a single constituency, coercing voters with freebees and handouts (political party funding and election expenditure is murky, much debated, and the elections are more expensive than ever before and how?). South Indian states are deeply divided on caste lines and Karnataka scores poorly here (not different from North India). Having acknowledged the cancer within, I must point out that there had not been a single parliamentary election in India (since 1952) where the South of India had set the agenda. In 2019, all of South India voted during the first 2 phases (finished voting by April 23^rd) and now the Northern States have taken over the narrative towards the final phases. The arbitrary division of state boundaries by the Election commission during the 7 voting phases in 2019 election does not respect State autonomy.  This kind of voting-phase division never happened in the past.  The justification given by the CEC was poor (I heard his press conference). They must have planned it in a way that at least two South Indian states go to polls in the final phase (May 19th) so that each phase represented India in some ways. By the time the elections are over, nobody will remember South India and nobody cares. The regional party candidates (if there is a regional party) assume that people will elect them no matter what they say and what they do. They don’t realise the need for projecting solid candidates who uphold State interests without any fear. The so called “national party” leaders slavishly serve their Delhi bosses (Hindi speakers) who come to South India speaking in Hindi, adding the contemptuous “ji” to every South Indian name, preaching to us about development (hatred and personal abuse actually) and nationalism in patronising tones. People are indeed fools (many pundits think otherwise) that they fall for deceitful propaganda in vernacular pamphlets (Kannada in my case) and forget that they receive all kinds of important services only in Hindi and English.

Political parties contesting parliamentary election in Karnataka do not want MPs who can represent Karnataka’s interests in the Indian parliament. The list of candidates on the electronic voting machine looks like a menu card listing invertebrate delicacies of a special kind. I am a vegetarian and I can only imagine how good they are  (I respect diversity in people’s diet and food choices). The so-called regional parties provide only lip service to real issues of governance, and their main purposes of existence are profiteering, political opportunism, and nepotism (my apologies again to those in all parties who behave in an exemplary manner). We have clueless state governments and a know-it-all patronising central government. This is not a story restricted to the last 5 years.  The Indian Parliamentary Election for 28 seats in Karnataka has become an exercise to elect people who care about their own political parties. If an election campaign addresses real issues of governance (for parliamentary representation of Karnataka’s causes), then the aqueous earthen pot called Karnataka will be in true equilibrium with the air called India. Until such a day, we will continue to have a bunch of North Indians voting for North Indian politicians and future ministers.  I will have to change NOTA (None Of The Above) option to NWMV (Not Worth My Vote).