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Nobody is talking of the issues that matter

Does anybody remember a cruder election campaign than this one?

Pramod Mahajan tickles the ants in his pants by drawing a parallel between a verbally-challenged widow and an orally-qualified intern. George Fernandes ignores his mother's contribution to this nation's population while saluting the child-bearing capabilities of another.

Meanwhile: • How long will it take for the hardliners in the Sangh Parivar to pull the plug on their poll mascot/mukhota, Atal Bihari Vajpayee? • In crediting Vajpayee alone for all the "achievements" of the coalition, isn't the BJP short-changing its partners? • Which will be the first political party to express misgivings about the accuracy of electronic voting machines once results are announced? • Like it used the Idgah Maidan flag-hoisting issue in Hubli as its gateway to the south, will the BJP use attacks on minorities in Orissa as its entree to the east of the country? • Is Vinod Kambli India's luckiest player of the week?

Rajesh Khanna reveals how a septuagenarian "who doesn't have a child but has a son-in-law" did it. His madam's voice, Ghulam Nabi Azad, plays the plate over and over again at full blast.

Maneka Gandhi reveals how a certain somebody sought refuge in the Italian embassy in 1977 when the Janata Party came to power. Somebody in Gujarat says the Cambridge claims are hollow; the certain somebody is just a matriculate who used to sing at an Italian club.

"PM-wannabe No.1" Pramod Mahajan exposes the knicker hobby; says "Maratha No 1" changes political partners faster than "Much-married No.1" changes sexual partners in marriage after marriage.

Sushma Swaraj reveals that Sonia is not the real name of the party of the second part in Bellary. Somebody in Gujarat says the party of the second part is actually a kalmukhi, who brought bad luck to her husband's family upon setting foot in the household.

'Hasmukh No. 1" Pramod Mahajan ticks 'Nun of the Above' in response to the key question about origin; says the Roman Catholic residing in 10 Janpath can play Mother Teresa if she so wished, but not PM.

And so on and so forth.

It's nobody's case that Rajiv Gandhi's party is above criticism. Who can forget the viciousness of his 1984 campaign -- "when a big tree falls the earth is bound to shake"-- when thousands of Sikhs had been butchered in the aftermath of his mother's assassination? And who can forget his slanderous campaign against V P Singh and his son Ajeya in the St Kitts case in 1989? In politics as in life, you reap what you sow.

The BJP's campaign against Rajiv Gandhi's widow, however, stands out for two reasons:

a. For the relentlessly personal nature of the attacks in spite of the party mascot/mukhota Atal Bihari Vajpayee's pleadings not to make an issue of Sonia's origins.

And.

b. for the extraordinary lengths the Hindu nationalist, muh-mein-swadeshi party has gone to reinforce its xenophobic, anti-woman, anti-bahu, anti-minority stereotype, and all in one go.

Which begs the question, how soon before the mask drops?

Does anybody believe that the model code of conduct is the best thing to have happened to our democracy?

Anybody, that is, apart from the Chief Election Commissioner M S Gill and his not-so-Sancho Panzas, G V G Krishnamurthy and J P Lyngdoh; power and TA-DA hungry bureaucrats; and the English-speaking urban elite also known as the chattering classes, who are so enraptured by the man who drew it up, T N Seshan?

Compound walls of duplex houses in our cities may remain clean and unsullied by dirty posters and campaign slogans; babies may sleep to the strains of videshi lullabies without the noise of campaign speeches polluting their ears; and our elder citizens may doze off listening to the dentures chattering whenever the fridge door opens.

But at what cost?

There are three things certain in the life of an Indian today: death, taxes and elections. It is my case that the single biggest reason for fewer and fewer Indians coming out to vote is this dreadful model code of conduct which has robbed our democracy of the colour, chaos and charm that a poll-a-year ought to bring our dreadful lives.

In a country where just one in four persons lives in the cities (27 per cent) and where just one in two can read and write his/her signature (51.2 per cent), the code of conduct is only designed to keep a small minority of neat-freaks happy while keeping a large majority in the dark about their most useful function in our Republic.

At a time when illiterate voters need to know more and more about candidates and their parties and their policies, the code ensures through near-zero publicity that they know less and less. Result: when more and more voters need to be trooping into poll booths to exercise their franchise, poor publicity ensures that less and less do.

Under the specious pretext of keeping cities clean and expenses under check, the code -- clearly the brainchild of bored babus who, for once, get to boss over their bosses-to-be -- the code has also served to spread general cynicism about elections. The combined result of cynicism and lack of awareness shows in the kind of people and parties we elect, and in the fractured mandates.

Is it any surprise that the people most thrilled with the code of conduct are city-dwellers? Or that the poll percentage was a ridiculous 47 per cent in Delhi? Or that just 55 per cent voters -- barely one in two -- went out and cast their vote on September 5?

Does anybody believe that Sonia's origins are/were the only issue in this election?

Anybody, that is, apart from the BJP and the rest of the Undivided Hindu Family. The BJP ads featuring the prime minister listed Pokhran, Agni/Prithvi/Trishul, the economic sanctions, high forex reserves, the stable rupee, the record-low inflation and the foodgrain production as the coalition's achievements. The Congress spoke of the foul-ups in Kargil and promised stability and the like.

What does any of it have to do with you and me? And to millions of others like us whose main concerns are, and should be, food, water, land, jobs, health, housing, forests, transport?

As somebody said on television after the first phase of polling was over, this has been an extraordinary election to the extent that while most observers were expecting Kargil and stability to occupy centrestage, the run-up to polling day had almost completely been hijacked by questions about Sonia's origins.

In short, nobody is talking of the issues that matter.

Is it any wonder then that 5,000 voters of Thirupalakudi village in Ramanathapuram district in the Sivaganga constituency, once represented by the redoubtable, P Chidambaram, boycotted the election to highlight their demand for the provision of drinking water?

Is it any wonder that caretaker home minister L K Advani was booed and heckled in Gandhinagar (from where he has been elected twice) for failing to solve the chronic water shortage, to get a railway connection or to get housing plots allotted in the city?

Mr Advani's excuse, like that of every facile politician, is that these are all "local" problems and that he was seeking election for the Lok Sabha and not the municipal corporation. But as the protestors -- mostly state government employees -- reminded him, "What have you done to solve the problems of Gujarat while sitting in the central cabinet?"

The answer: precious little. In fact, nothing.

To Mr Advani and some 500-other colleagues of his, but especially to the 272 he wants on his side come October 6, Kargil was a gift-horse that Pakistan sent to the BJP and its allies. But for that, and for the monumental blunder that the Congress committed at the door of Rashtrapati Bhavan, this would have been a different election, with an equally different outcome.

As the author and journalist P Sainath writes in The Hindu: "For hundreds of millions, the all-important issues remain untouched. So do other basics of a human existence. As inequality deepens, so will the turbulence. And it will reflect in the life span of governments, too. So if you're betting on the polls, don't back stability. You'd lose."

Now you know, why Mr Advani's party talks of "fixed tenure legislation", a concept imported, appropriately, from Germany.

Krishna Prasad