The election grinding-machine has begun rolling on, and the political sausage will come out on May 23. It may be “tasty” for some and “bitter” for others. Why political sausage, you may ask. That’s what politics is all about, putting all ingredients into the casing.
It was the 19th century statesmen and Prime Minister of Prussia, Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, who remarked that “laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” Yes, when you see them being made, sometimes you don’t feel like eating them. Making laws is a messy process.
The recent government-making in Goa where certain MLAs of the MGP were added and some left out is a political sausage. That it was a messy affair putting it together shows how politics at times works. Winning is everything in politics. It was Bismarck again who came with the saying, “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.” The BJP did the next best, wooing the MGP MLAs and breaking Goa’s first governing party that Dayanand Bandodkar had made into a formidable base. It’s not surprising though, considering that the BJP pulled the carpet from the Congress, which gained the highest number of seats in the 2017 state election.
No doubt, the master strategist Manohar Parrikar was on defence duty in Delhi but he somehow managed to cast his influence over the dispirited BJP and managed to take a return flight to Goa to re-occupy the throne he vacated on Modi’s summoning him to be Defence Minister and leaving the Goa government in the unstable hands of a despondent Laxmikant Parsekar who couldn’t save his own seat of Mandrem. Parrikar may have been uncomfortable under the larger-than-life Modi as Parrikar was himself like his master in the manner he functioned as CM — an autocrat.
It was again a masterly stroke that the BJP hung on to the reins of power when Parrikar passed away. Stealing away MLAs of the rival parties is the power-play of politics, and BJP has shown how adapt it is in playing it to its advantage. Parrikar had neatly damaged the Congress by roping in Mauvin Godinho, Pandurang Madkaikar and Vishwajit Rane. All’s fair in love and politics, as they say.
We have to keep our fingers crossed to see what type of political sausage will come out of the exercise of world’s largest democracy. That democracy is failing is another matter. If Modi returns with a bang, democracy will be in deep peril. Polls show that India could have a “vegetable sausage” again.
The late PM of Canada, Lester Pearson, said, “To be Prime Minister of Canada, you need the hide of a rhinoceros, the morals of St Francis, the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the leadership of Napolean, the magnetism of a Beatles and the subtlety of Machiavelli.” Modi shows some of the characteristics mentioned by Pearson, and some qualities of other current demagogues in the world, such as Hungary’s PM Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, US President Donald Trump. It seems Brazil’s newly-elected president Jair Bolsonaro has the makings of an autocrat, as he won using the same terms and language that have been associated with the populist group of leaders.
Though some Indian media have painted Narendra Modi with the same broad brush, he does show sign of a tough leader who dares to take firm decisions, such as striking Pakistan, to reinforce his image. Time magazine put him on its cover in 2015 and headlined, The Next Global Player. No doubt, with his frequent trips abroad he has strode the world’s stage. In his first term, he has given enough signs to rank among those who rule with an iron hand. Another term will prove he becomes more arrogant and dismissal of others, including his senior ministers and top-rankers in the BJP.
It’s not hard to believe Shatrughan Sinha, who quit the party and joined the Congress, when he said that BJP is “one-man show, two-man army.” The campaign rallies have shown him more of an actor than Sinha ever was. His pet subject is “nationalism”, and by that he means many things. As a staunch Hindu and a former RSS pracharak, Modi’s brand of nationalism is undiluted far-right populism, which is trending in many countries, or, to say it bluntly, Hindu majoritarianism.
Modi must realise that India has “nested identities”, and that nationalism and Hindu identity are two different things. India has been said to be a nation of many nations, and the regional tensions that come to the surface during elections bear testimony to it. It’s by accommodating all identities that the way forward to march for India as a country. There has been so much polarisation and divisions on religious lines that fears and anxiety within its population can be counter-productive. Unity is strength.
(Eugene Correia is a senior journalist who worked for The Hindu, and the Free Press Journal)
