Detail India's Election: The Untouchable and The Unattainable   Oleh:  The Economist Jenis: Article from Bulletin/Magazine Dalam koleksi: The Economist (http://search.proquest.com/) vol. 391 no. 8627 (Apr. 2009), page 32. Topik: India; General Election; Parties; Congress Ketersediaan Perpustakaan Pusat (Semanggi) Nomor Panggil: EE29.54 Non-tandon: 1 (dapat dipinjam: 0) Tandon: tidak ada     Lihat Detail Induk Isi artikel WAVING regally, with fingers and thumb touching, Mayawati greets 100,000 of India’s poorest people, and they wave back. Smiling sweetly, the 53-year-old chief minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP) plonks her handbag, then herself, onto a blue armchair facing the crowd, and awaits presents. The local candidate for her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) proffers an elephant—the BSP’s electoral symbol—made in silver. Then Miss Mayawati stands and urges the people of Mirzapur, a district of eastern UP that participated in the first round of India’s month-long general election on April 16th, to vote for the elephant. “UP is ours, now we are going for Delhi.” The crowd, mostly dalits (Hinduism’s former “untouchables”), to whose interests the BSP is dedicated, is restless. Miss Mayawati is a poor public speaker and her message, that the Congress party failed to uplift many wretched dalits while ruling UP and India for over three decades, is familiar. But, as a dalit herself, who won power in UP in 2007 for a fourth time, and who has accrued an admitted fortune of over $12m during her political career, she is an inspiring presence. Asked what it would mean to her if Miss Mayawati one day fulfils her ambition to lead India, Pyari, a poor woman in the crowd, says: “I’d feel as if I was prime minister myself.” Miss Mayawati, moreover, is not only addressing Mirzapuris, who she hopes will elect her candidate, from the low-caste Patel community, out of Hindu caste-loyalty. Rather, she is speaking to all India. The BSP is expected to put up candidates in around 500 of the 543 seats being contested, aiming to become the first regional party in India to grow into a national one. India’s two biggest parties, the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which will have around 430 candidates, and Congress, which will put up around 400, are in decline and many think Miss Mayawati could succeed in her aim. As evidence, they cite the BSP’s stunning victory in 2007, when it won the first outright majority in UP for nearly two decades. Moreover, Miss Mayawati could become India’s prime minister with a more modest general-election result. With 50 parliamentary seats (80 are up for grabs in UP alone), the BSP would probably be India’s third-biggest party. If this made it a potential kingmaker to any of the three likely coalition mainstays—Congress, the BJP or a host of regional parties called the “third front”—Miss Mayawati would demand to be queen. Regional wrecker This would horrify India’s English-speaking elite. Venal, autocratic and nakedly opportunistic, Miss Mayawati is the epitome of the wrecking regional leader, a type that has helped ensure, during two decades of coalition rule at the centre, that India’s governments have mostly been quarrelsome, inefficient and corrupt. And, as a dalit, she stands out in an intelligentsia dominated by high-caste Hindus. The BSP has no ideology. It is a vehicle for the ambition of its inspiring leader, masquerading as a promoter of dalit rights. In fact, there is little evidence to suggest dalits do better under the BSP than any other party: in UP Miss Mayawati is putting up dalit candidates only in the 17 seats reserved for the group under an affirmative-action scheme. The BSP has no manifesto, offering instead a 20-page “appeal” for votes, including the line: “Our party wants growth of capital and not development of capitalists in the country.” Yet Miss Mayawati’s electoral record is impressive. In UP’s last election, the BSP won 206 out of 403 seats, more than twice its previous tally. It also increased its vote-share from 23% to 30%—even though dalits, who mostly voted BSP, represent only 22% of the state’s 175m people. It achieved this success by appointing non-dalits, including high-caste Brahmins, as candidates. (Though its extra votes came mostly from low-caste Hindus and Muslims; the BSP got only 17% of the Brahmin vote.) At the same time, the party has extended its support among dalits—of whom India has 250m, or one-fifth of the population—in neighbouring states. In a cluster of state elections in December, it increased its vote share in Delhi from 2.5% to 14%; in Madhya Pradesh from 5% to 11%; and in Rajasthan from 3% to 7.5%. To win 50 seats in the general election, it must repeat its success in UP, where its candidates include 20 Brahmins, and pick up a few seats elsewhere. This seems possible, but—like almost any outcome in Indian elections—not quite probable. The BSP’s main rival in UP, the Samajwadi Party (SP), which was founded to look after low-caste Yadavs, is well-organised and has a similar cross-caste strategy. Its candidate in Mirzapur is also a Patel. In fact, though it lost control of UP in 2007, the SP’s vote-share remained intact, at 25%. If disgruntlement with the BSP’s state government, which has announced some grand road-building plans but achieved little, costs the dalit party non-dalit votes in this election, the SP could even match its tally. A recent poll for NDTV, a television news channel, suggests the BSP will win 35-40 parliamentary seats—an advance on the 19 it won in 2004; but, as far as Miss Mayawati’s prime-ministerial ambitions are concerned, probably no cigar. Opini Anda Klik untuk menuliskan opini Anda tentang koleksi ini! Kembali

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