Politics of Rabblerousing

1 day after local political parties fell over each other trying to establish their love for the state, some views that I have been thinking on. Let me pre-warn that these are my personal views and there may be factual gaps due to my limited research and knowledge. Also, one may choose to disagree, but it has to be done maturely. Please post comments, if you wish, but no long sermons.

9th March 2010, Raj Thackeray celebrates the 4th anniversary of MNS. Immediately after that, some party people go and throw stones at an Airtel Office. Their reason, some service that Airtel was not providing in a local language. Cut to March 2006, after touring some parts of the state, Raj Thackeray announces the founding of MNS. His first speech is quite a surprise. Anyone who has some awareness of his ways, was expecting a hard line agenda. However, he surprises all by talking of development and development only. I am discussing this with an office colleague and it seems to us that he was clearly trying to align to a more moderate line and target a larger segment of the youth, and honestly, as much as I was aware of lack of intention, I am heartened by the assessed approach. Ofcourse very few will remember this now.

So what changed - The first election results. Raj Thackeray realised that while his moderate stand and pro development agenda was getting him positive reviews, it stopped at that. He hardly got any votes and drew blanks in the first few elections the MNS stood in. Soon he changed course and by late 2007, the MNS had firmed up an anti migrant (specifically North Indian) agenda. Raj was clearly unapologetic on his views and more the English media castigated him, more it helped him in his positioning. Congress's tacit support helped. The 2009 assembly elections saw MNS beating the Sena in Mumbai and Nasik and clearly chipped away a huge chunk of the Sena vote. While some people may have been surprised by the quantum of their vote, not too many were surprised by the overall trend. Immediately the Sena went on an attack to protect its vote bank and since then the Marathi Manoos has had everyone falling over to please him. Thus, the over board approach to Maharashtra day yesterday.

So whats my point here. The above is just an example of what I have observed in Indian politics over a few analysis. To create a loyal vote bank out of zilch, one cannot take a slightly off center stand. One has to go hammer n tongs on an issue that matters deeply to a few to establish to them unequivocally that you are 100% committed to the same. The vote bank does not evaluate you objectively on your intentions (for example, Raj Thackeray's kids go to a high society cbse English medium school that still has Bombay in its name) but focuses more the decibel and destruction levels of your campaign. This is precisely where the English media has contributed to Raj Thackeray's growth. By giving him so much negative attention, they have helped him remain in the lime light and also won him more sympathy from those who are leaning to the Marathi manoos cause. I admire the man for his political acumen. He deliberately chose to give all interviews in Marathi in the run up to 2009 assembly. Moreover, he chose to allow the English media to take his case (most will remember the Rajdeep Sardesai interview), where possible ,to increase his vote banks loyalty. Congress was smart enough to not arrest him, they realised it would only make them the villain and help his cause a lot more than they wanted.

One has to be a Rahul Gandhi to be able to take a rationalist view on issues and gain positive votes for the stand. This will not dent the traditional vote base and will only add. Raj Thackeray may be capable taking the rationalist view, but he will not capture a vote bank for it. Politics of rabble rousing is an essential ingredient for any nascent political party to establish itself. One cannot take a moderate stand and survive. One has to identify a cause significant to a few. Moreover, stating ones support for a cause is not sufficient, one has to destroy public property and cause disruptions to be able to gain political mileage from the stand. TRS is an example here. Even if the BJP supports the Telangana cause for a few years now, it is only the TRS and its ways that help them gain votes on basis of their stand. Ditto will happen in case of Vidharbha, where again BJP is pro division. Expect a Vidharbha Rashtra Samiti or something similar to come up soon and start attacking public property and then end up with 5-10 MLAs in the assembly putting token protests once in a while!

So now that we have established the point, let us try and see why the politics of rabble rousing actually works. Few reasons that I have derived are

1. Development is a much maligned word. It is thrown around all the while by all and sundry. No voter believes a politician when he uses the D word. Only a Shiela Dixit and a Narendra Modi can get away with those for a while, that to after proving themselves over a few terms. No one is going to believe K Chandrashekar Rao or Raj Thackeray if they harp the development agenda.
2. Attention spans of people are dwindling. No one remembers (or cares for) what you said 2 years ago. Its your current stand that matters and there to, its what you say that matters. Who cares weather you walk your talk or genuinely mean what is said.
3. Bulk of the educated and thinking class (which may be a bit less susceptible to point 2 above) finds it below its dignity to vote (and I have every right to criticize here as i have not missed casting my vote in any election). Clearly a lot of us just want to do token lip service. And ofcourse, we are champions at externalising. So we will not vote since we don't find any candidate suitable. We will not bother that, our not voting, is leading to the political parties to put up candidates who will appeal to those, who will vote come what may! I have very strong views against my elitist friends from south Mumbai who went all bonkers after 26-11 coining slogans and joining facebook communities like 'Enough is Enough' but then skipped voting in the election 4 months later as it was too hot or the kids had their summer vacations (Colaba recorded a pathetic 40% turn out, hypocrites). So since majority of the rationalist do not vote, why bother targeting them.
4. Media loves sensationalism. The smart politicians have realised this and are using the media to propagate their views. Cause some mayhem and suddenly you are on national news. Even Barkha Dutt (sic) wants to interview you and in conjunction to point 2 above, you have arrived in main stream.

So now that we have established the point and the cause, whats the way forward. Clearly words like raising awareness etc do not work. We have to take our democracy and its polity for what it is. Even the level of maturity and fairness in the system is a miracle for a country with 1 billion people, deep prejudices, limited levels of education and the arrogance of the educated class. I clearly do not have a solution. But I do believe that understanding the problem is part of the battle won. And hopefully as more of the educated and aware classes start voting, this point will get less relevant. And once again, for yet another reason, I believe that our immature media needs greater regulations.