It begins today and will end on May 12 — the attempt by India to, once again, redefine its future. Since gaining independence in 1947, this is India’s 16th general election and, incontestably, the most divisive and fractious one it has ever lumbered towards. The reason for it is clear: in the ten years the country has been ruled by the Congress-misled United Progressive Alliance (UPA), India has repeatedly bitten the dust in a host of areas — governance, trade, foreign investment, rupee value, consumer confidence, food subsidies, agricultural reforms, women’s issues, rural development, infrastructure, sectarian violence and defence deals, to name just a few. The Congress juggernaut of misgovernance rolled on, reaching its top speed in the past three years. Never before has the country witnessed such devastating debilitation in nearly all aspects of governance, as a direct consequence of which India witnessed, perhaps for the first time, a particularly virulent strain of personality politics that has ended up as the bete noire of 2014’s election campaigning.
While politics can gain from being congruous with personality edification, and history is not shy of owning up to this, the contemporary Indian version of such politics is a contagion that needs to be eliminated.
The epileptic frenzy of mud-slinging and name-calling being indulged in by just about every politician in this election campaign — particularly by the likes of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and Congress’s eternal hope Rahul Gandhi — are doing great damage to the voter’s mindset as they substitute the relevance of issue-led politics with the vacuity of self-propaganda. The next few weeks are crucial for India as it asks its 814 million voters to do what is right — and that is to be able to see beyond the dazzle of the delusion and vote for candidates who will govern rather than grandstand.
Whatever the composition of the coalition at the centre, and that seems to be an inevitability, India needs a government that can deliver. After 67 years of independence, this is the least the Indian voter must ensure. Failure to do so will have unbearable consequences for the country.
