The Twin Dynamics of Political Obsolescence

This article can also be read as a three part Youth Ki Awaaz special series at http://bit.ly/IbgLkH.

A specter is haunting the Congress party. The specter of obsolescence. The scorching heat of summer may have descended on New Delhi, but cold winds are blowing across 24 Akbar Road as the Grand Old Party of India ruminates on its election reverses last month. In the key state of Uttar Pradesh, the magic wand of Rahul Gandhi had once again come up a cropper. For the second time in just over a year, a state in the Hindi heartland has rejected the charms of the Nehru-Gandhi scion in favour of a regional satrap.

    More tests await the Congress party and Mr. Gandhi later this year in Gujarat, Delhi and the Presidential elections. But part one of this year’s electoral tug-of-war has gone decisively against the ruling party. The question then arises that who has it gone in favour of. The answer to that question is uncertain. The main Opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) only seems weakened by the poll results. Going by party president Mr. Nitin Gadkari’s remark that an election victory in Manipur (where the Congress has won decisively) counts for nothing in the dynamics of national politics, neither does one in Goa (with all due respect to the other small states as well).

    If the spoils of war are counted, the big winners from March the Sixth are the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab and the Trinamool Congress by virtue of its gaining a toehold in Manipur and the greater bargaining power at the Centre it has gained at the expense of a weakened Congress. Coupled with the power enjoyed by regional parties like the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar, the Biju Janata Dal in Orissa and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu, it is hard not to notice the wave of regional parties storming to power in state after state. With two-fifths of the total Lok Sabha constituencies belonging to the above mentioned six states, the next general elections promise to change the dynamics of national politics in a major way.

    There is no one theory that explains the sudden change in electoral fortunes of the national parties. Their overall gain in the 2009 LS polls had invited opinions that in 2014, the masses would entrust one party with a majority mandate. No one in their sane minds would suggest the same, barely three years down the line. Blame may be attributed to the degeneration of governance under UPA-II or the weakening charm of Mr. Clean Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh or even the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare. A combination of these factors, combined with several others, might come closer to the truth.

An Alleged Case of Discrimination Against a Northeast Indian And Role of Citizen Journalists in Social Media

On 5th April 2012, a popular group on Facebook with nearly 20,000 followers named “Stop Discriminating People From the North-East India” posted an update saying

“Last night, A student from Shillong studying at Delhi University was detained, physically and racially abused by Delhi Police near north campus. One cop abused him “Hindi me baat kar, saala Chinese” and asked if he is engaged in homosexual activities.”

The link to the same is http://tinyurl.com/87cb7kp

A preliminary search on Google returned no results regarding the said incident. A question asked regarding the reason why the student was detained in the first place remained unanswered by the administrator of the page. In the meanwhile, a series of comments started streaming in mostly from indignant northeast Indians detailing similar experiences in Delhi and other Indian cities. Another set of people started a series of inflammatory comments clamouring for revenge. A sample of this sort read “let us avenge our brother in our own turf”. While I insisted on more details, all I received was more indignation at the general level of discrimination faced by NE students studying outside their home region as well as questions on my competence to judge the update given my name. Yes, name. In the same breath, racism and homophobia of a set of policemen in Delhi was being exposed and another person was being racially profiled. It did not matter that I myself hail from Shillong and study outside the Northeast. The stock question then was whether I was a Bengali Muslim and in that case, I must be one of those illegal Bangladeshi migrants who have run over NE.

The entire episode raises a number of key questions:

1. If the student was actually detained and treated as mentioned, what actions are being taken against the policemen who are then guilty of racial profiling, homophobia as well as denying an Indian citizen the use of a language of his choice?

2. Given the same assumption, why was the student detained in the first place? And why was this information withheld?

3. What sort of role do unaccountable citizen journalists like the admin of the said page play in spreading information, especially information that is liable to incite communal tension?