Congress Wins Karnataka – Democracy is Back!!

Mike Grundy (my ex boss, mentor and now a friend) came up with this retort in 2002. We have set up a company in India, got all the approvals, identified the toll blender, set up the production and made our first invoice to the customer on 4th of August 2002. My enthusiasm was understandable. I was a salesman all along and this was the first time I had handled other departments in running a company. I was euphoric and called Mike to convey the news once the truck carrying the goods to the customer left our premises. 

Mike congratulated the team and told me, “OK. Good. Now you can pack your bags and we all can retire.” or words to that effect. After a pause, I understood what he really meant. We have just crossed the first milestone and we needed to go a long way.

Well, I am not sure if anyone as wise as Mike is there in Congress Party, I doubt it though. The way Congress is reacting to their electoral victory in a state election, I think they need a Mike to tell them it’s just the beginning.

Ever since the election results were out about a week ago, the entire media, the congress party, the opposition parties, general public (or most of them except the 40% of people who voted for BJP) are talking, writing and discussing only topic. How this is a great victory for congress and how this will translate into even big victory in next general election and oh yes, how this is the end of  BJP or beginning of the end. This is something akin to the teacher telling a last bencher who just got pass grades in a mid term test, “Great. Your next stop is IIT.”

This has been a pattern since last ten years in India. If BJP wins a state, it is because of State Machinery misuse, sheer money power and altering the Electronic Voting Machines to turn all votes to BJP. If any opposition party wins, then it is a true victory for democracy and the people have disowned Hindu Right Wing and the Facist BJP. The only voters who are democratic are the ones who don’t vote BJP. They will not be swayed by money power or divisive politics. Even before this election Mr. Rahul Gandhi called EVM as MVM – Modi Voting Machine and the congress had complained that all the EVMs were sent to South Africa to doctor them to count only BJP votes.

Let me confess here. I wanted BJP to lose the Karnataka elections and lose badly. The BJP of Karnataka is probably the worst BJP unit in the country, corrupt and ridden with infighting, This will be a good lesson for them to analyse their mistakes and reboot. But my fears on what will happen if BJP loses the election turned out to be true.  It has just started with a 50,000 Crore freebee on the first day.

It is just not the state elections. Anything, any opposition leader does, is something to behold. A few weeks back one of the most well known leaders in India, Mr. Sharad Pawar announced his retirement from active politics. He is a politician I genuinely like (may be because I have spent more than 20 years in Maharashtra, Mr. Pawar’s home state). The media, on cue, started praising him, calling him the modern Chanakya. They declared it was just like Mr. Sunil Gavaskar announcing his retirement from International Cricket at 37. When asked why he was retiring, Mr. Gavaskar famously said, “It better to retire when you ask why and not why not?” All the euphoria just lasted for a week. Just like every other head of family run political party in India, Mr. Pawar took back his resignation when his party workers demanded he should continue to head the party. Few hundred pages of signing peans for nothing. 

I am as good as any left leaning liberal in the country. Pro reservation (affirmative action for the uninitiated), pro dole and pro LGBTQ rights guy and read only Indian Express, BBC, New York Times and The Economist none of which could be called right wing. But I fail to understand is how the so called liberals agree to anything only if it aligns with their thinking. They just can’t digest that there can be other point of view and it is their considered judgement that you can’t be an intellectual if you are pro BJP or you want to have an alternative view. 

By the time you read this blog, all of the following would have already happened in India or will happen in the next week. It is 24 hrs since Congress came to power. So it is only natural to expect miracle to happen.

• Our faith in democracy will be fully restored.
• Goodbye to all facist and divisive forces.
• Development in its true sense will happen across the country. No space for Adanis,  Ambanis and crony capitalism.
• Corruption will be a thing of past. 
• All our internal conflicts and external embarrassments (lack of religious and press freedom poor rank in true democracy index) will disappear.
• Global warming would come down drastically. El Nino and La Nina will behave properly or sidestep India.
• And finally Mr. Rahul Gandhi will get the velocity of Jupiter to unshackle the dalits to their freedom

Venkat, Radha, Sam, Guru, Mano Anna et al – don’t be surprised when you see a sea of changes next time you land in India. I have given you a heads up.