Sunday Posts

In next week's General Election, I intend to vote Labour. I am not a traditional Labour voter. I am first generation Asian migrant, with a professional background and generally belong to Asian professional circles and neighbourhood. Most of the people I socialise with are likely to vote conservatives, and some of them, in time, will perhaps join the Tory party. I have not voted Labour in the last election, and have not agreed with many of its policies while it was in Government. I pay my taxes, and never taken any benefits nor thought of doing it. I don't know the local Labour candidate, nor has she campaigned too ardently in the locality I live in. On the other hand, I know the incumbent Conservative MP, a very likable one, and several of my friends are actively campaigning for him. And, yet, I made up my mind now to vote Labour. Indeed, I would have never voted for the Tories in the first place. There are several reasons for this, but essentially, I see the Conserva...

Sometimes, fairy tales are possible. One is unfolding right now in Delhi. Just as I was contemplating writing a post on the decline of democracy, Indian voters demonstrated what is really possible. It is a return of hope with a vengeance. This one is for the world, worthy of celebration more than Indian Mars Mission and stock markets. So, I must recount the details even of this famous event, lest someone has missed. In Delhi, the Capital city of India which is also a State, an assembly election was held at the fag end of 2013. Despite everyone thinking that Indian politics is a two-horse game - and the choice is really between heir apparent Rahul Gandhi and business-backed Hindu supremacist Narendra Modi - a new party gets the most seats. Started by a former taxman, the diminutive Arvind Kejriwal, the Aam Admi Party ran on an anti-corruption manifesto, and almost won a majority.  Since the two big parties can not form a coalition among themselves, eventually Mr Ke...

I received a leaflet on post yesterday urging me to vote NO on the 5 th of May, helping to keep Britain's First Past The Post voting system intact. There is a photo of runners on the finishing line, and the message that under AV, the person coming second may be the winner. Like everything in today's Britain, it is an appeal to my fear: It is based on the assumption that I can be fooled, and misled easily. This informative video from BBC will tell anyone that AV is not about the losers winning, which the right-wingers are trying to establish, but about public having more choice, elections producing results and candidates winning fairly and squarely. It is giving the public more say and MPs less to play with. It will reduce the premium on the kind of dishonest politics of fear that the NO camp is playing. I shall argue that AV reflects the realities of political life in the modern times. Rarely, it is a straightforward choice between two clear alternatives, but many shades of ...

Britain is changing, for all purposes and intent, from a parliamentary democracy to a presidential one. The process would have started some years back. One can't really pin it down to a particular event, though Tony Blair, with his gift of presence, largely initiated the process. His successor in office, Gordon Brown, accepted and continued the process, first by insisting on a mid-term succession, and then making the election, wrong- headedly , a referendum on himself. In doing so, however, he lost; though not before a never before Leader's Debate on TV, where the three party leaders took carefully pre -selected questions from a carefully pre -selected audience and made their various political statements. Besides, the British Press intervened in the political process, as is the tradition, but this time, they were focused far more on personalities, particularly that of Gordon Brown, than on the parties. The process of transformation into a Presidential system has only hastened a...

Britain has to decide tomorrow which way it wants to go. It isn't going to be an easy choice. Democratic politics usually pushes all contenders towards the middle, the area of majority, which rules out dangerous ideas but also the possibility of innovative thinking. So we have today three parties slightly different from each other, raging a debate over pounds and pence and indulging in accountant-talk: three equally bad, good or indifferent choices. The truth is - Britain is standing at an inflection point in its history and nothing but fresh thinking will be needed to save it. But none of the plausible alternatives offer any fresh thinking. Let me try an example: Let's talk about Change. Gordon Brown says Britain needs a change, and he is the only one who can deliver change. He says he is change himself. That's a surprising statement from the incumbent - especially from a Prime Minister whose back most Britons want to see. But Brown's change is about many forgettable ...

West Bengal Assembly Polls are due next year. This may become a watershed poll, the first one after Jyoti Basu's death, and one that may push CPIM out of power after more than 33 years. In fact, it seems that all of India is waiting to see that happen. There is an expectation in West Bengal building up, because after years of misrule and stagnation, Bengal's moment may just come to join the party in India. But this is still not certain, if newspaper stories have to be believed. There seems to be an ongoing tussle between the temperamental Trinamool Congress chief, Mamta Banerjee , and the Congress party. Ms Banerjee seems to believe that she is doing a favour by aligning with congress, when the truth is the other way round. And, while Ms Banerjee has been a political survivor in her career, no one can credit her with political astuteness. So, the odds are that she will cross the threshold and the TNC -Congress alliance will not last till the election. This will almost ce...

The news from Iran is getting grim by the moment. The deep division in the Iranian Regime is now in the open. I am optimistic that we are seeing the beginning of the end of the Iranian Regime, and its power will prove to be fictitious like that of other dictatorial regimes of the past. An iconic figure - Neda - has emerged in her death, an young lady shot by the hired assassins of the state, and hopefully the amateur images of her dying moments will stir an otherwise indifferent world into action. The lesson that the world's dictators don't seem to get is that technology has moved forward and the usual methods of gagging - banning the journalists, stopping the newscasts - are no longer good enough. As Iran continues to dominate Twitter and the blogs, and as the street videos shot on mobile phone keep leaking out on the Internet, the evil men of Myanmar will surely call the Iranian Elite to offer an word of advise - we told you to keep Internet out! We have seen this before,...

The election dust is all settled. There is indeed no final settlement in politics, and today's victors and vanquished can change positions almost overnight. But while everything is transitory, there is one enduring truth, politics is cruel on people and parties who refuse to learn. And we shall see. The results of this election lead to continuity, in governance and in political equation overall. Except in one state, that is. Indeed, West Bengal just experienced a mini-revolution. After 32 years of Left Front rule, this is suddenly the first time when the opposition has done better than the ruling left front. No one expected this. In fact, the Left Front expected a better show from opposition - there was a palpable voter fatigue - but they were benchmarking the opposition performance 1984 - 16 out of 42 seats. This result, 26 out of 42 seats, reducing the communists to an insignificant 24 seats in the parliament [which is the all India tally of the left parties], was unforeseen. Thi...

India's electorate continues to spring surprises. A largely illiterate, prejudiced electorate - what do they know of governance and democracy one would think - defies the political pundits and vote maturely and with great judgement. I am so delighted to be proved wrong regarding my fear that this election will have disastrous consequences and I hope my delight will be shared by many across the country. We did think that the terrorists attacks on Mumbai and Varun Gandhi's antics will create an wave of hatred in India towards minority communities and carry the election. We thought Prakash Karat's private revenge will play spoilsport. We also thought that the royalists in Congress will jump in with Rahul Gandhi's candidature and undermine the strong record of competence of Manmohan Singh. Everyone predicted that this will be a fractured mandate and the real game will be played after the election, and various end-of-shelf-life politicians propositioned and postured ...

We are more or less 12 hours away from the results of the Indian election. The exit polls are out now, and there is a huge swirl of speculation around at this time. I am trying to follow NDTV, though they are now mostly showing footage of 2004 because there is actually nothing to be shown. This wait is most agonising, especially because this is a watershed election and the results will have a long standing impact on our country. This is also the perfect time to indulge in a little speculation. In a private blog like this, there is no fear of being off the mark - in fact, that indeed is the point about this freedom. So far, the exit poll data and all the commentators are pointing to one obvious thing, which we indeed knew much before all this had started - that the Third Front, a so called opportunistic amalgamation of self-important parties led by the communists will wither away even before the results are announced. So far, various parties, who allied with the communists, have already...

We are now in the final week of India's General Election, and we shall know the results by the end of this week. The political maneuvers are already on and one can see possibilities of coalition, including some impossible ones like a Congress- BJP coalition, emerging suddenly. This is going to be interesting to watch, indeed. That said, this is a crucial election. May be one of the most crucial ones. I am no expert in Indian politics, so can not really say where it will rank in significance. One can possibly argue that this is as important as the one in early 90s, when India needed to get its economic policy right rather desperately , and needed a stable and decisive government therefore. Or, one can also say that this is as important as the one in 1977, which was watershed in the sense that it dawned a new era in Indian politics. I am tempted to go even further and compare this with India's first election in 1951, which tested the idea of the republic and was crucial for the...

One interesting thing I realize when I speak to anyone in India, the recession has not affected the morale yet. Everyone seems to say, yes, times are bad, but it will be over yet soon. Some even say that the recession will not affect India at all, at least in a major way. They point to the prudence of Indian banks, and are emboldened by Joseph Stiglitz recently saying that the Reserve Bank of India has better judgement than the Federal Reserve. More to the point, many Indian businessmen point to the huge untapped potential of the country and see the recession as a temporary blip, and expect things to return to usual growth soon. Sometimes, I feel this is a very Indian thing. I spoke to friends in Dubai, who strongly believes that things will be back to normal soon. I also had discussions with Indians in the UK, and when I told them that the house prices are going down, they told me that this can not happen for too long and they would rather go out and try to buy houses now. I have thi...

Finally, I am back in London, but with India all over me. I have not lived in India for a long time, but have spent a lot of time, over 100 days, in India, in the last six months. This was an unusually close engagement after a long time. I am unlikely to continue such intense travelling in the coming months, and will see much less of India now. But, this experience left a mark - seeing India so closely and so much, and with such a perspective, was something unique and never repeatable. As I come back, India is preparing for its elections. This starts in ten days, and will be conducted in five phases, extending upto middle of May, and results will be out by the end of May. I am very keen on voting myself and will try to coincide a quick visit to Kolkata around the time. However, this is indeed the first time I don't know what to do with it. This is one of the most crucial elections in India's history, when everything is up in the air. The political formations are all open no...