The middle class too sells its vote

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/campa-cola-to-aap-the-middle-class-too-sells-its-vote-1234619.html

In April 2011, anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare, riding high on middle class adulation, made a seemingly pithy remark. Indian voters, he said, can be bought for as little as Rs 100, one saree or a bottle of alcohol. They don’t, he lamented, understand the value of their vote.
It was an odious remark directed specifically at voters at the bottom of the economic pile, those who lived below, at or just above the controversial Rs 32-a-day poverty line. But barring a few commentators who slammed it, the ordinary public were delighted by it. Absolutely spot on, they said. It is the vote-bank politics that panders to these people which is ruining the nation, they sneered. The politicians regularise their slums and illegal power and water connections, give them illegal ration cards, protect the goons and so on.
And then there was the sanctimonious posturing. We don’t do these illegal things; we are law-abiding. We don’t go running to those vile politicians to bail us out.
That claim has been effectively shattered by the sight of the well-off residents of Campa Cola housing society in Mumbai not allowing demolition teams to enter the complex to bring down illegal structures as ordered by the Supreme Court. No tear-jerking histrionics were spared to whip up public sympathy. Pressure was put on the local politicians. In doing all this, the Campa Cola residents behaved no differently from the slum dwellers for whom actress Shabana Azmi sat on a dharna several decades ago and was roundly reviled for doing so.
There are some who hold that this case cannot be compared to that of demolition of slums. But the merits of this particular case are not relevant. The point is that the middle class is no different from the unwashed masses when it comes to breaking laws and then trying to go scot free.
The Campa Cola case isn’t an isolated one. In 2006, in Ulhasnagar in Maharashtra, public pressure forced the government to issue an ordinance that regularised illegal buildings. That same year in Delhi, a drive against unauthorised buildings had people who were singing paeans to chief minister Shiela Dixit suddenly turn against her. They even wanted the Delhi Master Plan to be changed to make the constructions legal.
The middle class also likes to believe – and more than that it would like others to believe – that its members vote responsibly and cannot be bought off. Nothing could be further from the truth. The middle class are as liable – and willing – to being bribed for its votes as the poor. Except that the bribe in question is not rice at Rs 1 a kg or cookers, television sets, laptops (regularisation of unauthorised constructions is something both classes have in common, though); the stakes are much higher.
What else was the announcement in September of the constitution of the Seventh Pay Commission but a bribe to the middle class voter? Why do reservations in educational institutions and government jobs become an issue before every election (the latest being quotas in Central government jobs for Jats)? Who else but the middle class of the target communities will benefit from this? What makes the Aam Aadmi Party zero in on electricity bills as the key election issue in the Delhi assembly elections? The majority of the Delhi voters are from the middle class (and are perpetually averse to paying bills and taxes) and this issue has touched a chord with it.
Remember also that the middle class is not a single ethnic/caste/community bloc. So its members are part of community-specific vote-banks (Muslim, upper caste Hindu, OBC Hindu, Dalit Christians etc.) that politicians woo and successfully at that through sectarian give-aways and promises.
What is also conveniently forgotten is that many of the freebies that are given in the name of the poor – notably the fuel subsidies – actually benefit the middle class. That is why one will never see the middle class criticising the economically disastrous subsidies on cooking gas, petrol and diesel, even as they denounce the equally ruinous food subsidies for the poor. And the middle class is quite willing to barter its votes for getting its illegal constructions regularised. In 2000, then Union urban development minister Jagmohan was a hero when he demolished slums in Delhi; he became a villain when the demolition drive targeted encroachments and unauthorised constructions in middle class and upper middle class localities. The demolitions became a major issue in the municipal elections and Jagmohan, who had to face the ire of his own party, lost the 2004 elections. The party cadres, facing the wrath of the middle class, simply abandoned him.
The middle class is going to play a huge role in the coming elections – the assembly elections round the corner and the general elections next year. And the middle class will be wooed – as a group and community-specific sub-groups – by politicians with all manner of promises. There will also be demands that the middle class will come up with, which will be met to the extent they can. Is this wrong? No. In a democracy, these are par for the course. But let the middle class not take the moral high ground that it is above selling its vote like the despicable poorer sections do.

Mayawati and the Middle Class

I am getting a bit tired of all criticism of the idea of Mayawati as Prime Minister being attributed to urban English-speaking middle class snobbery and a class prejudice. I have seen several commentators take this line in recent months, the latest being Suryakant Waghmore in today's Indian Express.

I am quoting from his article (to which I have provided a link) only because I have it in front of me, but the points that he makes have been made by several others.

First he says "while the English speaking middle class largely opposes Mayawati because of her caste, they do not express this by hurling caste abuses. They try to respond (not react) through English politeness and thus create a new English speaking middle class caste-culture.

"This, surely, runs contrary to a truly liberal attitude that would have celebrated Mayawati's great success and recognised what she has done as a single Dalit woman without any family legacy, in a highly patriarchal and hostile environment."

Now this is patently ridiculous. I have a sneaking admiration for Mayawati for where she has taken the BSP. I am sure that she could not have done this if it were not for Kanshi Ram's patronage, but I concede that she could have wasted that patronage but did not. I fully agree with Waghmore that "Mayawati and BSP's growth represents the deepening of democracy in India."

But look beyond that. What else is Mayawati known for? Personal aggrandisement and corruption. Has she done anything for Dalits or for the state in each of her tenures? Or even the current tenure, when the BSP has a complete majority? Apart from building statues and monstrous memorials, that is? Waghmore comments on English speaking middle class obsession with her statues. But why shouldn't that be subject to criticism? Is that a measure of development of the state or the uplift of Dalits? When, in 2007, Mayawati came to power on the basis of a new social coalition, eschewing the upper caste hatred that had marked the BSP's politics till then, many expected that this would be a sobering influence on her and that she would behave in a more responsible way, focussing on administration and good governance. Two years on, can anyone testify that she has done that? She appeared to be making some right moves in the beginning, especially on the economic front. But she quickly backtracked. The counter argument is that the Mulayam Singh was equally bad. Sure, but the thought of Mulayam Singh as Prime Minister will also frighten a lot of people. Sure no government has ever done anything for Dalit uplift. But does that mean Mayawati should not be criticised for doing nothing for the group she claims to work for?

Arguments like Waghmore's precludes the possibility of the urban middle class reacting to issues like corruption and personal aggrandisement. Despite my cynicism about its apathy, I think this is an unfair charge. The middle class was quite accepting of a Dalit as president and now as Chief Justice of India. If it was reacting purely on the basis of prejudice, then there would have been equally sharp reactions to these appointments.

I am an English speaking urban middle class Iyengar Brahmin. I am petrified at the thought of Mayawati as Prime Minister. But I am equally petrified at the thought of J Jayalalitha (who is not a Dalit but an English speaking urban middle class Iyengar Brahmin) becoming Prime Minister. Because Jayalalitha's regimes have also been marked by rampant corruption and a highly personalised style of functioning. Just like Mayawati.

I am petrified at the thought of Lalu Yadav becoming Prime Minister. Not because he is a Yadav or because of his rustic ways, but because of the way he ruined Bihar. I am more comfortable with the idea of Nitish Kumar as Prime Minister, even though he is a Kurmi and though he is an engineer by education, he is not an English speaking urban middle class person. I am petrified of Ram Vilas Paswan becoming Prime Minister one day not because he is a Dalit but because of stories about his corrupt ways. But I am also petrified of Kamal Nath, an English-speaking urban middle class person, becoming Prime Minister (never mind that he probably doesn't have those ambitions) again because of his reputation for corruption.

Behind such insinuations of the kind Waghmore makes is the belief that Mayawati should not be opposed or criticised just because she is a Dalit. This is carrying the politics of victimhood a bit too far.

Candles Aren't Enough

When, a month or so after the 26/11 attacks, I had written my post, After the Candles, some friends told me I was being cynical. I had criticised the swish set of Mumbai for their meaningless candlelight vigils, spewing venom at politicians and `the system’, calling for tax boycotts and use of Rule 49 O of the Conduct of Elections Rules, which allows one to register presence at the polling booth and say that one is not exercising the right to vote. I had said these people need to go beyond lighting candles, that the system is made up of individuals and each one of us needs to change for the system to change.
But the voting turnout in the third phase of elections, has shown that, finally, all the ranting on Facebook and on television channels was just that - idle ranting. Voter turnout in South Mumbai (the hub of all the protests) was a mere 43.33 per cent, less than the 44.22 per cent turnout in 2004.
I had written a feature for The Telegraph on 4 January chronicling individual efforts to bring about change and had spoken to some Bombay-ites who were attempting this. One was Owen Roncon, an entrepreneur but better known as Priya Dutt’s husband. He was working to promote active citizenship and said confidently: "Things are going to happen." Maybe I should go back to him and ask what happened.
Another veteran social activist - Samuel Paul of the Bangalore-based Public Affairs Centre – had sounded a note of caution: "This will not be easy to sustain. All this is more a reaction to a crisis than a lasting shift to a higher plane or a mass movement." How right he was.
This is not the first time I have been accused of being cynical about the middle class. In April 2006, I had written an article, Middle Class Angst, in DNA, after candlelight vigils in Delhi and Lucknow and sms protests. This was seen as THE definitive sign of middle class awakening and that this section was shaking off its apathy. I had questioned this view and said in that article, “It's so much easier to light candles and send outraged SMSs. That's a quick salve for our collective guilty conscience.”
That feeling has only got reinforced since then. I am particularly impatient with all this candle lighting business. It has become a meaningless fad. Someone gets murdered and if the case is not solved within two days, there’s a candlelight vigil, with posters demanding justice for the victim. The merits or the difficulty of the case don’t seem to matter. The candlelight vigil worked in the Jessica Lal case because the issue was so outrageous – the murderers had been acquitted by the court after the case dragged on for years because the police botched up on the investigations. But now we have candlelight vigils at the drop of a hat.
But ask these very people to cooperate with the police in solving crimes and they’ll immediately back off. Ask them to not turn away when they see something wrong being done – or worse, not do wrong themselves – and they’ll ignore you.
The middle class is not capable of ushering in any lasting change. That requires an effort that will make our lives a little less comfortable, as I explained in Middle Class Angst, to which I am providing a link. Heck, they’ll have time for nightlong vigils but they can’t go out and stand in a line for an hour or so to vote. This is the middle class awakening that we are all applauding?
Another Bombay-ite I spoke to for the article in The Telegraph was Vishal Dadlani, the singer (of the Vishal-Shekhar duo) who filed a petition against the media coverage of the 26/11 attacks. He said: "It's no longer about sitting in drawing rooms and criticising the state of affairs. Each individual needs to stand up and say I will do one small thing to change things."
Forget it Vishal, just forget it.