How that Other Democracy (India) Differs

``#14 by dost-mittar on October 17, 2004 6:29am PT``

Dost,,

It was hight of Durga Pooja when Sikhs , Yes Sardars.. Your Born love, killed two small girls and a son... and two unsuspecting adults. None.. None were either Sardar or Muslims (Both you love so much). I must completely agree only Sadrdars and Muslims (your new found love) are who can claim to be honest, true, Blah.. Blah.. Blahh...Seculars can on;y be Serds or ...

It was far to many years ago. It was Durga Puja in Kolkatta. I saw it personally.

Every single day I wait from B like you to.... well oppo. The girls age was three and five.. So much for your Serd B business. Please send me a URL where B like you oppolog...

If Serds murdered Hindus, it was OK. Root cause. When Hindoos kill Serds.. Well... SOB.

Do you know my own G got killed by your ..

Go and put your knees down. In front of Urs and FV.

And pay taxes to country called Canada and Pakistan. You are not wanted here.

Thanks but no thanks

Kaurasach/02 - democracy is democracy, and bought for hooch or spin, or otherwise, valuable.

ahmedbilal/03 - I agree that comparisons are not very apt when quantifiable poverty varies so drastically. Having said that, you can not deny the fact that India is one of the few countries in the world where the votes from the poor now count.

HP/04, dm/14, romair/16 - I said ``Muslim feudals``. I did not say ``Kashmir feudals``. I stand by what I said, in Punjabi and English.

rajsinghi/09 - this was a very brief book review, to get into detail you may wish to read the book itself? As for the authors, well, they were the only ones who got the results of the last general Election correct, so I guess that gives them some validation?

Mantolives/06 & 07 - why me?

Ref#13,14... Interesting comments by both and different viewpoints looking at same data.
My feeling is both are right in some way. My favourite female relative in India married a maratha brahmin and then I started looking at newspapers and little drawing my own conclusions.
All India politics is caste calculus more and more. ( it may change with time as people become urbanised and vertical and horizontal integration taking placein castes due to illness of love, marriage and garbage valgur ( though have not seen any if correct- have not seen any movies in decades- physical ailments, some may think mental ailments) ). So getting victory is fine tuning this caste equations if flexible little stretching little here and there matching boundary conditions. Some places basic caste equations remain but boundary conditions are undefined are part of unknown where dramatic upsets can occur. It appears that Congress was at this game best for first forty years as it was nonidealogical and *oppositions was lost as they did not believe in caste centricness of elections (* that is political romanticism related to idealogy of left or right and religious leaning organizations) or were theoretical scientists trying for ideal solutions. My feeling is in this game parties can make recover small tactical mistakes but if they make stategis caste mistakes in selection they they have made blunders, wrong caste candidate will loose.
With time others learned to play same games. That had advantage in sense even small marginalised castes can demand attention. As all contenstants began to put demografic candidates it was hard for all. Before Congress had edge of putting caste candidates others followed same way and put Congress in congress and excelled in states like UP, Bihar etc.
This lead of major castes people joining different parties as in Maratha state. From news in times of India many candidates were ready for any party if they get ticket. It appears that due to that Bjp lost upper caste character but became vehicle for lowermiddle caste aspirations and this has damaging effect as antiupper class combination under congress leadership collapsed for ever. This slow disintegrating fact and time will be required for four cycles ( 4X4=16, 4=no of elections and 4= time period of normal assembly time). Small castes got benefit as candidates from all parties ( with dominant caste membership) have to appease small castes if they want to get elected. So they have to look after these peoples interests. Dominence of one caste is had as like in Eastern Punjab ( India) Dalit are more marginalised than say in Bihar and tension is more higher amoung Jath Sikhs and other backward Sikh castes. So india case more number of castes is better than less.
In maratha state last time 156 maratha caste members in 288 numbers. This dominat caste is in trouble as backwards will not be too happy too long taking symbolic left overs. Its over long term loosing game for maratha caste people and only one has to see how gracefully they will accept demographic democratic outcome. In sense politics will become much like usa , both parties are same for majority. One thing for sure the close results shows long term democratic ethos increments and less marginalization of minor castes.
One can not say much uness one can give caste numbers of elected members and how dominant maratha caste did ( parties do not count). If the number is decreased then there that process has started if not its stalled but over long time they will go near demographic democratic averages -thanks to british system of democracy of direct presentation not republic style in as in us of america. If somebody from india throws light with numbers can help.

Harrymau Iyer suggest site about india music , its great thanks for that. ( much contribution by Parrakar), It helped me lost to understand theory of indian music to some extent. Then he gave comment by some won challenging god to show more than he has proposed. He was extraordinary person. I looked in number of notes available, combinations possible nCr, rejecting impossible sequense of nates understood by simple calculation the brilliance.

My general policy is not to criticize Kafirs ( nonmuslims). I do that I do not know much about kafirs and we have lots of problems ( you can name it) in Muslim Ummah. We should criticize ourself and refrain from criticizing Kafirs. They can manage their house we need to manage ours. Self criticism is useful other way is useless and illogical.

so in that tradition Mr. Iyer told us story of Civil engineer Hindu how could not name euation of caternary. ( Mr. Iyer , too much to ask for young man as engineers limit is sin and cosin but Cosh sinh is like amature facing Kumble in form on mat). We muslims also can match in that. When I was working in Hospatality business i had some times chance to ask questions to mechanical engineers . My favourite was as follows. `` I am not engineer but want know some little about engg. Tell me what are units of pressure ? Answer was pounds/sqare feet. What are units of height of water? answer was feet , very good. They I will ask tell me how pressure is meaured in height? NED grads as well as us trained engineers were at loss.( no affront to engineers)
Conclusions: we have sufficient educated fools. We do not have to say they are on otherside of border.

Ref dost-mittar #14

[harimou:
Statistics notwithstanding, this has to be treated as a big defeat for the BJP-Sena combine. With the NCP-Congress govt.`s dismal performance and the huge dissatisfaction of the people with it, the election should have been a walk-in for the opposition. So, this election should be considered more as a vote against the BJP-Sena than a vote for the govt.
And you could be a bit more generous towards Sonia. Though no tigress, she certainly seems to have developed a halo around her since her `raajya-tyaag` and handing over the `kharhaaon` to Manmohan Singh. I cant help thinking how her name would almost certainly have been in mud if she had chosen to be the PM herself. Reunciation pays in the `hindooland`.]

Didn`t pay in her supposed home state of UP where the Congress did not win one lousy seat out of 12 contested.

All polls suggested a hung assembly, not a victory for Shiv Sena. Enough rebels from Shiv Sena, BJP, Congress, NCP stood for election as Independents to split the vote. Cong-NCP combine just squeaked in with 143 out of 288 seats. They have one Independent supporting them. Who sre they going to elect Speaker of the Assembly - a Shiv Sena man so that they could retain a one-vote majority or one of their own?

I don`t intend to be any more generous to Sonia. She is already living rent-free, doesn`t pay any telephone bills, sitting on the Rs. 1,000 crore Indira Gandhi Foundation for Blah Blah Blah, has her retarded son AND daughter in the running for Prime Ministership in the future, etc., etc., etc. Enough is enough.

The Divided and Defeated BJP Should Expect More Shocks.
By Tushar-Tukoji

NEW DELHI, October 18: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) probably got over the shock of its electoral defeat in Maharashtra by the evening of October 16, but more shocks appear to be in store for the party in the next two years.

First it would be Bihar, then Jharkhand and Haryana, and then West Bengal and Kerala when these states elect their assemblies.

If the BJP could not do well in its safest state, Maharashtra, it has little or no chance of doing any better in the other five, especially the last two where the BJP has never been a force.

By most reckoning, the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra had faced the polls with a great deal of trepidation, what with problems ranging from farmers’ suicide to messy finances and drought. The Democratic Front government in the state, said many poll pundits, had little chance of retaining power. Some even went to the extent of saying that the Maharashtra polls would mark the beginning of the end of the Congress in the state as well its rule at the center.

But what happened, instead, was that in Maharashtra the BJP and its regional twin, the Shiv Sena, have lost many ‘bastions’ to the ‘pseudo-secular’ forces and the leaderships of both the BJP and the Shiv Sena face a scale of rebellion that may soon result in splits in their respective parties.

Should that happen, rebuilding a strong support base would be quite difficult because the ‘saffron’ brigade’s hold in the urban middle class Maharashtrians has also slipped.

The Shiv Sena started as a ‘Hindu’ party with a very narrow aim of ‘protecting’ Mumbai (then Bombay) from non-Maharashtrians and minorities. It later spread to the rest of the state to acquire the tones of a regional party.

But the just concluded assembly polls show that the Shiv Sena support has shrunk considerably and the party does not know whether to project itself as a regional party serving narrow chauvinistic ends or an exclusive and stronger Hindutva force.

The roar of the once unchallenged ‘tiger’ of Shiv Sena and its supremo, Bal Thakeray, has become so feeble that even his own family members do not seem to be scared of it.

The aftermath of Maharashtra looks terrible from the BJP perspective. It has set off both an identity and a leadership crisis in this self-styled ‘party of governance’, also known as ‘the party with a difference’ which is veering towards ‘party with differences’.

Since its ‘unexpected’ defeat in the Lok Sabha polls this past summer, the BJP has adopted a welter of tactics to win back the voters. It began with disrupting parliament, session by session, protesting against ‘tainted ministers’.

This is an issue, which should have won the party wide support and caused endless troubles to the newly installed UPA government. But the public reaction was one of dismay with the BJP for showing callous disregard to parliament.

The more keen watchers of the political scene also noticed that the tainted ministers’ issue smacked of hypocrisy by the BJP since it had never shown the slightest hesitation in hugging ‘tainted’ men and women.

Even when it became as clear as daylight, the BJP continued to flog the ‘foreign origin’ issue and heap abuses on the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, who had, in fact, enhanced her stature in the public eye after the Lok Sabha poll by an act of unparalleled ‘sacrifice’ in Indian politics — turning down the opportunity to sit in the country’s most important chair.

What the BJP refused to see was that the insults it kept heaping on Sonia Gandhi were taken as signs of vulgarity by the masses who had for whatever reason reposed their faith in her.

She might not be accepted as a great figure in Indian politics but the kind of following that she has in the country does not permit of indecent personal attacks on her………

A ‘national’ level political party has to win over voters with positive messages of plausible content. Spewing vitriol in public is against ‘Indian culture’, something that the BJP allegedly espouses.

veeresh
//... why me? ..//

Well - then who else? You went to pakistan and refused to sing the ``love`` song - remember?? You looked under wrong stones, my friend. So now you are tagged for life - learn to live with it :)))

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#7 by Mantolives

[Ofcourse to Veeresh who is blinded by delusions of greatness , your logic will not make any sense.]

Just as you are blinded by delusions of the greatness of that TNTist Jinnah? Well, well, we are all blind some way or the other. Just that we refuse to acknowledge our blindness.

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this gottobe good news for the ghatis. they will have pawar the strong-man sitting in centre and being remote control for the state. he is bound to bring-in much development moolah for the state. bal thakre is jumping mad and has already blamed muslims and backward castes. his ``khokha`` calculation went wrong. he sold tickets to some of the shivsena safe seats for large khokhas, thinking he will need that in post-election horse-trading. but now out of power, he does not need the money, so at least he is fiscally shrewd. considering anti-incumbancy wave, this is indeed a big win for congress/ncp no matter what the popular vote says.

How that other democracy differs? Well - more I see of american democracy, the more it resembles (to me) the cr@p we call democracy in India. Actually in some ways the Indian affairs looks better than what I see in US these days.

I mean - irregularities in voter registration, non-standard voting methods, vote fraud, voter intimidation - these are supposed to be stuff right out of Indian elections, right?? But now we see it all right here in US - the greatest democracy on the face of the planet!!! What`s up with the hundred different methods of voting - can`t americans all have same type of voting machines - like they do in India??

And then what`s up with this media partisanship? Sinclair running anti-kerry films all over the place? I mean why should it matter to sinclair if bush wins or kerry wins? And then we have Michel moore trying to run his anti-bush sh!t on pay-for-view and geting turned down by the TV stations??? ....... Indian media is probably the cr@ppiest in entire democratic world - but I haven`t seen this level of partisanship there.....and Indians fight bitter elections all the time.

The most bizzare of all is this : any country who has gone through the most horrible terrorist attack in human history would actually strive to bury the hatchets and band together and take on the enemy with a single-mided focus. One would certainly expect the Americans to do so. One would expect americans to show the rest of the world (as they do many other aspects of life ) how to rise to the occassion and how to handle things in the best possible manner. One thing we all expect from americans is that when the crunch comes, these folks stand up and do the right thing.

But what we see these days is completely out of whack. The level of partisanship is unprecedented. The quality of politics is at the lowest level. Catholics have declared that vote for Kerry is a ``sin``!! All sorts of religious dogma is on the rise. Cheney says vote for kerry is a vote for terrorists!! Democrats bleating that Cheney`s daughter is gay!!

And in the mean time - everybody have forgotten the fact the real enemy is still living in suburbs of Karachi, planing his next big attack. Ameicans have completely lost their balance, to say the least. For 50% of them Kerry is the enemy, for other 50% it`s bush. The fact is - it`s neither of these two. It`s Osama bin Laden and his band and they are still alive!! But nobody seem to care!!

I mean - fractitious and bitterly divided that the Indians are - even they don`t stoop to this level of partisanship when the crunch comes. Remember Kargil? The way the entire nation stood together to fight the paki terrorists!!

So what`s going on here?

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