’Tis the season to be jolly antsy
Ifind this season so tingly and invigorating. Maybe it’s the twinkly lights that go up before Diwali and come down well after the New Year. Maybe it’s the crisp Delhi airredolent with sewage and diesel fumes, but still, crisp. Maybe it’s all the blankies and sweaters. Or maybe it’s because all conversation consists of: “So, what do you think will happen in these elections?”
It doesn’t matter whether you just had that same conversation with that same person the day before or, indeed, earlier the same day. It’ll be, “Hi again! So, what do you think will happen in these elections?” As during any traumatic time, the mind copes by telling and retelling the story over and over again until it has sunk in. Or maybe I just need to find new friends.
Anyway, moving on — what do you think will happen in these elections?
Don’t answer that, I was just being polite. I have one unchanging position on election predictions, which is also my unchanging position on stock market predictions: I don’t know, and suspect that anyone who says they do know is selling snake oil. None of this stops me from asking, “So, what do you think will happen in these elections?”
So many things have happened over the course of the campaigns that suggest that the results could go a certain way. The country has been herded from talking about development to thinking about cows and the Ram Mandir. Leaders have shapeshifted from the “Strong and decisive” avatar to the “Wailing about family” avatar. Spokespeople have moved from playing defence on the corruption and crony capitalism of the present government to playing offence on the corruption and crony capitalism of the past government.
Communication hubs have notions of truth and fact with fake news and propaganda, which more effectively does the job of persuading people that they’re doing better now than before. The Chief Minister of the most populous state in the country spends all his time changing place-names, betting that people will better enjoy being poor, jobless, illiterate, and at the mercy of thuggery in Prayagraj today than they did in Allahabad yesterday. The BJP decided that if it couldn’t measure up to the UPA’s growth rates, it would change the measurements. Law and order is coming in a laughable second after religious (or allegedly religious) sentiment. Academia has been locked in a dungeon by the pseudo-nationalistic Hindu supremacist narrative.
Most importantly, at the moment, the Election Commission’s voter lists are ratty with mysterious holes and deletions where voters’ names should be, and there are very large questions, in boldface italics with neon arrows pointing to them, over the technology and security of EVMs. (Have you heard the joke about the guy on the plane pressing the call button and the vote going to the BJP?) EVMs are being transported without adequate guard, some strongrooms in which they are kept have been found to have no security cameras, and at least one was found to have a couple of laptop-armed, IDfree Reliance Jio employees in it, who the Election Commission claimed were “checking for signal”.
In other words, politics is currently one toxic landfill piled high with the smelly, burning remains of humane, moral, institutional and constitutional leadership and citizenship. Why would the results not go a certain way?
And yet, it could go another way. That’s the magical mystery tour we call elections — you never know who’s going to rock up to a voting booth and do something unpredictable. So until ballots are counted next week, it’s pretty certain that despite the futility of it, all conversation will remain: So, what do you think will happen in these elections?
I do love this season.