The recently concluded legislative assembly election in Karnataka won by the Congress party with an absolute majority, offers several important lessons for politicians and citizens of all hues and ideological persuasions. Driven by transformational new digital technologies and instant communication provided by social media, electorates across the country are not what they were ten — even five — years ago. Although the neta-babu brotherhood is doing its best to keep the mass of the citizenry steeped in ignorance and poverty by continuing to neglect education — the national outlay for public education (Centre plus states) remains static at 3-4 percent of GDP and Karnataka’s public education system is riven with teacher recruitment rackets, highly adverse teacher-pupil ratios, language chauvinism and particularly English teaching-learning aversion — young citizens have shown amazing capacity and capability to self-learn. Therefore, the incrementally young electorate has seen through the BJP’s old hat Hindu vote consolidation and anti-minorities election strategy. If the party leadership had its ear close to the ground, it would have discerned pervasive fear of unemployment and an upskilling panic among the state’s — indeed the country’s — youth who now form the majority of voters.
The second cause of the BJP’s rout is its failure to check — forget about rooting out — corruption which has become deeply entrenched within the administrative system. Every government service provided to the citizen comes at a price. It is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for citizens to emerge from a property sub-registrar’s office without paying a bribe. Government — including police and teachers jobs — carry a price tag. Every service from provision of water, electricity, and license to issuance of a death certificate, requires palm greasing of relatively well-remunerated government servants who have transformed into a callous lumpen bourgeoisie.
And although the prime minister addressed 19 rallies and six roadshows in the state, he totally side-stepped these grave allegations, giving substance to the ‘folklore of corruption’ that the money collected goes all the way to the top. This deep-rooted ‘double taxation’ system in the state has exasperated even the middle class. Hence the BJP rout.
Yet the auguries are not good. The Congress victory was largely facilitated by an expanded public welfare promise which will have to be funded by increased taxation of the middle class, already fed up with the state’s ‘double taxation’ system (official and unofficial taxes). This could discourage private investment, if not capital flight. There’s a leadership fight in the Karnataka Congress, and rehabilitated Congress dynasty leader Rahul Gandhi is vilifying India’s few world-class private industry leaders — Ambani-Adani — and seems hell-bent on reimposing neta-babu socialism which devastated post-independence India. More like Tweedledum replacing Tweedledee.
