Of Violence and Indulgence.

Saturday, September 18, 1999 7:38 AM

A violent society such as India, the poll rigging, intimidation, buying of votes and character assassinations and regular kitchen garden kind of violence is a norm rather than exception. Formerly the violence used to be between two religious groups of a single or many such single hot spots. The election violence has become a tool. Very refined, polished and with much planning at the highest levels of party politics. The idea is if one party does not get its share of projected or claimed superiority they make sure that the voters get not only the message to vote, vote twice or not vote at all but the consequences of not heeding the warnings as to who the bosses are.

Maharashtra's icon, Shivaji's thirteenth descendant, Udayan Raje Bhosale showed such election time violent practice by murdering. This man was contesting against his uncle, which is another aspect of electioneering. BJP party is supposed to play their nationalistic, moralistic cards but in actual practice is fattened by the former Congress party's middle level expatriates already known for their Hindu parochial attitudes. Udayan Raje Bhosale was a minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP coalition government at Bombay. The serious nature of such violence is never accepted by anyone. It is considered as a routine affair.

The huge and most poor states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where the disparity between the haves and have-nots is so wide that imminent violence is taken for granted. The election schedule is made in such a way that the whole country does not go to the polls all at the same time. If they would the management of polling and the violence could not be controlled by any force, not just local police, militia but specially directed national law enforcement brigades.

Since the politicians have as much money and lot more power to hoodwink the law enforcement forces it is a war of words leading to actual war fought on the streets and neighborhoods. In other words the stakes are so high anyone claiming to be the local warlord makes sure that no efforts are spared to win the ballot box war. By hook or by crook, ,nay, by any means the veteran warlords, regional sultans want their piece of pie of the ultimate power, power to rob the village idiots out of their democratic rights, yeah, and later all the money they can steal from the treasury with one or other phony baloney schemes to benefit their constituency.

Kashmir has always been a place where two extremists, Hindus and Muslims rather kill each others than talk and solve their particularly unique regional problems. Bihar, being so poor that the democratic methods take a form of caste supremacy. The Laloo Prasad gang is notorious for their ruthless methods to keep the power in the family. When the law prevented former chief minister, Laloo Prasad from holding public office, he cleverly appointed his illiterate wife, Rabri Devi for his job. This kind of freak democracy is acceptable to the idiots as there is no particular restrictions on the elected person's qualifications.

Maharashtra's dictator, Bal Thackeray, as powerful as he is, is a fourth grade grammar school dropout. Former bandit queen of Madhya Pradesh contested elections after she served her sentence. The last parliament, state legislative bodies had more than seven hundred criminals. The criminal society electing their criminal leaders out of favor or fear is the form of Indian democracy. The criminality runs amok during and after elections as the election commission has put screws on campaign spending. Mostly hidden Black money is used to bypass such restrictions. Since the businessmen regularly hold such black money caches in their farmhouse mansions the use of money is a sure sign that they be rewarded later by the beneficiaries, the politicians who get elected with such money.

Thanks to the BBC dated September 18, 1999.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_450000/450788.stm http://www.rediff.com/election/1999/sep/18itbp.htm http://www.rediff.com/election/1999/sep/18mcc.htm" http://www.rediff.com/election/1999/sep/18jk.htm http://www.rediff.com/election/1999/sep/18chindu.htm http://www.rediff.com/election/1999/sep/18pollv.htm http://www.rediff.com/election/1999/sep/18pollp.htm http://www.indiavotes.com/elections/news/990919pg1-1.html http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/041099/detFRO01.htm http://www.expressindia.com/ie/daily/19991004/ipo04002.html

Sid Harth..."The vicious circle repeats, now three general elections in the last three years it may be the new way that democratic processes may bring more hard criminals into power sharing arena leaving the poor village idiots in the dust."