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What I think About the Victory of Congress Party over the BJP

(Feedback of readers are at the end of this essay.)

By: Barry Nirmal

The following thoughts of Nirmal were sent as e-mail to friends in May 2004.

I am very pleased to inform you that the people of India have toppled the BJP regime and have displaced them from the throne. They have shown that they do have the power to choose the group of people who rule over them.

When people take action at the polls that is not expected of them, this is a charactersitic of true democracy.

Some people living in USA who were born in Communist countries still do not believe that democracy works in India. They think that democracy in India is just like democracy in Vietnam or in China, i.e. democracy in words only, devoid of any essence.

But I have convinced them that democracy in India really works. This election is another proof of this.

However, the sad fact is that the Indian people do not have much real choice. There is no political party that is really clean, there is no party that has honest and strong leaders who have the interest of the people and of the nation at heart.

The BJP government's greatest achievement was in making India a strong military power, a power that the world powers have to reckon with.

They also paid more attention to protecting the Hindu religion, much better than the Congress Party ever did.

But the BJP failed the poor people of rural India who still have no clean drinking water, no jobs, no good schools, no money and little hope.

Though BJP is much better than the Congess Party, both have failed to tackle the problems of corruption, poverty and mass unemployment in our beloved country.

Corruption in India is rampant. During my last India trip, I had to pay five hundred rupees as a bribe to the manager and his friend to close my account that had fifteen thousand rupees at a Post Office in New Delhi. If I had chosen not to pay this bribe, I would not have been able to close the account during my short stay in India.

My relatives who live in the rural area of Bihar have no electricity in their villages, no good schools, no jobs and little money.

It is our hope that just as democracy has taken deep roots in India, there shall emerge in India, a political party with good, honest, brave leaders, who will not only make India militarily stronger, but will bring prosperity to the rural poor, to the lower class people, and not just take care of the rich and the middle class in the cities.

Thanks,

Nirmal

Sir !

I read your article in www.jnri.net and agree with you that the former govt. led by BJP couldnt affect the poor people much and that led to its defeat. And I want to add some more interesting points.

1. Its thought that bjp gets most of the urbal votes, the votes of urban people who can read and write, understand and decide about the govt's policies. But this time, a large part of learned people didnt vote for BJP. Because a large population has lost theit jobs, because of Compulsary Voluntary Retirement Schemes carried out by most of the govt's companies. After globalisation, most of the companies have cut work force, and as a result lakhs of people in the age group 40-60 have become unemployed. And including their families, the no. of vote-cuts is in millions. This is a real threat for those who support globalisation. Every govt must creat jobs, otherwise it will loose votes.

2. Its really hard to affect rural people much during 5 years. Rural people always thing about their neighbour problems instead of national ones. So if there is no good roads in a village, people will not vote for the party in power, despite the party has made India a superpower in military and in Software fields.

3. Anti-incumbency factors always work in India. You cant satisfy all and loose votes. If you generate new votes in the mean time, that will coverup.

4. People in India are not a mature Democracy yet. They were highly influenced by the children of Gandhi family begging for votes in front of their homes. What I dont like about Congress is that it is still driven by a family, thet family that ruled India for 40 years.

Thanks, Mr. Nirmal, for creating such a beautiful web site, and thinking and writing about India though you are not near India.

I wish you a great day...... KUMAR RHAUL
Durgapur, West bengal

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