Merchants in Maharashtra have begun a hunger strike to eliminate local taxes. Unlike poor farmers consuming pesticide or distraught students immolating themselves, this involves what seems to be relatively well-off businesspeople lobbying for lower taxes. Whatever happened to the traditional method, buying a politician?
[A Maharashtra trade association] has called for a hunger strike on April three protesting against the levy of octroi… [Link]
Similarly, Sonia Gandhi’s renunciation theater should have her winning re-election shortly:
Sonia Gandhi, the leader of India’s governing coalition, stepped down Thursday as a member of Parliament… a New Delhi-based political analyst… compared Thursday’s announcement to Gandhi’s decision in 2004 to refuse the prime minister’s job, which sent her popularity soaring as many people saw it as a rare act of renunciation in Indian politics. [Link]
Sonia Gandhi and her supporters have shown themselves to be by far the wiliest folks in Indian politics. I don’t believe this “sacrifice” nonsense, but I have to doff my hat at the tactical brilliance of this decision… [Gandhi] is brilliant at impression management and knows the value of a “moral high ground” in as emotional an electorate as [India’s]. [Link]
Of course, the Indian script of sacrifice has long precedent:
[Mohandas Gandhi] launched his last fast-unto-death in Delhi, asking that all communal violence be ended once and for all, and that the payment of Rs. 55 crores be made to Pakistan… the Government rescinded its policy and made the payment to Pakistan… Gandhi thus broke his fast by sipping orange juice. [Link]
In contrast, American politicians often see sacrifice as an act of weakness and step down only under duress:
Mr. DeLay, who stepped down as majority leader last fall after being indicted in Texas, told his constituents on Tuesday that he would not run for re-election and would resign from Congress in the next few months. He acknowledged that the criminal inquiries into former aides and his own activities had affected his re-election prospects… [Link]
Al Gore’s refusal to appeal Bush v. Gore in 2000 ‘for the good of the nation’ marked him as weak in his backer’s minds. In Semiotica, a.k.a. India, it might have made him a demigod.
I’m not quite sure what all the guilting means, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with Indian mothers, Mother India, claims to moral superiority and why the trains don’t run on time.
Vaiko, a TN politician, has made sonia gandhi-like gestures several times in the past – his party did not want a ministerial post in the central govt., he has said he is not going to contest the state elections this time etc. For all this, he got some good press, but I doubt if anything more than that. The point I am trying to make is,
Sacrifices are beneficial only when they are made from a position of strength. If any other congress leader made similar sacrifices, nobody will care. It’s a Gandhi after all.
I certainly think Al Gore would be considered weak, even in India. (ref Bhagvad Gita/Arjuna and all that)
Yuh… and most voters think Gandhi’s are somehow related to Mahatma Gandhi 🙂
you’re joking, i hope.
Very well put…and I like the Bhagvad Gita example there. There’s a perpetual fine line between “sacrifice” and “cowardice”. I guess the Indian line is drawn at a different place than the West.
Amrita, of course I’m not joking.
More upsetting are the ill missioned trumpeters of “non-violence” under Mahatam’s logo:
This analogy doesn’t jive. Al Gore lost too much momentum and he never ‘sold’ everyone that he’d actually won. Plus, the electoral college called Bush ‘President elect’. Now, IF BUSH resigned or gave up his presidency from a position of strength saying,”Florida was not accounted for appropriately, we need a new election” that would put him in a demigod position.
OR if Gore resigned from the Vice Presidency on the grounds that he believed the election to be fraudulent, showing the public he is willing to let go his power (albeit with a few months left in office), it would be a ‘sacrifice’ again.
Gore was already operating from a weak position and didn’t sacrifice anything, he just didn’t take the fight to the bitter end (which didn’t guarantee him a victory either). There is a difference.
Everyone seems to be making a huge deal about the “self sacrificing Indians” this week. The Economist had the same angle about the Sonia step down. Link here
“It was, in fact, a performance worthy of her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, who as prime minister perfected the role of martyr before adoring crowds. Sonia Gandhi told Rae Bareli this week that she was the “enemy number one” of Congress’s critics who fired “every stone…every arrow…and every bullet” at her, making her a victim of the kind of treatment they had given to Rajiv Gandhi, her late husband and Indira Gandhi (both were assissinated), and to Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister. The crowd loved it. That’s profit, not sacrifice.”
looks like the economist may actually be coming to its senses. last time, after she pulled that sacrificing the PM-ship drama, the economist and all the rest of the western media (and not to mention the usual suspects in the indian media) fell over themselves painting her as the wronged virgin mary persecuted and martyred and hounded by dem ‘orrible hindoos. those articles were useful emetics.
one bbc correspondent lavished such praise on her he sounded like he was an adopted member of the gandhi family. this time i think they’re a little more cautious and are beginning to realize that she’s basically hanging on to power and acting as a seatwarmer for prince rahul, who seems to think being prime minister is his god-given birthright. there are a few other young, more qualified congress members who would be better material, but they have either all been sidelined or bamboozled into paying obeisance to the one and only dynasty. dissent and disagreement is not a hallmark of the undemocratic congress party leadership.
“In contrast, American politicians often see sacrifice as an act of weakness and step down only under duress:”
Hmm. I have quite the opposite view. The acts like Sonia’s are rare in Indian politics, but not contesting elections and stepping out elegantly are mostly american things, in my view. The politicians are too polite to quibble over the results compared to Indian politicians. Kerry didn’t want to contest the last election, even though there have been a wide range of complaints about voter fraud and so on. I think Al-Gore is looked at more as a sour grape than one with weak knees in U.S. politics.
i don’t see what difference it makes whether sacrifice sonia, prince rahul, poet atal etc is in power…they all have identical economic/foreign policies anyway. maybe its a good thing 😉
HAHahahahah theatrical indeed
So what you are saying is that if Indians started respecting Mothers less and stopped calling India Mother , the trains will start running on time.
Where have I heard this before ? I guess from some westerner.
Oh! I remember you are a westerner.Yeah, That explains!
Well, Mother India was italicized, so I’m guessing Manish is either talking about the 1957 film, or the 1927 Katherine Mayo book, about which Amardeep Singh made an insightful post in February. The very term “Mother India” is problematic anyway.
Although I’ll give you this much- the phrasing of Manish’s sentence does sound to me like a very Western tounge-in-cheek comment about “those people over there.”
Why ??
Manish, where did that quotation come from? It wasn’t in the Post article…
I want to know because there’s an odor of “Indian voters are emotional and not rational” to it, and I’d like to read the rest of whatever article it came from.
Also, why are we judging the success of Sonia Gandhi’s political move by the reaction of crowds? That crowd would probably consist of strong Congress party cadres, especially if it’s in her home district, so of course they’ll be happy with anything she does. Anyone remember that Congress Party worker who, immediately after the last elections, stood with a gun to his own head and threatened to shoot himself if Sonia didn’t become PM?
I’m not convinced by this whole culture-of-sacrifice argument. This was an easy call for Sonia which, for a short time, deflects opponents’ charges of corruption against Congress. She can step down, play up the fact that she stepped down, and then win back her seat easily in the by-election.
Nixon stuck around a good long time after it was obvious that he’d be kicked out of the White House, but when he finally got around to resigning, it was played up as this great move on his part, and the whole thing was spun so he went out with dignity so that The Office of The President would be safe from harm. What a bunch of crap.
Politicians will stick around if they know their political careers are finished if they don’t succeed. Jagdish Tytler is an excellent example of this in India. After the Nanavati Commission found that he very likely played a hand in the 1984 pogrom against Sikhs, he refused to relinquish office until the Congress leadership told him he had no choice.
I frequently travel on Southern Railways, and I’m happy to say that the only times I’ve ever been more than 20 min. late to a destination was because of rain. I’ve only failed to reach a destination once, and that’s because the tracks ahead looked like this.
Link fixed, thanks.
if the Congress get re-elected in 2009 then there is no hope for India. But for this to happen the BJP have to start acting like a Party of governance not ignorance. Advani needs to go for a start – into retirement.
Why do you say this, friend?
there’s hope for the congress if they get rid of the gandhi-nehru dynasty and allow some more independent-minded people into the real power positions.
I agree with ‘Whose God is it anyways?’. Congress is less the issue than dynastic politics. I cannot fathom why individuals put so much blind loyalty into the Nerhu-Gandhis.
I think the word to use for the Nerhu-Gandhis is “corruption”. Power Corrupts but Absloute Power Corrupts Absloutely (or whatever the saying is).
Whinin Congress they ARE the power base and when in government they have absloute power. The ultimate sacrifice is to jump politics totally as a clan.
to begin with, NAC itself is idiotic post,just like ‘deputy prime minister’ and ‘deputy chief minister’.power is something that can be had only by prime minister,chief minister and like. …if only desperate politicians concentrate more on development rather than creating new designations and like.
Quite simple imho. India has had 3000 years (or wotever the number is) of dynastic rule and 60 years of democracy. You can’t expect people to give up their dynasty worship in such a short time.
Exactly. In that context this whole sacrifice drama is meaningless. Sonia Gandhi is an extra-constituional authority. She like, the left, wields power without responsibility, no matter how many posts she resigns.