Indian Right in general and BJP in particular gets it terribly wrong when it thinks that it's all about ideas, vision, debates, other such impressive stuffs and little else. So if it thinks that if it can come up with a high sounding idea, a great looking vision document or win debates on ELM it will get to form the government in Lutyen's Delhi? You may be forgiven for laughing at it.
And the left gets it right by almost exclusively focusing on populism – free rice, free TV, NREGA and other such dole outs. Pioneered by NT Ramarao in early 80s and later adopted and perfected by others, political parties have routinely used dole outs to win elections almost without fail over and over again. Simply put, it’s about "giving" fish, not "teaching" how to fish.
Despite seeing it all first hand, if the Right has still not been able to crack the code, then should they be in the race at all? NDA may have been a missed opportunity for BJP to become all things to all people, however they seem to have made amends in some states which they've managed to retain. It's "nice" to have a party in India that give prominence to ideas and vision, but it needs to find a balance between ideology and populism if it really wants to make a comeback.
Despite seeing it all first hand, if the Right has still not been able to crack the code, then should they be in the race at all? NDA may have been a missed opportunity for BJP to become all things to all people, however they seem to have made amends in some states which they've managed to retain. It's "nice" to have a party in India that give prominence to ideas and vision, but it needs to find a balance between ideology and populism if it really wants to make a comeback.
No comments:
Post a Comment