The entry of a small minority of educated urban middle class citizens into the electoral fray as independents, in the ongoing 15th Lok Sabha general election is a good augury for the future of Indian politics. Among the fresh faces who have registered for the hustings this time around are Meera Sanyal, country head of ABN-Amro Bank; Dr. Mona Shah, eye surgeon; and Capt. K. Gopinath, founder of the no-frills Deccan Airways.
This is an important development as it marks the beginning of the return of successful professionals into electoral politics. In pre-independence India, the brightest and best of the country’s elite took to politics — Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajaji, among others — but during the past three decades, the educated urban middle class has tended to give a wide berth to politics, preferring to take to the civil service, industry and the professions. Consequently the important task of nation-building has devolved upon poorly qualified, incompetent, rustic and lumpen politicians who have brought polity to the edge of disaster.
But though the entry of successful upper-middle class professionals into popular politics is a positive development, their motivation for emerging from the political shadows tends to be short-sighted. Most of the new breed of politicians admit that their driving force was the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. It’s curious that it took the savage attack on Mumbai to activate India’s new political class, when continuous terrorist outrages in Jammu & Kashmir, Assam, Manipur and other parts of the north-east, and in the Naxal-infested states of Andhra and Orissa, failed to disturb their collective conscience.
Therefore while the entry of this new genre of politicians into the political fray is a welcome development, it would be advisable for them to remember that there are other development issues which are as — if not more — important, than the safety and security of urban elites. According to a shocking report of the Arjun Sengupta Committee, 700 million citizens live on less than Rs.20 per day. Moreover Unicef data indicates that 120 million households don’t have access to sanitation facilities, and 105 million children in India drop out of the country’s shabby and ill-equipped primary schools, where little actual learning is dispensed. These issues, indicative of open and continuous neglect — indeed establishment violence — against the poorest and most vulnerable majority of the population, also deserve the attention of the educated urban elite, whose representatives are belatedly entering politics.
Since most of the educated upper middle class candidates contesting despondent India’s 15th general election are independents, their chances of success are bleak. Nevertheless a taste for politics could prompt them to enter municipal politics, where their chances of success are greater.
It is pertinent to note that most successful politicians cut their teeth in municipal elections before graduating to national politics. For instance, US President Barack Obama began his career in Chicago’s local city council, graduated to senator and then made his successful run for the White House. This is a more realistic model for the new generation of idealistic politicians to emulate.