( Note: see my last years May 11 post at
http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2006/05/as-another-may-11-approaches.html )
So..... the nuke deal discussions still continues.... personally, like last year, i face mix of uncertainties and hopes ahead eventhough of a different nature... and above all, elections are in the news
The UP elections, not only proved the exit polls wrong for the nth time in a row (in fact i can't really recall a major election in the recent past where they were any close.... gone are the days of the prannoy roy accuracy of predictions) , but also, i feel vindicated my belief of a "hindu vote bank" ... to take a term from the british-imposed vocabulary - "upper caste hindu vote bank" to be more specific ..
See my previous post at http://drisyadrisya.blogspot.com/2006/11/fc-votebank.html
Mayawati rightly tapped into it - into the FC vote bank , while still keeping her harijan vote bank intact ( because mulayam and congress were too busy wooing muslims, and the bjp never really made much inroads.... ) . I think congratulations are dew to her .. and she will be one of the most watched political figures atleast for some time to come... hope she does not mess with a birthday bash and a tajmahal sale ... and needless to say, any kind of divide and rule
Like many others, I too wish that the caste politics is eliminated at some point, but then, as long as it is there to stay (and that may be a loooooong period), its perhaps better off top to see results like this where Hindus of various castes come under one banner, one party, than seeing them fight with each other... after all, one is told that indeed thats the ultimate aim of hindutva - to unite hindus above caste barriers.. and its perhaps good that such a goal is not just promoted by one "parivar"....
lets wait and watch - whether its up or down in UP....
6 comments:
I agree with your views Arun! This is the most pleasing elecion results in some time actually and most Hindutva and Hindu nationalsits are happy with rather than be disappointed with it
I am still amazed by this 'Dalit Brahmin wedding' which media claims Mayawati engineered. Can you tell me what actually happened?
kaushik
Interesting! Also if you look back and ask, when was the last time a political party in UP got a simple majority in the house, one would find that it was 16 yrs ago, when hindus of various castes came under one banner, in the name of Ayodhya!
i was watching the analysis of the election results and it seems the SP has got the same vote percentage as last time, while BJP lost about 4% of votes and BSP gained about 8%. This clearly(quantitatively) says that Muslims, who supported SP last time, continued supporting SP, but the Hindu votes swung in favor of BSP. The point here is that, one doesnt really need muslim votes to get majority, if hindus were to unite!
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/14rajeev.htm
Looks like Rajeev Srinivasan has echoed what you have written
"Mayawati has created the first Hindu vote-bank by linking the top and bottom of the jati chain"
I dont think much good will come out of this govt except more Ambedkar statues in streets. but having clean majority is better than coalition govt so that there is no room for more dirty games (remember BSP abnd BJP sharing CM seat 6 month each and Mayawati's withdraw of support when he tenure was over) and no excuses for under performance... but she might be slightl better than her opponents. BTW these elections dont reflect unity of Hindus, it's just Maya's jadoo...
-vinod
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