In the capital, a higher voter turnout is the combined result of the two-year continuous mobilisation of people, first by Anna Hazare against corruption and then due to the ‘Nirbhaya’ tragedy. Then, there were protests by Arvind Kejriwal of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The party’s strategy of door-to-door campaign and decentralised manifestos also contributed to the higher turnout. Finally, due to the price rise of onions and unaccountability when it comes to people’s concerns which is an all-India phenomenon, voters have been fed up of the non-responsive political class.

Chhattisgarh was mobilised on the Maoist challenge and the crisis of democratic space, and nothing could be done about it. There are districts in the state which have been ungovernable for nearly three decades. So, people in the state had their own reasons to rush to the polling booth.
In Madhya Pradesh, there is bipolar factionalism. Both parties have tried to put up the best show because it is crucial for national politics.

Rajasthan is not so much subjected to political unrest but there is social unrest, with a community demanding the ST status in place of the OBC tag.
Today, democracy is taking a new turn when ordinary voters are trying to become more engaged. Earlier, they used to withdraw because there was no space for ‘protest politics’. Anna Hazare created a space for critiquing the present available alternatives.

There were also high turnouts in the 1977 and 1989 elections but it got settled down because things got solved. In 1977, Emergency had just got over and 1989 got derailed because of the Mandir and Mandal mobilisation. In both cases, the anti-corruption platform could not hold.

But now there is a double-barreled or two-track situation: there is mobilisation around the moral issues by Anna Hazare and many others in the country for political reforms and checking corruption of the political class. Then there is a non-Congress, non-BJP space expanding very rapidly all over the country including in the capital. So, this will create an interesting situation of choice and possibility of change.

Generally, when there is no possibility of change, you withdraw from the process. And extreme withdrawal results in situations like Naxalism. But if you have some kind of possibility, change, people do line up.

But we must also give credit to the election commission. It has created better technology, better facility and played a proactive role. The high turnout is going to change the agenda of the political class, which has become so self-possessed and indifferent in the name of popular demand for liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. It has to come back to basic needs of people – like water, electricity, security, prices, jobs, social justice. These things were totally marginalised in the last 20 years under one pretext or another.

Also, there is an implementation crisis. There is a lack of confidence not only in the political class but also in the bureaucracy. So the political class will have to change, and that is the beauty of democracy. Politicians cannot take people for granted, and people cannot take politicians for granted. The same political parties will be different with cleaner candidates, a better agenda, and no open defiance of expectations against criminalisation of politics. That will change certainly.

The ordinary Indian is now very much empowered. They have information power, RTI, political choices. The younger generation is very proactive with social media and even the media. The media and the younger generation are converging together for change. The days of conspiracy of silence or suffering in silence are over.

The political class has created such trappings of identity politics, so we have become less interested in the common cause. There is more identity and quota politics that has created a vicious circle of divide and rule. People of India had to get out of these trappings. There has to be better commitment to social justice in genuine terms. The deepening of democracy is not possible with this kind of politics. They will have to provide much more decentralisation and a new consensus of participatory democracy.

Parliamentary democracy has run its course and become counter-productive. One-third of parliament or assembly members are those who should be behind the bars. What more are you waiting for? The house is on fire. This kind of political process, election system and party system is not going to deepen democracy. So people of India cannot live with this kind of system anymore. They are expressing their disenchantment in so many ways – from Anna Hazare to Kobad Ghandy. There has to be a systemic change.

The political parties are prisoners of a system which is dependent on crony capitalism. Corruption has become the lubricant for functioning of this kind of a system. The stakes have become very high with the corporate system of the game. We need a different kind of democracy with much more decentralisation, which should move from the Centre to the state government and then filtered down to the district administration and further to the village.

Caste, region, religion and language are four important organising principles of our social life. They also determine the chances of power or create situation of powerlessness. So there is going to be continuity of these principles in the choice in the electoral choice making and mobilisation. But the larger questions which unite people of all sections of caste, class, religion and regions have become more significant in the last 20 years. This is because there is a decline in chances of betterment, there is jobless growth, crony capitalism, corruption at high places, and global and national economic depression. There is a need to suggest common solutions for such problems. We have become convinced in identity politics that your problem and my problem are going to be mediated by my caste and your caste; my religion and your religion. We can’t have common solutions. So you need systemic changes.

Energy, education, employment and environment – these are four questions that need to be revisited. There is a need for a new national consensus. We have tried all other tricks, from nationalisation to liberalisation, from reservation to de-reservation. Much of it is not working anymore. So India needs a 21st century agenda for 21st century people but we are living with the 20th century agenda. So choice-making is going to move from identity politics to interest politics.

In due process, we will have clean money, clean candidates, and clean campaign with a lot of innovations in place of politics where the black money economy was driving politics.

(Kumar spoke to Trithesh Nandan)