At 60, Pak in a low mood; India thinking positive

MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN: India and Pakistan are on the brink of historic changes in the 60th year of Independence.

          

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Rajdeep Sardesai

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Keywords: Survey, Independence Day

The picture from India offers a perfect contrast in terms of both long-term attitudes as well as short term political assessment. Going by the ‘iron law of Indian democracy’ one should expect a ruling party in its fourth year of office to begin losing its popularity. And if it is a Congress government, one should expect this change to be visible first of all in big cities where the BJP has done particularly well in the last two decades. But this survey of the top twenty cities offers no such evidence.

If anything the UPA government and the PM have gained a few points in popularity, if compared with the big city respondents in the previous State of the Nation Survey carried out in January this year. The approval rating (per cent of respondents who are ‘satisfied’ with the work) of the UPA government is 73 per cent and that of the PM as high as 77 per cent. These figures represent a gain of 25 and 20 points respectively, largely because the NDA voters in the big cities are less unkind to the current rulers than they were a few months ago. To be sure, this reading could be exaggerated. The two surveys are not exactly comparable and this one is not strictly a representative sample. Therefore it is difficult to estimate the range of error here. To err on the safer side, one can conclude that there is no evidence of decline of support for the ruling coalition.

The same trend reflects in the popular attitudes to the newly elected president and the trust rating of some of the top politicians. If the people, rather than their representatives, could choose the President directly, the result may not have been very different. As in the real election Pratibha Patil would have gained a little from ‘cross voting’ by NDA supporters. Despite all the controversies during the campaign, the urban Indians are happy to keep an open mind about the new President. The ratings of the top leaders from the Congress and the BJP have not undergone any dramatic changes to suggest a big political shift.

The long term political attitudes towards the system have remained fairly stable in India and the urban respondents in this survey are no exception to this rule. The level of support for democracy is fairly high by global standards. A high degree of trust in some of the key institutions like government, courts, Election Commission and distrust in political parties and police revealed in this survey reiterates the well known pattern of citizens’ attitudes in Indian democracy. This only reinforces the contrast with the findings from Pakistan.

The storyline of the Bombay cinema has to have a happy end, the contrast must finally dissolve itself into a deeper unity. A close reading of the data from Pakistan opens that possibility: it shows a public opinion profile very conducive to a successful transition to democracy. Will the Pakistani political elite make use of this opportunity and usher in a much-awaited change? As in reel life, we live in suspense.