Polls apart: Does middle class care for politics?

GLARING GAP: Face the Nation panelists debate whether the middle class have distanced themselves from politics.

            

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In just over 24 hours, Bangalore will vote in an election that many believe will be critical for the future of the city and Karnataka.

It was the last day for election campaigning in the first phase of polls in the state. The focus of attention has been Bangalore, a city whose vote could be decisive in this election, but do the urban middle class care about these polls?

Has the country's middle class distanced itself from politics? That's the question CNN-IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai asked on the show Face the Nation.

On the panel to discuss the issue were Sandeep Shastri, Director, IACT, Bangalore; Ramachandra Guha, Historian; R K Misra, Winner, Lead India campaign, and Ravi Krishna Reddy US-returned engineer, Independent candidate from Jayanagar, Bangalore.

Political electoral

In general, the feeling is that the urban middle class might go out and vote, might caste their vote but they are not interested in electoral politics beyond that.

It’s almost a tokenism once in five years or, in Karnataka's case, once in 4 years. There isn’t that enthusiasm to actually get involved in politics in anyway.

Reacting to the fact Guha said, “That’s true and this trend has been there for sometime — the cynicism and apathy has been there among the middle class for a while now."

Guha added that the trend was "disresssing" because this time the delimitation of cities will have a much more important role in determining the legislature.

"It may even, perhaps, persuade citizens to vote. I think this time the vote matters even than before," he pointed out.

The number of seats in Bangalore have increased from 16 to 32 and if somebody includes rural Bangalore it might increase even further.

The number of seats and the result of delimitation have increased in urban constituencies across Karnataka, and will increase in General Elections next year across the country. Will that change the way the urban voter looks at electoral politics?

Shastri was quite skeptical about the numbers and figures and its impact on the middle class.

“I think the increase of constituencies may not necessarily result in urban voters coming out in larger numbers. In the last 25 years, Bangalore city has had the lowest voter turn out in the entire state. Urban voter today is convinced that he or she can get their problems resolved without the electoral process,” he said.

Democracy and politics

Are Indians interested in democracy but not in politics?

“It’s this typical middle class approach that India must be a vibrant democracy. The truth, however, is that politics is dirty,” Shastri replied.

Misra highlighted that it’s very important for political parties to do some introspection.

"The way they have been conducting themselves so far they really didn’t bother about the middle class because they never thought that middle class matters," he said.

“But delimitation has changed everything. As far as my case is concerned, I am very interested in it and, in fact, we are one year away from the national election. So who knows I might be there next year,” he said.

Is it about money power which is distancing the urban middle class from politics?

Guha replied, “There has been alarming rise in the unaccountable wealth of politicians. When the last coalition government collapsed between the BJP and the TDS, the newspapers reported that the negotiations broke down on the questions of the distributions of the urban development and mining portfolios.”

“So that’s very clear that it's not about policy, it's not about ideology, it's not about transparent governance, it's about extracting profit from lucrative ministry.”

Money or muscle power

If there are two states where politicians are simply fighting elections on money power today, they are Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. It's not about the money it's about the scale of the money which matters. People are spending Rs 30 crore in Assembly elections.

“I would agree to a certain extent that the disenchantment of the middle class may be because of this factor. You have so much of corruption in the political slot where we don’t want to get to. But I also wonder whether it is a form of legitimising disinterest,” Shastri said.

Karnataka is a state, which has thrown up the Infotech giants Azim Premji, Narayan Murthy, Nandan Nilekani. They have the money power to, perhaps, match the mining mafia but they don’t want to get into politics. Is that a sign that they don’t, beyond a point, want to dirty their hands.

Agreeing to the fact that these people can really make a difference in the society by sharing hand in politics Misra said, “If we have public representative who took care of what I did, I don’t think I would have required to do it. So getting into public and knowing what public wants is the problem with the political parties as well as the leaders. They are no role models for the middle class. The political parties never represent the aspirations of the middle class.”

Does the problem lie in the fact that the middle class is, in a sense, simply is powerless in our electoral system? Are middle class heroes losing elections?

“You have to join an established party. There is a difference between Manmohan Singh and T N Seshan because Manmohan Singh did reasonably well but still lost. If these great figures in Karnataka would join established political party, they would win and then that may provide the kind of role model that the middle class needs to engage in politics to the deepest extend,” Guha replied.

Final SMS/Web Poll Result: Has the country's middle class distanced itself from politics?

Yes: 59 per cent

No: 41 per cent