Kerala legislative assembly elections -2011-part1 - Overview..

With another fresh bout around the corner, i thought it's worth starting a blog series on the same. My intention is not to spread my ideology as far as i can but to speak loud about few simple thoughts that's lingering (may in your mind too) for a while, which i feel is overlooked by almost all of us. a typical election blog will focus heavily around political parties, leaders, strategies and incumbency factors and tend to forget the most important constituent of electoral process, the electoral roll and it's mind. Yes, a list with a mind!!!!.

a word or 2 about me!!!

 I have strong political inclinations, views and preferences but I haven't become another blind, deaf (i beg mercy of my unfortunate siblings who are actually differently abled. i used those two words in literal sense ONLY) follower of ideologies and have become of a prisoner of the same. To make it more easy, I might represent that ironical class of voters who would have voted for a Congress Candidate in local body elections, Communist Candidate in Assembly elections and a Muslim League candidate in Parliament elections. and many times it could be a 'frustration vote' rather than a positive one. I think such voters form the 'crucial' factor in any elections.  my opinions are my own views and i will honesty attempt not to hurt anyone else's views while expressing mine. there will not be any explicit reference to any leader (good or bad) but there will be explicit references to events that have occurred in the past. With that let me start..

 Overview !!!

I prefer to take a rationale stand on us. I feel we have a general tendency to discard data and embrace gut feelings. I managed to get some information on our demographic distribution and thought of starting with that.

we, keralites are an ethnic community of  32 million. of that, around 65 percent can vote (~21 million). Broadly classified based on religion we comprise of 52 % Hindus, 27% muslims and 21% x'ians. 65% of us work in service industries and around 28% of us work in agriculture related industries. Our Per Capita income is around 37,000 INR. this figure, clearly endorse a fact, as clear as broad day light. our economic disparity is beyond imagination. all our socialistic notions are farce!!! ours is a 'Money Order' economy thriving on overseas remittance. this has it's own social consequences the most visible being the real estate prices.

 Around ~16.5 million  of our population are females but their participation in income generation is very very low. Only 13.5% participate in earning and that's lowest in this country. isn't it strange??

Good Things 

High literacy rate, low infant mortality, better life span, low birth rate, access to primary education and health care, reasonable public distribution network, high awareness among the poor about social welfare schemes, sense of responsibility among political parties (especially leftists) to ensure people get benefits from social welfare schemes. ever expanding retail markets providing more and more employment at service sector, better communication infrastructure that makes it a great place for human power based industries such as IT, ITES, and education. Better connectivity with other parts of the country and world opens up opportunities in tourism, freight handling and healthcare sector.

Bad Things

Unhealthy political activism used as a cover to escape any productivity improvement measures, lack of infrastructure, poor town planning, lack of development vision, highly corrupt bureaucracy, black money powered economy, no focus on agriculture, no focus on manufacturing, no steps to curb exploitation of state's natural resources, rules that permit easy plundering of state's natural resources, Poor Quality of education, health care, Lack of experience and knowledge among law makers. Lack of development policies based on realities and not on political stunts. 

Burning Issues

Ever increasing inflation, ever increasing oil price, ever increasing commodity price, ever increasing economic disparity, ever increasing black money in system, ever increasing corruption, collapse of law and order, highly corrupt police, judicial system and executive, growing influence of communal forces, deepening division of people based on religion, food security, political instability in middle east that could affect around 3 million keralites directly and its repercussions could be devastating (our Govt is yet to think of a rehabilitation strategy for returning expats), 'development' lobbying to loot state's icons and natural resources (man groves, mineral sand etc)

Above mentioned just indicate the 'state' we are at present. Most people will find more issues that are more relevant to them in addition to these.  with this, let's also try to analyze the two groups involved this process

and their list of concerns..

1. Voters

2. Candidates

Voters

I live in this state itself. let me explain things from my perspective and then generalize and extend it to masses. For me the critical concerns are 

1. Living expenses - is beyond our tolerance. state govt. comfortably pass the blame to center.

2. Social Security - if you ever get into an unfortunate incident involving damage/loss of property, accident etc you'll see the true color of Kerala Police. The nexus between law makers and law breakers can't be more evident than this. Police blame it on politicizing of police. but in essence it's the corruption that this force has gone through. Terrorism hasn't yet shown it's true colors in this state. All of us know it's getting stronger and stronger silently but I don't think Govt has any concerns about that. Even Terrorism is looked upon as an opportunity to create vote banks (For and Against it).

3. Corruption - This state might belittle Bihar in this. Uniqueness of kerala's corruption is it's ubiquitousness. almost everyone is either a beneficiary or victim of it. all of us have some access to power and we have no reservations about abusing it to our benefits. govt need to be more transparent and responsible in it's policy implementations and day to day affairs. politicizing day to day activities isn't what democracy demands.

4. Lack of development which directly means lack of opportunities - This state isn't looking forward in terms of opportunity creation. most of the people still believe it's govt's responsibility to create jobs. Investors are looked upon as "wicked profit oriented morons" whereas worker is looked upon as the "crusader of equality, liberty and fraternity". He is devoid of vices whereas investor is devoid of any virtue. Socialism is all about wealth distribution and not opportunity creation here. Is any wealth distributed? all noble investors who are willing to pay taxes and bring white money are shunned off by dark forces using "worker protests" as the best effective cover. the only businesses that seem to be thriving in kerala  are real estate (100% black), Gold(I don't know), hawala (100% black) and financial fraud of almost any degree (from few thousands to crores).

5. Civil Rights - Here organized forces overrun the civil rights of ordinary unorganized weak citizens. whether it's loud noise from a messy neighbor or right to travel violated by a political/religious procession on the National Highway we have no one to complain to. 

I guess you all will have more to add. I just provided an indicative list that could represent our flaring issues. 

Now let's focus on the most esteemed, privileged, powerful class in kerala : Political Leaders. 

While Cinestars enjoy all popularity and media coverage, the real superstars in kerala are a bunch of politicians who are holding onto power for decades all together, defending their crowns in the most fierce of bloodless battle every day. and the wealth amassed??? beyond our wildest of imaginations. take most leaders who are in active politics for last 30 years.. what was their full time jobs? politics. Income - the salaries and incentives they got while holding an office. But wealth amassed will have no co-relation to their earnings. they also make a mockery of the income declaration statements Election Commission ask for. I think if this system is changed, there would be radical reforms. 

Why not Candidature is limited only to people who are given clean chit (if not clean chit, very explicit beyond suspicion proofs on why no clean chit) by income tax department ????  any one want to contest, keep their records clean from the age of 18. any hint of unaccounted wealth, leaves you out. and then the IT department get smart and plug all possible holes in the sieve!!!

Politicians have taken politics as a family run business. With all the wealth garnered, they "generate" followers, popularity and favorable decisions. once they feel they are ageing they bring their kids. they do as much as possible to ensure the 'power' doesn't get distributed among lot of people. they run invisible 'power mafias' that run across political affiliations. they do their best to keep as many people as possible away from elections by frustrating them, giving them no hope. they all collectively strive to prevent any new faces appearing from respective parties. in short, they feel 'entitled' to power and wish to maintain it as their 'exclusivity'. this is more   evident in all parties except CPM. CPM and may be CPI had a change in leadership from time to time. no one grew beyond their parties. But in all other parties, few men have monopolized it for few decades. the saddest fact - all those leaders came up by themselves but once they reached the top instead of making the upward journey smoother for people after them, they just closed those pathways forever to ensure power remains within "their" elite group. They also know people have no option but to choose either them or their so called opponent who are actually their cousins and some cases even partners (in loose terms). so from a politician's stand point, he will look at 

1. whether the communal equations can be converted in his favor?

2. whether the anti incumbency factor can be converted in his favor?

3. whether the opponents' past actions can be converted in his favor?

4. whether the local situations be converted in his favor?

5. whether his noise\clout\money (organized noise) can help him out?

so with this summary, I conclude this curtain raiser. All of you are most welcome to add your share of suggestions into this. Disagreements are more welcome!!! however at this point, let's not get split based on our political inclinations. let's disagree on facts and figures. Also let's not get too much into our wish lists. I will unveil them soon :-).

Next : Political landscape  LDF, UDF , BJP, SDPI , PDP and others..