Plenty of NRIs who write shite about India have a sound enough understanding of the politics of the countries where they themselves reside. Not Shruti Kapila who writes in Print.in-
If Boris Johnson’s premiership saga were to be unfolding in India, by now groups of MPs would be huddled in resorts with the aim to restore Johnson as leader.
If Johnson wants to make a comeback, his successor must fuck up totally. True, Johnson might have to do some 'soul searching' and maybe come to Christ or something of that sort but, the truth is, Johnson will do the math and decide that getting rich, like Tony Blair, is the way to go. Still, it warms the cockles of my heart to think of Priti Patel sticking pins into a voodoo doll of Rishi while gazing longingly at the poster of a half naked BoJo blu tacked to her bedroom wall.
Resort-democracy, the flavour of the Indian political season, has not quite arrived here in Britain in a form of reverse colonisation.
Britain does not have an anti-defection law. Instead each party has its own very complicated voting system. Ultimately, it is the party rank and file, not the Parliamentary party which decides things. Thus 'resort-democracy' can't happen in the UK. But each candidate does have a team of supporters.
The main fixation of the Indian media, however, remains on the prospect of Rishi Sunak perhaps getting the keys to 10 Downing Street.
An unlikely outcome. Dishy Rishi has become Richey Rishi. The knives are out for him. Chancellors who become PM tend to do badly- James Callaghan, John Major, Gordon Brown.
This fixation is off the mark for several reasons, but it exposes yet again the blinding nationalism of Indian media.
Indians are interested in Indians. How strange!
The saga brings into sharp relief the current perilous times of Indian democracy.
Kapila's interview with Rahul made him look even stupider than usual. These are perilous times for Congress. The Udaipur beheading could terminate Gehlot's career.
British parliamentary democracy has prevailed over the power of personality.
No it hasn't. The one lesson we have learned over the last 40 years is that personality matters. You can have a great platform but you must have a Prime Ministerial candidate who enthuses voters. Nice Guys or Gals can lose to untrustworthy shysters. Everybody liked Major. Blair looked a slippery customer though he had a hypnotic quality. Major lost.
For the Conservatives to take Johnson’s scalp is more significant because he fashioned the biggest win for them since Margaret Thatcher in 1979.
Because Jeremy Corbyn was shit. Who was the Liberal leader? Darned if I can recall.
Just as Johnson’s individual power had outstripped both parliament and his Conservative Party,
this is nonsense. We are speaking of Billy Bunter not fucking Mussolini.
the end of his premiership will reinvigorate democracy as it halts the seductive powers of demagoguery.
Johnson was not a demagogue. He was a breezy chap who always looked as though he might say something witty but never actually did. He had bounce, but no 'bottom'. Still, the Tories needed him to take the wind out of Farage's sails.
Such an outcome, where a highly popular leader is deposed for
lying and lying and then lying some more at a time when the knives were already out for him.
his refusal to play by any institutional or democratic rule is unthinkable in India.
Nonsense! Rajiv was toppled by his cousin and V.P Singh. Rao was sentenced to prison. Nothing is 'unthinkable' in India. In the final analysis, not even Indira Gandhi was above the Law.
The pursuit of personal power at the expense of institutions remains the de facto definition of Indian democracy.
Not in the case of Modi. He is an RSS man. Both the BJP and the RSS have grown stronger and, as a result, Modi has been able to provide good leadership. He has no power on his own. Nehru or Indira or Rajiv or Sonia or even Rahul could split their party. Vajpayee, Advani and Modi would have been nothing without theirs. True, Advani defied the RSS and stayed faithful to Vajpayee but that gamble paid off in spades. In any case, Advani had been damaged by the havala scam. As for Modi, he may well have gone against the RSS on some matters but we can't really be sure anything of that sort happened.
From legislatures to political parties to say nothing of the courts, all seem hostage to the whims and wishes of the individual leader.
But Kapila thinks Boris was a 'strongman'. He wasn't. Trump is a strongman. He does seem to have uncanny power over his party- though that could change very quickly. But Trump was sui generis. Never before or since has a guy who had never received a Government pay-check suddenly get the top job.
This is as true of Kolkata and Mumbai as it is of New Delhi.
Is Shruti saying the Calcutta High Court is under the thumb of Mamta? I don't suppose Judges want to be knifed by TMC goons.
Comparable mass democracies to India such as America and Britain
Britain is small. It is not comparable to America. India is unitary unlike the USA which has a doctrine of dual sovereignty.
are now seeking to douse the passions that led to strong personal identification with the leader
Is Trump really finished? We will have to wait till November. It is too early to rule out his running again. But Biden looks like he is on his last legs and Kamala isn't a possible replacement.
in the hope to restore the dull if predictable and ultimately more democratic powers of rules, processes and institutions.
Currently it is SCOTUS which appears more powerful than 'democratic powers'. That may change. If the Dems do well in the mid-terms Biden may finally grow a pair and take on the Bench.
To be sure, this is not due to some ethical awakening. Rather, the complexities of the post-pandemic world and domestic orders now demand sobriety and expertise.
As opposed to what? Senility? That's what America has got. As for the UK, there is no chance that 'sobriety and expertise' will characterize the next Tory leader. Why? The sober dudes were remainers. The opportunists- led by Boris- gambled on Brexit. Naturally, they all have their knives out for each other- except maybe Priti who is a true Believer. But this means the next PM will be a chancer, not a boring Theresa May type swot. On the other hand, Truss might pull off an upset.
To clip and cut off the personal powers of Johnson is no mean achievement.
What were these 'personal powers'? Partying? Getting rich friends to buy him stuff? Trump had 'personal power'. The guy could make up foreign policy or determine crucial domestic matters on a whim or with a tweet. He had no colleagues- just convenient tools.
Boris got to the top of the greasy pole more by luck than Dominic Cummings. But Cummings played little part in his downfall. By contrast, Trump pumped and dumped and then pumped and dumped once again the likes of Steve Bannon & Guiliani.
With this curtain call, it is perhaps also the final act for the era of the strongman that has shaped global democracy in our times.
Trump was a strongman. Macron may shape up to be a strongman. But Britain's only strongman was Thatcher. But even she was dumped when she refused to budge on the poll tax. The plain fact is that nobody is bigger than their party- except Trump, who was hardly a traditional Republican. He changed his party affiliation 5 times. He was a Democrat during Dubya's Presidency. The story is that he only decided to run for President after Obama made fun of him at a banquet.
But Johnson was somewhat late to the party of personalities
Johnson may be late to a party but he doesn't leave till there's no more cake.
that has been rocking mass democracies (and non-democracies) across the world. In his recent book The Age of the Strongman, foreign affairs editor of the Financial Times Gideon Rachman identified a new global political arc.
To make a bit of money. Being an editor for the FT is a demoralizing business. Everybody you are writing about is a fucking billionaire. Incidentally, that's what made Trump a strongman. He had lots of money. Anyway, the White House was just a stepping stone to what he really wanted- viz. a career in pro-wrestling.
Marked by men who borrowed from the copybook of the celebrity as they reduced democracy to personal popularity, these leaders assiduously fashioned themselves as authentic and wildly popular embodiments of ‘the people’.
Which politician assiduously fashioned themselves as fake and horribly unpopular embodiments of 'the elites'? Even Rahul maintains a stubble and tries to sound like he went to Collidge in Haryana not Harvard or Kanpur not Cambridge.
From Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to Vladimir Putin in Russia to even Xi Jinping in China,
Coz Xi takes off his shirt to show his Winne the Pooh physique- right?
Narendra Modi in India, Donald Trump in America and as literally the last entrant to this galaxy, Boris Johnson—all emerged as millenarian saviours.
As opposed to guys who promised to make their country fucking horrible for a change.
You can call them ‘populists’ or ‘democratic authoritarians’ or ‘illiberal democrats’—the buzzwords of the commentariat and academia too—but to my mind none of these epithets capture the messianic power these leaders have unleashed, and in turn who have unfailingly demanded obedience, loyalty and even devotion from ‘the people’.
Shruti lives in England. BoJo was constantly demanding her obedience, loyalty and even devotion. Sadly, it turned out it wasn't BoJo at all- just some homeless dude who wanted her to cook him parathas while worshipping him as the risen Christ.
As good orators they have successfully deployed a cunning mix of the comedic and dramatic in their rhetoric
Shruti's rhetoric is comedic. We picture her worshipping hobos under the impression they are 'strongmen'.
and words to produce a new political truth, namely that institutions are the obstacles to the power of the people.
Just as the institution of the British Raj was an obstacle to the power of the Indian people.
Each country (Britain, America and India) has recently produced a new and specific vocabulary of abuse and ridicule against what they have deemed the established political order.
Shruti does not know that people have always ridiculed political opponents.
In Britain, the more polite epithets include the ‘Westminster bubble’ and the ‘LME’ (liberal metropolitan elite) or the ‘citizens of nowhere’ who became political targets and enemies primarily due to their expertise and rejection of xenophobia.
As opposed to hatred for your own working or middle class.
Post-truth may have delivered Brexit, but it is now the key obstacle in the working of the British government.
The British government works fine. The Tory party was somewhat dysfunctional. But they could soon fix that problem.
Johnson has been dubbed as the first post-truth British prime minister and he may well be the last too.
Blair lied his head off about WMD. That is why he is now reviled in England.
In the harsh reality of severe global economic challenges that are being felt by citizens of nowhere, somewhere, and everywhere, there is no hiding.
Very true. Many billionaires are worried about where their next meal will come from.
The Tories ultimately recognised that the dull work of government cannot be replaced by an entertaining soap opera.
The Tories are perfectly sensible. True, some chancers got in after the referendum but there are plenty of steady people both in Labor and the Tory party. The Lib Dems, on the other hand, are just weird.
The Johnson episode is instructive because his end has come from within the heart of his own political party, which is both Right-wing and whose rise to power he helmed.
Johnson isn't particularly right-wing. He was a cross between Billy Bunter and the energizer bunny. The truth is that he might have made it through his term if there had been a strong hand on his leash. But his wife turned out to be batshit crazy.
His premiership has witnessed the illegal proroguing of parliament,
which nobody gave a shit about
an open contest with the judiciary (especially over asylum),
in which everybody sided with Priti- I will bite your fucking face off you fucking refugee- Patel.
quite apart from the tawdriness of ‘partygate’.
Which working class peeps didn't mind. Billy Bunter likes cake. So do we. It was the Tories in the Shires- many of them now increasingly Evangelical- who were revolted. On the other hand Rees Mogg, a Catholic, still seems sweet on Boris. Or maybe he just wants us to think that for some Jesuitical reason.
Above all, Johnson’s wayward skating on the thin ice of truth triggered the endgame.
The fucker kept lying in a way which put everybody around him in equal peril. It's not the crime, it is the cover-up which does for you.
The Conservative Party now seeks to reverse the rot and cult of individual ambition and hubris that has stalked the British political landscape for almost a decade.
Fuck off! Cameron was just as ambitious. If he'd been right about the referendum, he'd still be in Number 10, breastfeeding the greedy Osborne. There's nothing wrong with ambition or even hubris. That's not what is holding Rishi back. The rank and file need to think about how to retain Labor voters. Rishi is posher than the Queen's tits. This was acceptable in Boris who was a caricature of a baying Bullingdon swell but it aint acceptable in a bloke whose Dad was a G.P and whose Mum was a Pharmacist.
Through this internal Tory putsch, a party driven above all by ruthless power, has delinked government from authority.
Very true. The Tories are constantly parading around in Brown Shirts beating up long haired liberals wherever they may be found.
In letting go of its biggest personality, the hope is to re-empower British democracy.
No. It is to heal a split in the Tory party. Some Tories were appalled by Johnson's reckless disregard for the rules of propriety. This was no sort of role model for their kids or grand kids.
The single decapitation of Johnson’s premiership has reinstated the powers of both the party and parliament.
No. Parliament is unaffected. The party will get rid of some shady elements- sex pests and the like- but the big question remains. Will the Tories offer a candidate whom ex-Labor voters can feel connected to?
The absence of the play of personality is already in evidence in the many contenders to the party leadership.
Kapila is utterly mad. We are now witnessing a hectic personality competition. Zahawi and Badenoch have done particularly well. But the big question is whether Truss can beat Mordaunt. No doubt, their teams are keeping their cards close to their chest hoping that the various darkies cancel each other out.
Strikingly, each resignation from Johnson’s cabinet reposed its faith in a politics of ‘integrity’.
How strange! They should have been demanding more sleaze.
The lack of personal charisma need not necessarily mean a return to bland managerialism.
As exampled by whom? Theresa May? But, initially, she seemed quite feisty.
British politics is likely to return to a contest of competing visions of government as the opposition Labour Party too gears into action.
All politics is a contest of competing visions. Corbyn's was shit. We don't give a flying fart about Palestine or Kashmir or whatever bug had crawled up the ass of the virtue signalers.
Such a degradation of personal power is next to impossible in India’s democracy,
It has frequently happened. Lal Bahadur Shastri wasn't exactly a human dynamo. Manmohan looked and talked like an ancient Egyptian mummy. Narasimha Rao was initially regarded as a nonentity. Sonia's first pick was Shankar Dayal Sharma. She soon fell out with Rao. If Modi suddenly dies and Amit takes over, the party will lose votes because Amit has little charisma. But Amit might still cobble together a coalition. If he does a good job, he will be re-elected as Manmohan was re-elected.
which is now synonymous only with elections.
If you know shit about India- sure. But most Indian origin people aint as ignorant as Shruti. Politics is what happens after the tamasha of elections.
The reasons are many but the key point to note for now is that the deinstitutionalisation of Indian politics is much older than the current age of the strongman.
There has been no such 'de-institutionalisation'. There has been an improvement in governance because 'deliverables' determine election outcomes.
What is increasingly clear, however, is that India will soon stick out like a sore thumb in the global club of mass democracies.
There is no such club.
Indians may no longer care (but they really do!) what global clubs and rankings think of it.
The vast majority of Indians don't know about such things. Two or three academics teaching shite subjects may pretend to care but they don't really.
In its current addiction for strongman politics, it will be the much-glorified ‘people’ of India who will indeed pay for their blind devotion to a charismatic leader.
Very true. Indians should read Kapila's shite instead. Instead of hugging their brothers and watching cricket with them, they should stab or shoot them. That is Kapila's big idea. India's contribution to political thought is 'violent fraternity.' No doubt, in her own family, Daddy was constantly stabbing Chachaji. Sadly no nice Aunty was stabbing Shruti. Indian womanhood still has a long way to go before it can claim equality with those who pee standing up. I suppose that excludes Rahul. Shame.
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