Death of the Indian politician

The interesting thing in Indian politics has been the need of a strong enemy for parties to grow and establish themselves. No party has ever been able to build a definition or image for itself without referencing itself against its enemy.

There was the strong anti-congress sentiment in the large part of Independent India’s history. Many national and regional parties have been etched out of their opposition of congress dominance. BJP, DMK, TDP, BJD, Akalis, Shiv Sena and many other regional strongmen, I think, owe their birth and growth to the strength of the erstwhile congress. As soon as they reached a sizeable vote share in their region, they began to stagnate – there was nothing to differentiate themselves from their biggest enemy in their region or state.

This bifurcation of polity in regions, is leading to the next generation evolution. The third player in the respective regions is taking an “anti-existing” parties position and aims to gain some vote share. The third player just claims to be an “alternative” but does not say how or why.
So if A had 100% share in the beginning. He lost 50% to B (who was anti A). They lost 16% each to C (who was non A non B alternative). In the next phase, A B and C would lose equally to D (who would be non A B C alternative) and so on and so forth.

Essentially, the Indian politician is losing it. He spends money, time, effort and career – and by launching more versions of the same politician, he is only wasting his marketing budgets. In the end, no one is building a long standing proposition.

Lets look at this election. No party came in with any new idea. The only idea seemed to be giving freebies to electorates. Their internal war room strategies must have indicated that Indians behave the same way at saravana stores and election booth alike. Each party must have spent a bomb at marketing and selling their faces and symbols to the public. At the end, has anyone created anything sustainable? The answer is a big NO. They have all progressed one step ahead in their self destructive evolution mode.

The day a single person or entity is able to standup, create and communicate a new idea of what they think the country should be like. Then is when the Indian politician would get a second life. Otherwise, he seems to be dying and fading off into the muddle of the 4th,5th and the nth consecutive alternatives.