On Aakar-Patel-on-Modi: Part - II

In this part we present a somewhat detailed analysis of some parts of the article by Aakar Patel that we considered in our previous post. We continue with the convention of putting the commented in blue, and the comments in black.

AP in his article presents a view that Muslims are a threatened community in India and much more so under Modi; and that Indians (read Hindus) are casteist even in this century.

For the Indian secular (pseudo as well as true), it is treason rather than reason that is the intellectual seminal drive. While the pseudos say we strive to work for the Muslims [recall the sick sikh PM declaring that minorities (read Muslims) must have the first privilege over national resources], the trues harp that they do not strive to work against the Muslims. What stands out is that the Muslim dominates the narrative. 

With about a 1000 years of history of killing Hindus if Muslims are classified as threatened rather than a threatening community, few inversions of historical narrative can worst such treachery. And intellectuals such as AP are the perpetrators are that Hindu-genocidal narrative.

Their Hindu-hatred becomes even more manifest by their incessant and jarring pontifications on casteism while with large accommodating hearts they condone genital mutilation (often including that of female child as well), death for apostasy, and such customs practiced in Islam. And we emphasize that these are not practiced in the name of Islam, as the bleeding hearts would have you believe, by their insinuations, that these are practices of some fringe elements which bring disrepute to the glorious religion of peace Islam. This is exactly what they do by terms like Islamo-fascism, Islamism etc. The truth of the matter is that all of these and many more such practices are the true-Islam.

Once we realize where AP is coming from, we can understand his analysis  in a proper perspective.

For those able to look beyond his superb oratory and humour, the vapidity of Modi’s message is striking. It has not been noticed or remarked upon, but Modi has never been to college (his degree is from a correspondence course). His simple views spring from this lack of knowledge.

His writing is all in Gujarati and—I can claim to know something about this—it is mediocre. He’s not well-read, has little idea about the world or its history. It will be embarrassing, if he becomes prime minister, to have him in the same meeting as US President Barack Obama.

AP mentions that Modi has no stimulating or challenging message. Apparently, Modi never went to college, and Modi lacks knowledge. Further, that Modi is mediocre, not well read, has little idea of the world and its history, and will cut an embarrassing figure in a meeting with Barrack Obama.

Modi may not have gone to college, may not be well read, may be a mediocre writer (in Gujarati) and be ignorant of world and its history.

The important question is, does it matter? Let us see. Most of the problems in India have emerged owing to a rampant lack of application of certain basic and simple ideas. For example, one may not need to be a medical genius to suggest a group of obese people that they must eat nutritious food, cut on calories and exercise, to slowly regain fitness and health. A medical genius who advises community liposuction is very likely to be an agent of the expensive health-care industry.

Modi has been emphasizing common-sense simple solutions for most problems. They might be wrong however we do not that in advance. What we do know however is that the solutions enforced and implemented by the putative  well-read, history-knowing, excellence-incarnate, Modi-embarrassing B. Hussein O. have brought US economy to the brink of a bigger disaster. The stimulus package turned out to be contraband steroids whose adverse side effects might show up any moment indications of which are on the rise.

Further, the ox-bridge educated Jawahar's prescriptions - A Jawahar who was "well-read", "wrote-well" (that is wrote for frogs in the well), knew "history" so well that he wrote some of his "inventions" as "discovery of India" - had brought India to an economic disaster in 1991-1992 when the same simple and common-sense solutions that are being termed as ideas from the simpleminded were undertaken and which worked. 

However, we must clearly understand that those steeped in inferiority complex fear confidence. No, we didn't mean confident others, they fear confidence itself so much that they never want to try. Forget Macaulay, forget Secularism, forget such more complex ideas, if you observe many of these writers, it is evident that they suffer from (and want to infect others with) very serious inferiority complex. What can be done to a man who is afraid of courage?

While it might be true that Modi has a somewhat simplistic approach towards many problems, the rest (and that includes most international leaders of past many decades including Gorbachev, Clinton et al.) have cliched solutions to the same problems. They present their worn out solutions in fine clothing of impeccable English and that titillates the hearts of our inferiority-complex ridden elites.

We must always remember that inferiority can be overcome, but inferiority complex is the mother of many problems. Mr. Aakar Patel, it could be that Modi is inferior and that you have superior knowledge. But you seem to suffer from inferiority complex. Your whitewashing of Islam and Hindu-hatred probably spring from this complex. And that is the most charitable view we can take presently.

On Aakar-Patel-on-Modi: Part - I

Aakar Patel is not generally known to be an insensible man. He has his flaws, but he has his good points too. He has been one of the less shrill critic of Modi, and he has often attempted to present his argument skillfully. In a recent article (titled: Beyond Narendra Modi’s oratory is a vapid message) that we will examine, he has presented his views in a fact-mixed-with-his-imagination mode. While there are certain sensible aspects in his analysis, his drift betrays pan-Indian stupidity (in our humble and arrogant opinion that is).

First we comment on his article para by para. AP's writing is in blue, and our comments in black.

Narendra Modi is a man before his time. A couple of decades along, too late for him, there will be a bigger constituency in India for the anti-Muslim demagogue.

AP's prediction. Let us hope he is wrong by miles. And that in much shorter time Hindus wake up to the existential threat of Islam and do something about it.

This may seem a counter-intuitive thing to say just when Modi has been given control of his party through popular demand. But it is true.

It better be true. As far as we understand, Modi is not pro-Hindu at all. He is merely the least anti-Hindu among the whole group most of whom are extermination-ist anti-Hindus. Those who paint him as anti-Muslim or pro-Hindu (these two do not mean the same thing) are colluding against Hindus.

Today, the group of those who idolize him is large, as we observe on social media, which the group, in fact, dominates. However it is only relatively large. The Indian voter remains confessional and sees virtue in caste. The urban Indian has never been particularly different in this sense and our matrimonial advertisements demonstrate this.

There is virtue in Varna. But that is another topic for another day. Also, this is the first hint that AP will, in the said article, has presented his rant in the garb of analysis.

A quick transition is happening as the middle class expands. Education and awareness have produced a yearning for identity that is broader than caste, and for many urban Indians, Modi has provided this. The contours of his message are simple: Indians are a great people, but our leaders are corrupt. If we have firm and decisive rule, the Hindu nation will become a world power again.

There could be quibbling over the nitty-gritty, but the drift is not way off the mark

This message is not simplistic so much as it is stupid. But it becomes darker because it is coloured with hatred.

Now AP's rant is becoming full-throttle. BTW, the same (being simplistic, stupid, dark, hate-filled) is a more accurate description of this article by AP. But let is pass for a while.

His biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay says Modi is our first anti-Nehruvian leader. Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee, when he came to power, put forward a soft and secular face, reaching out to Muslims. Modi offers no apology for his actions or those of his murderous ministers.

Now AP begins to mixing facts and his own imagination. The fact is, Modi himself is a state-mediated tax-funded welfare supporting crypto-socialist. ABV put forward a "take my ass" soft face and faced Kandahar and Kargil. Modi has never spoken forthrightly about the Islam problem. And whether his ministers have been murderous is being evaluated by courts, not all of which are uncontaminated by Congress influence. And yet to describe Modi the way AP has described, and then slip in demonizing insinuations reeks of deeper sinister and evil designs.

This no-nonsense image is the primary reason Modi has risen and shone within his party. His eclipsing of L.K. Advani comes directly from this, and now that he sits on the margins, Advani will have the time to observe this truth.‪Advani took great pride in saying that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was a party with an ideology, which was Hindutva.

A partly factual but a tangential point. Hindutva of Advani and Modi, BJP and RSS is not enough to protect against the existential threat posed by Islam. By posing as if Hindutva is dangerous to Muslims AP is overtly or covertly colluding with anti-Hindus in planning Hindu-genocide.

Ideology insists on purity and the moderate position is always under threat from something more extreme. The leaders in all parties that claim an ideology at some point face the problem Advani does.

Until now, the drift in Indian policy has constantly been towards more Socialism (read coercive state mediated wealth redistribution involving huge misappropriation of funds aka crony capitalism), more Secularism (read trampling Hindu emotions, and anti-Hindu and non-Hindu appeasement), and so on. This blatant progress towards complete Hindu-genocide is being perceived by AP as not being fast enough. This further exposes where AP is coming from.

The cadre of the BJP adores Modi because he gives them their real ideology, what is called red meat in American politics. This is also the reason why the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), whose leadership doesn’t approve of Modi’s non-collegiate style, had to succumb to its own cadre, which loves Modi.

Modi has time and again stressed and demonstrated that he is true-secular. In Gujarat about more than 30% of the people who died (oh yes, during that spontaneous reaction following the barbarous carnage of old men, women and children) were Hindus, though the events have wrongly been called anti-Muslim riots.

Also, while every non-Modi (whether from BJP, for example Shivraj Chauhan, or non-BJP, for example Nitish Secular Kumar) are credited with individual triumphs and granted immunity under the garb of collective responsibility; in the case of Modi he is blamed individually and denied credit under the umbrella term of collective responsibility.

Modi dislocates the hypocrisy of a party whose leader fired up a mob and then said he regretted its vandalism. He, on the other hand, has shown Muslims their place in Gujarat and kept them there. His legions on the Internet have one defence against the barbarism of his ministers—that the Congress also did it in 1984.

That Advani - after his brilliant insight of the majority vote bank - reduced himself to an infernal vacillator owing to his own lack of conviction and the ABV phenomenon cleverly orchestrated by the secular brigade, is a fact. Modi has been dangerously tolerant of Muslims if he has kept them in Gujarat. Islam is ever at an existential and extermination-ist conflict against non-Islam, so anything short of Separationism, is a postponed genocide of the non-Muslims.

That Congress did it in 1984 is plain history. That such things have happened many times during Congress regimes is also plain history. AP like legions of Islam apologists forget that their ilk use 1992 demolition of disputed structure as defense for 2002 Godhra incendiary act where old men, women and children were burnt alive.

AP will do well to establish his credentials as a balanced analyst if he writes a piece on history of Islam in India. For starters he can try plagiarizing from (Islam's other victims by Serge Trifkovic) rather than blabbering smatterings from books like Discovery of India.

The second thing is that Modi can communicate over the head of the media with his audience, and he can do this better than any other leader in India. This is why his power is independent of the media or the traditional party structures. He reaches out directly to his group in the eternal way of the demagogue.

Some general comment!

The Greeks had Cleon (mercilessly panned by the great playwright Aristophanes) and the Romans had Gracchus and Caesar.

Here AP betrays his Macaulayian instincts again. Quoting from Greek and Roman history is chic. Ramayana and Mahabharata are for dhoti-clad vernacular rural folks.

Like Modi, none of these strongmen appealed to the most populous segment of their society, the servants, the real landless. Their constituency was the neo-literate middle class.

Those who are interested in verifying this, please check up Greek history. We are not interested at this moment.

For those able to look beyond his superb oratory and humour, the vapidity of Modi’s message is striking. It has not been noticed or remarked upon, but Modi has never been to college (his degree is from a correspondence course). His simple views spring from this lack of knowledge.

AP's evaluation and opinion. We will have more on it later, in second part.

His writing is all in Gujarati and—I can claim to know something about this—it is mediocre. He’s not well-read, has little idea about the world or its history. It will be embarrassing, if he becomes prime minister, to have him in the same meeting as US President Barack Obama.

AP's evaluation and opinion. We will have more on it later, in second part.

The interesting aspect of Modi—and this makes him honest—is that he genuinely believes the things he represents. Discussing Kashiram Rana, Surat’s six-term undefeated Lok Sabha member of Parliament (whom Modi denied a ticket in 2009) with journalist Saba Naqvi, Modi observed that Rana was different because he was non-vegetarian: “Maans khane wale logon ka vyavhar alag hota hai (meat-eating people have a different temperament).”

Without all the relevant facts of case being available, we can't say much. Mr. AP is entitled to his freedom of speech. Further, the relation between food habits and psychology has been investigated and a more nuanced treatment of the subject is beyond the scope of this article. What needs to be put in proper perspective is that what Modi allegedly said can not be classified as obviously wrong by itself.

Those who love him purely because they agree with his dislike of Muslims and his love of unity of command, should consider this aspect to him and what it means for them if he takes power.

Does Modi dislike Islam? If yes, then he seems the most knowledgeable Islam-realist non-Muslim politician we have in this country. May Ishwara make thousands like him. However, AP seems to be day-dreaming (what we would love to be true). An honest investigation into workings of Islam against non-Islamic societies is a matter that needs urgent attention.

He is aching to bring with him his social vision, which is aligned with that of the RSS, to the rest of India from Gujarat. A money-minded, intellectually barren, segregated, ghettoized, non-drinking and vegetarian utopia that some of us have fled from.

Well Mr AP, you don't seem to like non-drinking vegetarian utopia, then please consider migrating  (fleeing to use your term) to a utopia of non-drinking non-vegetarian kind which your skull-cap toting friends are preparing for you. In passing we would like to remind that often it is precisely those who zealously resist being told what is good for them are the most vociferous in telling others what is good for the others.

Congress's Strategy Against Modi and A Possible Effective Counter Strategy

Background: 

As we have mentioned elsewhere (see here, here and here) Hindutva itself is too weak for the defense of Hinduism and Hindus qua Hindus. However, the political theater in India is so anti-Hindu that even a whiff of a hint of shred of a trace of a clue of weakening of anti-Hindu stance is portrayed as evil. Similarly, India has no right-wing either! In the name of inclusion, there is a conspiracy to violently exclude upper-caste middle-class males, while excluding the upper castes and middle classes somewhat less obviously. Through all this, the push and shove of anti-Hinduism by the anti-Hindus is barely concealed if not explicitly manifest.

Now that NaMo is the unofficially declared PM-candidate, the Congress has a problem on its hands. They and their coterie (that includes Third Front which also includes the pretending-to-be-rabid-anti-Congress parties) will work in unison against Modi. As we have mentioned, it is not because Modi represents Hindutva (which he doesn't, in fact he strives to be a Truer-Secular among the True-Seculars), not because he is anti-Muslim (which he isn't, infact he skillfully avoids mentioning the ever dangerous Islam-problem), not because he is anti-Socialism (which he isn't, he too is a BIG-government guy!), and the list is long; but because he is merely perceived (by Media Projections) to be presenting Hindutva, anti-Muslim and non-Inclusive face.

Thus, there will be this orchestra of lead-barker and the echo-barkers making the echo-chamber. Most Third-(rate)-Fronters will be the echo chamber. Typically, DogVijay et al. will lead the band. Also, Congress is on a kind of BSY-mode. That is, their top priority will be defeat of NaMo(BJP) or restricting them to below 150. Wherever BJP's loss is certain, Congress will field its candidates (to maximize its gains); wherever uncertain it might enter into alliances. However, that is not the main theme here.

A Typical Pan-Indian Voter: 

In universal suffrage democracy, perception dominates the reception. NaMo has been able to tune his perception in Gujarat, however before he works his magic across India, he may do well to appreciate that voters in a large part of India may not be as "business-like" as Gujaratis are. The middle class youth will most likely be his constituency, except for those who have fallen for the "charms" of Rahul Gandhi. It should be borne in mind that RG, while striving to appear as prince-charming, will turn out to be out and out prince-harming. Recall his wikiealks statements that he was more afraid of majority (read Hindu) terror.

Non-youth, non-middle-class voter is often swayed by "emotional" perceptions. Mass waves in favour of Rajiv Gandhi (in 1984) or M G Ramachandran (in TN), etc., exemplify the point. Sympathy factor, anti-Arrogance factor, etc., play a large role. And this is where Congress and its cronies will concentrate on.

Basics of Congress Strategy:

1.  RG will not be declared the PM candidate. He will ever be claimed as our leader. If Cong wins, RG will want to do a SG (no accountability immense power), if Cong loses, the team will be held responsible.
2. Congress will never bear any Burden-of-Proof (except when obvious as daylight). Also, they will largely rely on Shoot and Hold-ground by shifting the burden of proof. Their echo-chamber barkers will employ Shoot-and-Scoot.
3. Congress will never commit on anything except vague and undefined sweet sounding generalities. [Recall Secularism, Inclusive, etc.]. They will insinuate that Modi is anathema to these nice things and media will demand "proof" from Modi-spokespersons.
4. Congress will Challenge Modi to commit on things (critical things like Hindutva, Inclusivism, etc.). Modi's potemtial detractors within the BJP too will honestly and humbly suggest the same. Refusal to commit will be termed deception and/or cowardice, while committing will be termed as arrogance, anti-nice-things, nasty, etc.
5. SG/RG will NOT criticize Modi, rather they will pretend to be kind, well-mannered, royal charmers. Almost chiding their own team to be soft-spoken (while paying them to bark the loudest), while communicating as if the substance of the allegations by the barkers is self-evident.
6. Blatant and Shameless announcements of freebies and goodies will be the bonus for the Vote-Bank!
7. We won't be surprised if SG gets a near-death-experience or even dies.

With this in the background let us project what a typical scenario will be,

A Typical Congress-Attack Scenario: 

DogVijay throws the challenge: Gujarat has not developed and whatever development has happened is non-inclusive. After all what else can you expect from a man who is a product of Fascist Hate-Ideology. Channel after Channel will run endless debates on this "allegation".

Typical BJP-Response:

The BJP-team, including ear-to-ear grinning Piyush Goyal (and mind you he is one of the better ones) will be tying himself into knots "disproving" the "allegation". Nirmala Sitaraman will be mocking herself by striving to appear stern and logical. Meenakshi Lekhi will be gaspingly laughing while venting out at the jokers like Kumar Ketkars and Sanjay Jhas. The less said about the likes of Ravi Shankar Prasad, the better. Sushil Modi will be "advising" Narendra Modi to become inclusive and wear the "cap", and consider "apologizing" for 2002. Lesser members of the BJP-team will be struggling against the disdain and contempt that Manish Tiwaris, etc., heap on them.

Devang Nanavati may be OK, but he is wasting his energies if he takes flippant allegations seriously. The very "struggling" against such an "allegation" gives a small amount of credence to the charge. If the "defense" is successful, it is merely a relief, otherwise it is Barkha Dutts and Sagarika Ghoshs smirking with patronizing disdain.

Also, please note that Congress will employ only "stupid" and/or "conceited" people to "debate" BJP-team members. It is either Ketkar, Jha or Renuka, and at the very best it will be a Satyavrat Chaturvedi. And they will keep playing "disdain", "shifting goal post", "putting the burden of proof on the opponent", "everybody knows", and such balderdash.

Recall that DogVijay had asked: "If L K Advani is Bheeshma, who are Shakuni and Duryodhana?". It should also be kept in mind that most "debates" are biased "against" Hindus by the supposedly "neutral moderators". In light of these, what Should Be the Basics of Strategy by NaMo-Team?

An Outline of Basic Strategy:

1. Debate:

Fight fire with bigger fire. Fight "mocking" with "contemptuous ridicule" etc. Defeat the bast*rds in their own turf. This is not going to be easy, but surely NOT as difficult as it might appear. There is sufficient time and a few days and weeks of home-work will do wonders. Also bear in mind that Congress will be doing its home-work. The team needs to have many groups. 

• Group 1: Devang Nanavatis and Piyush Goyal types who will do serious data-backed debates ONLY after frivolous debaters have been decimated.
• Group 2: Meenalshi Lekhi, Nirmala Sitaraman and Ravi Shankar Prasad types who will conduct serious general debates ONLY after frivolous oponents have been decimated.
• Group 3 and Group 4: These groups are presently non-existent. These groups need to be groomed (This is the home-work that is needed) who handle Jhas (the way Subramanian Swamy handled him) and Arnab Goswamis (the way Prof. R Vaidyanathan handled him). The members of these groups must either be trained by the likes of Swamy and Vaidya. Jhas and Goswamis must be heaped with much more scorn than they heap. Remember the American Saying: If somebody gives you a bucket of shit, you must give back two buckets of shit to him.
• Group 5: Unofficially affiliated debaters (like say Swapan Dasgupta etc.). Swapan Dasgupta is often too neutral, too subtle and too sophisticated. There is a need for debaters (on NaMo team) who are as stupid as Sanjay Jha, as contemptuous as Kumar Ketkar/Mani S Aiyer, as conceited as Renuka Chaudhary, as "suave-appearing" as Satyavrat Chaturvedi, and as ferocious as a Lion. It is only with this counter fire that non-serious frivolous fruit-fly opponents will have to be swatted. Don't employ eagles to catch flies!

2. Perception:

When "debates" are "lost", the Jha types will come back with their allegation of "Arrogance". The strategy should be to be appearing very "humble" and heap silent and confident contempt on the Jha types. Congress brings Ketkar and Jha types for a reason. If they "win" an argument it is "victory"; and when they "lose" they "win sympathy". Now it is easy to understand why Congress always sends its "juiciest fruits" as "debaters".

3. Direct Appeal to People:

Instead of "proving" like Piyush Goyal often does that "People will vote for us". It is much more effective to be "humble" and state: We will strive for and hope to get the mandate of the people. To "you the debaters" as the voters we appeal to vote for us, to you as "dishonest debaters", whose dishonesty is a foregone conclusion, we give a damn. [Or something with even more finnesse]. It is important to understand that "proving" "people will vote for us" does NOT win elections, rather "making people vote for us" wins elections.

4. Clarity of Purpose:

The goal is to establish superiority of "ideas" and WIN election, and not merely win "debates" etc. Attack whatever Congress believes to be its strongest points "Secularism" and "Inclusivism" as ideas which are propagated to undermine Hindus. As mentioned before, Congress tries to (and when the opponents are confused also succeeds in) portraying its position as a "default" winner. This has to be reversed.

5. An illustration:

Besides appropriately dealing with DogVijay-kind sly-attacks with equally vicious attacks on Congress personalities (SG et al); most importantly, it should be emphatically stated that Congress was, has been, and is, a Foreign-Agent working against Hindus, and SG reaching the helm is just an explicit instance of the long line of Congress-pedigree, which has consistently held anti-Hindu designs. Thus all those who collaborate with Congress are overtly and covertly teaming against Hindus. When BJP is asked what it has done about Muslims, Congress must be asked what it has done about Hindus, and so on.

Congress jokers will usually try to get away (with "moderator's" assistance) by parroting "Everybody knows" answers. It is here that they must be pinned down to furnish explicit examples and be forced to bear the burden of proof with no luxury of a shifting-goal-post. The moderators must be snubbed, especially if they attempt their "smart-ass" acts.

Most BJP-"empty-between-the-ears"-intellectuals lose out because they possess, at the deepest recesses of their hearts, a "respect" for Mohandas and Jawahar; and "Secularism" and "Socialism". Geriatric "stalwarts" like Hajpeyi and Advani (along with their coterie) exemplify this folly. It might be more effective to have a rather "deeper respect" for "True-Hinduism" rather than "True-Secularism" and "True-Socialism".

1. If Hedgewar and Golwalkars can be "accused" of "divisive" ideologies; Mohandas, Jawahar are "guilty" of (Hindu)-genocidal ideologies.
2. If Karnataka legislators were watching porn when assembly was in session, Jawahar was wooing Edwina while people were dying during partition.
3. If Narendra Modi was "Nero" while Gujarat was burning; Rajiv Gandhi was fanning the fire which burned the Sikhs all over India.
4. If Advani led the Ram-Temple movement, it was Mohandas who led the "Badshah-Ram" Muslim-appeasement movement.

Many more one liners such as these will have to collected and practiced with.

Caveat: 

The above is only a suggested sketch of a plausible strategy. More capable minds will have to mentate to come up with a more comprehensive and robust strategy. This is the "home-work" that needs to be done by them. They have the capability, but they need to put their act together and perspire. Intellectual lethargy won't do them any good.

Warning:

If BJP-"ideologues" fail in this duty they will not merely lose the election, they will also betray Hindus and lose their faith. Remember that in 2019, there will surely be a Hindu-political party which will win elections and rule India. It is for BJP to decide if it wants to lay an appropriate foundation and become that party, or whether it wants to be assigned to the dust-bin of history as Congress-B.

We invite readers' comments as well as discussion among readers.

Message from Karnataka Voters

A lot has been said after the results to elections held in Karnataka have been declared. Our prediction in the previous post was awfully wrong. Though JD(S) did get the second spot, albeit shared with BJP.

KJP lost the elections very badly, but achieved its goal (of decimating the BJP) quite effectively. BJP has to merely console itself that KJP fared so badly.

Vote-share analysts are saying that if BJP, KJP and BRC had remained united, they would have fared much better, though they still would have lost.

A hand-waving approximation would be that those loyal to Congress remained loyal to Congress, ditto JD(S), while erstwhile BJP loyalists were either confused or dejected or both.

So the real message of the voters from Karnataka is: We remained loyal to our respective parties, if you confused us you lost because of our confusion. Of course we did not mean that not even a single voter changed his voting loyalty, what we meant is that on an average the voter did not change his loyalty.

A very detailed analysis of elections and voter psychology is beyond our pay cheque, nonetheless the outcome makes one point very very clear: Those who sing glories of "wisdom" of the Indian voters and those who celebrate the "collective wisdom of democracy" are either too naive or too treasonous.

For, despite Giga-scams happening under Congress government at the centre, if the loyal voter still votes for Congress, then it shows that voting has become an act of faith and loyalty, and not reason and careful observation. Now, we are NOT against people having faith, it is just that we would like someone else's faith decide for us, and vice versa.

Also, if voter behaviour is going to be largely determined by loyalty, then non-Congress parties will be fooling themselves if they imagine that the next general elections will be a cake walk for the anti-Congress.