INDIAN ICONS

 

 

Tennis star Sania Mirza hit the nail on the head. “It is difficult to please a nation of one billion people,” the exasperated 21-year-old said last week after her third-round loss to the seasoned Venus Williams in the latest edition of the Australian Open. There can be no denying that Sania is one of India’s greatest contemporary sporting icons—who could have imagined a few years ago that an Indian woman would ever be seeded in a Grand Slam event?—but, sadly, there is no dearth of people who love to hate her, mostly for reasons that have little to do with the sport of tennis.

We are like this only. Indians have a love-hate relationship with those who hit the big time, no matter what the sphere of endeavour. We are as quick to idolise our heroes as we are to pull them down from their lofty pedestals. The objects of our hero worship are, more often than not, seasonal. They are here today, gone tomorrow, back the day after, gone again…

ICMR-TSI conducted this opinion poll to gauge the current mood of the nation and draw up a list of India’s most loved—and not so loved—politicians, business leaders, sportspersons and entertainers. For we the people, the line dividing love and hate is thin indeed. Therefore, the results of the opinion poll frequently reveal a severely schizoid nation. RJD supremo and Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav figures among the nation’s five most liked parliamentarians; he surprisingly tops the list of worst parliamentarians as well. Similarly, while he is clearly the people’s favourite Union minister, he is, believe it or not, also on the list of ministers that the public thinks should be dismissed from the Cabinet.

And that hot-and-cold pattern runs like a common thread through the results of the opinion poll. For more such quirks of popular mood swings, read on. But do remember, it is difficult to please a nation of one billion people... Where have all the heroes gone?

By Kuldip Nayar MP and Author

Some years ago when I went to Kabul, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan—Frontier Gandhi, as we endearingly called him—was alive, living in Jalalabad. I went there to pay my respects. He was sitting cross-legged on a bed without any sheet in a one-room cottage. All the belongings he had were earthenware utensils and a change of salwar and kameez hanging on a string drawn across the room. Here was a man who could have had anything in India, but preferred launching a movement for an autonomous Pakhtunistan, embracing Pakistan’s North Western Frontier Province (NWFP). He underwent several privations, including detention in jail, for his cause.

He was a hero to my generation, which saw stalwarts like him giving their all for freeing the country from subjugation. Those days the criterion to judge a person was not his bank balance, but the sacrifice he made for the country’s Independence. Mahatma Gandhi was a hero, the highest on the ladder, but there were some others like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who were equally revered. They, like Abdul Ghaffar Khan, had no possession. They were transparent and honest and their integrity was beyond reproach. What drove them was their faith in India’s future. They went through the shadow of the valley before they reached the sun-lit tops.

For almost two decades after independence, they remained India’s heroes. They made the country democratic, consecrated the system through the constitution and established an independent judiciary and a free Election Commission. They commanded love and respect as long as they lived because they were sincere, clean and had served the country well.

India had emerged from 150 years of colonial rule and, therefore, its infrastructure was poor. People dismally lacked education, health facilities and avenues to earn a livelihood. Between Gandhi’s self-reliance and Nehru’s socialistic pattern of state, India’s progress began haltingly. Yet, what was built was too inadequate, too confused and too slow.

We forgave our heroes because they had struggled for long. But when a few of them tried to cash in on what they had gone through, our respect for them began to dwindle. Sacrifice was not a post-dated cheque. Democracy took root and Nehru was particularly hailed for that. But he was found to have feet of clay when we realised that political freedom had failed to bring economic freedom. The country could not go beyond 3 to 4 per cent growth, which came to be known as the Hindu growth rate. We were too close to a form of slavery to find fault with those who had won us freedom.

But it looked as if the run of the Congress leaders who had fought for Independence had lived austerely by force of circumstances or practical necessity. They took no time in adopting the ways of the British masters, to stay distant from the common man. A credibility gap grew because of the discrepancy between what the leaders said and what they practised. Heroes became zeroes, if not Neroes.

Indira Gandhi occupied the centre of the stage in the second half of the 1960s. She got the spotlight because she was dynamic and decisive. She gave an ideological edge to the Congress party and hogged the spotlight when she did away with privy purses for former rulers and nationalised banks and insurance companies. When she ousted the old guard from the party, she was praised because it was a revolution, from the outmoded thinking to a radical thrust. Garibi Hatao was her slogan. She captured the imagination of the common man so much so that "Indira was India". But she also saw to it that the heroes of the Independence movement, except her father, Nehru, were pushed into the background. She felt odd among people with principles.

She wanted a committed following, not of those who would question her. When she was disqualified because of a poll offence, she imposed the Emergency to suspend even fundamental rights. The judiciary was reduced to the status of a suppliant and the press was gagged. She fell in the eyes of civil society, which saw in her the makings of a dictator. The common man also rejected her and defeated her at the polls. The Janata Party, which came to power in her wake turned out to be a quarrelsome lot. People expected a particular standard of behaviour in politics. The scene also became patchy. The stocks of politicians went down still further. Indira Gandhi’s assassination gave the Congress yet another chance. But the disillusionment of people with the Congress had set in. Rajiv Gandhi never became a hero although he had won 420 seats in the Lok Sabha out of 545. He got embroiled in the Rs 64-crore bribe to the Swiss for the purchase of Bofors guns.

What the public saw from close quarters in the states appeared to be repeating themselves at the Centre: corruption and crime. When even criminals were elected to the state assemblies and Parliament the prestige of politicians came tumbling down. They ceased to be heroes. People looked for personalities from the field of sports and films to replace them. They even elected a few from the cinema world. It was not that they wanted them to be rulers, but it was the people’s catharsis for the misplaced confidence in politicians.

The media too accelerated the process of disillusionment with politicians, who did not make good copy, either for readers or for viewers who were looking for something different, something entertaining. Media too had departed from its old values. It was a strange dichotomy: power lay with Parliament but was given less and less space and the entertainment, which was transitory, was given more and more attention.

Men like Ratan Tata, who has revolutionalised the automobile industry by launching a car for Rs 1 lakh, and Narayanamurthy, who has turned the IT world upside down, are not heroes cast in the mould known till the 1970s. They are admired for their achievements and for the growth rate of 9 per cent. But they are not the ones whom the voters will choose. Electoral politics has a different type of arithmetic. Caste and religion play a big role. In the words of Iqbal, the renowned Urdu poet:

Jamhuriat hai woh tarze hukumat jo bando ko gina kartey hain taula nahin kartey (Democracy is that kind of rule where heads are counted, not weighed). HOW IT WAS DONE

Indian Council for Market Research (ICMR) on behalf of TSI conducted an opinion poll on “The Most Loved and Disliked Indians”. ICMR conducted the survey across the categories of Business, Politics, Sports and Bollywood. The study was conducted over a period of two months and in eight major cities of India – Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad with a sample size of 1100 respondents. The sample was kept higher in the five metros, followed by the other cities that were under the purview of the study. The objective of the study was to understand the common man’s perceptions and preferences in the above mentioned categories on their most loved and disliked Indians. The basic aim of the survey was to identify the individuals that Indians admire or detest across various categories. The questionnaire was open-ended for the respondents to voice their opinion on the most loved or disliked Indian. For the category of Politics and Business, the respondents covered were in the age group of 35-45. But for the category of Bollywood, respondents in the age group of 20-30 years of age were interviewed. The same was followed for the category of Sports. The overall respondents covered were primarily under SEC A1, A2 and B1 categories. Since the questionnaire was open-ended, ICMR compiled the number of responses against the number of votes received. The calculations are mainly based on the frequency of the names as given by the respondents. But, in order to tabulate the results, the top five names for each question were considered. However, in some cases respondents did not give any response, therefore, the final calculations and percentages have been done accordingly.

Politics

Forget Uttar Pradesh. Forget Gujarat. Forget the host of other electoral reverses that the Congress may have suffered in recent times. The Nehru-Gandhi family still holds sway over the popularity charts. Sonia Gandhi is India’s favourite politician, Rahul Gandhi is the most deserving future prime ministerial candidate, and he and his sister, Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra, figure among the five young political leaders who inspire the greatest confidence among the people of the nation...Read on... Which Indian politician do you admire the most?

Sonia Gandhi 24%

Atal Behari Vajpayee 22%

Manmohan Singh 16%

Narendra Modi 13%

L.K. Advani 9%

Others 16%

The BJP and its rivals may go on raving about her foreign origin, but Sonia Gandhi remains the most admired politician in the country. The fifth in the Nehru family to have taken over the reins of the Congress, she remains the party’s main crowd-puller. Sonia’s “sacrifice” of the Prime Ministership did strike a chord with the masses and the Indian youth continue to prefer her over “tried and tested leaders” like Atal Behari Vajpayee. However, regardless of his plans to retire from active politics, BJP’s “Vikash Purush” (Vajpayee) is miles ahead of the party’s official Prime Ministerial candidate, L.K. Advani.

Interestingly, even Narendra Modi, who returned to power in Gujarat by blending Hindutva with development, beats Advani hands down in the popularity contest. Of course, his latest triumph in Gujarat has a lot to do with his popularity among people in the country. In fact, Advani ranks the lowest among the top five admired politicians.

In the third position is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had shown glimpses of being tough in taking on the Left over the Indo-US nuclear deal. The rustic humour and laudable performance as Railways Minister have not come to Lalu Prasad Yadav’s aid among the Indian youth. Veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu (No. 6) commands more support than Lalu Yadav (who is at the seventh spot). Which Congress leader is best equipped to lead the party in the next elections and beyond?

Sonia Gandhi 46%

Rahul Gandhi 31%

Manmohan Singh 9%

Pranab Mukherjee 6%

Priyanka Gandhi 4%

Others 4%

It’s the dynasty that rules the Congress. The survey shows people feel that the Gandhi family is best equipped to lead the Congress in the next elections and beyond. However, Pranab Mukherjee and Manmohan Singh do figure in the list. Name the Indian politician you dislike the most

Mayawati 25%

Amar Singh 22%

Ram Vilas Paswan 16%

Mamata Banerjee 15%

Jayalalitha 11%

Others 11%

Riding the elephant, BSP supremo Mayawati might have been able to trample over her political opponents in Uttar Pradesh, yet she remains the most disliked of the leading politicians of the country. Controversies have always dogged this dalit leader. Her image also took a severe beating when she accepted cash and gifts on her birthday. Yet this “dalit queen” shows no signs of slowing down and is now on an aggressive campaign spree for the forthcoming assembly elections in Orissa.

Mayawati’s political bete noire, Amar Singh, is in the same boat. Known as “Mr Fix-it” of Indian politics, the Samajwadi Party general secretary, who lunches with the Marxists, and dines with the BJP. In 2005, he hit the headlines in a telephone tapping row, where his alleged conversations with actresses and politicians were recorded. He had to move the court to stop the conversations from being published in the media.

After V.P. Singh unleashed Mandal Commission in the country, Ram Vilas Paswan emerged as the main face of the nation's backward politics. In the mid 80s, he was the young messiah of the backwards, who won Lok Sabha polls consistently with record margins. Over time, not only has Paswan lost his charisma, he has also lost out in his home turf, Bihar. His image has also taken a severe beating and has managed to cling to power by constantly changing his political affiliations.

There was a time when Mamata Banerjee, despite the reputation of being a termagant, came close to shaking the citadel of the Marxists, but like Paswan, her charisma has waned. Her whimsical ways and her politics, often bordering on petulance, have led to her losing ground in her home state and at the national level.

It seems Jayalalitha’s brand of politics doesn’t have too many takers, especially outside Tamil Nadu. The arrogant Lady of Poes Garden has of late gone off the boil a bit but one can never rule her out. Over to her: “Nowadays most men are terrified of me. I don’t take nonsense from anyone nowadays. If someone gives me one blow, I will give 30…” No wonder she isn’t liked too much. Which BJP leader is most likely to lead the party to victory?

L.K. Advani 45%

Narendra Modi 23%

A. B. Vajpayee 20%

Arun Jaitley 5%

Rajnath Singh 3%

Others 4%

Just last month, he was declared BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the next elections. But then, L. K. Advani was always considered a hawk, notwithstanding his comments on Jinnah. He is followed by Narendra Modi, the new poster boy of militant Hindutva. Atal Behari Vajpayee comes third. That might come as a surprise for many since, despite going into semi-retirement, he remains one of the most trusted faces in BJP, a name which has kept the BJP’s disparate allies together. Who do you think should be India’s next Prime Minister?

Rahul Gandhi 29%

L. K. Advani 25%

Sonia Gandhi 20%

Manmohan Singh 9%

Narendra Modi 8%

Others 9%

He might not have won a single state for the Congress. He might not be known for his speeches in Parliament, but the Crown Prince, Rahul Gandhi tops the list of India’s future leaders. Though this could also be described as India’s love for dynastic politics, Rahul beats BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate for the top post.

In overall popularity, Advani may be lagging behind Narendra Modi, but when it comes to leading the nation, Modi is nowhere in sight. It seems the BJP has played the right card by positioning Advani as its Prime Ministerial candidate. Advani has often been ridiculed for his eagerness to lead the country, but the people seem quite eager to give him a chance.

Sonia Gandhi, the most admired politician, is also among the most wanted politicians to lead the country. Though behind Advani, she remains a strong contender for the post in the eyes of Indians.

Manmohan Singh, Mr Clean, is the man who changed the country’s economy. He has also managed to keep his image intact in the hurly-burly of politics. Despite being dubbed the country’s “weakest Prime Minister,” Singh has a sizeable fan following. Incidentally, he is one of those rare Prime Ministers who never contested a Lok Sabha poll.

There is a section in the country that calls BJP's Modi an “ugly Indian”. Despite being branded as the aggressive face of Hindutva, equated with Hitler, he continues to hold sway over the country. Thanks to his poll triumph in Gujarat, he has finally emerged as a national leader. Which under-40 politician inspires the greatest confidence?

Rahul Gandhi 60%

Sachin Pilot 12%

Jyotiraditya Scindia 10%

Priyanka Gandhi 6%

Priya Dutt 5%

Others 7%

The most striking fact in this particular survey is that it’s only the Congress that seems to boast of Gen-X leaders. All the under-40 leaders that inspire confidence belong to the Congress. The BJP’s Young Turks, Manvendra Singh, (Jaswant Singh’s son) and Dushyant (Vasundhara Raje’s son), are nowhere in the reckoning. In fact, these two young BJP leaders are not even known names among the country’s youth. But youth leaders like Dayanidhi Maran (No. 6) and Omar Abdullah (No. 7) ring a bell among India’s generation next. The surprise entry here is Priya Dutt. This low-profile daughter of Sunil Dutt not merely won by a huge margin from her father’s north-west Parliamentary constituency in Mumbai, but it also seems that she has made her mark among the country’s youth. As for Priyanka Gandhi, despite her resolve to stay out of active politics, the country simply cannot get over her. Which current parliamentarian do you most admire?

P. Chidambaram 28%

Somnath Chatterjee 19%

Lalu Prasad Yadav 16%

Manmohan Singh 15%

A.B. Vajpayee 12%

Others 10%

P. Chidambaram is a quintessential reformer, who privately believes that his economic policies both during his earlier tenure as Finance Minister and the current one are more revolutionary than what his boss, Manmohan Singh did in 1991. He inherently believes in the fundamentals of the Indian economy that the country can easily achieve double-digit growth in the near future. In the admiration quotient, he is followed by Somnath Chatterjee who has earned laurels in his latest avatar as the speaker of the Lok Sabha. He is followed by Lalu Yadav, who, apart from his people-friendly railway budgets, is also popular for his wit and presence of mind, particularly during Parliament sessions. Who is the worst parliamentarian today? Lalu Prasad Yadav 23%

Amar Singh 19%

Mamata Banerjee 17%

Mayawati 12%

L.K. Advani 11%

Others 18%

We may love him for his humorous remarks and his diatribe against his political opponents, but, as the survey proves, it is Lalu Yadav’s nuisance value that is behind his being voted the worst parliamentarian. He is followed by Amar Singh, who had almost gone into hiding after Mayawati’s spectacular win in UP, but has emerged again to launch a tirade against the UP Chief Minister. Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee is seen as someone who changes her mind at the drop of a hat. Who is your favourite Union minister?

Lalu Prasad Yadav 34%

P. Chidambaram 19%



Pranab Mukherjee 12%

Manmohan Singh 11%

Shivraj Patil 9%

Others 15%

You may hate him but you just cannot ignore him. Lalu Prasad Yadav has his own fan following which cuts across borders, as was evident during his Pakistan trip. After his great success story of Indian railways, he is much coveted by the top management schools of the world. He is followed by P. Chidambaram, who is known for his zeal to build a robust economy for the country. Foreign affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee is in the third spot. If you could sack one Union minister, who would it be?

Sharad Pawar 24% Lalu Prasad Yadav 23% Arjun Singh 20% Ram Vilas Paswan 11% P. Chidambaram 11% Others 11%

Sharad Pawar is the Union minister for agriculture, but he is known to spend most of his time looking after the affairs of Indian cricket. Thousands of farmers may have committed suicide during his tenure, but personally, he doesn’t mind even being pushed off the stage by the Australian cricketers, because cricket is where the money lies. Surprisingly, perhaps not, Lalu Yadav is second in this list. This poll may not have proved anything else, but one thing is clear: Laluji figures as the topmost in the mental landscape of Indian voters. HRD minister Arjun Singh is third in the people's list of dismissals. Indian polity hasn’t done badly at all

Structurally, Indian society is a coalition. It is only natural that this attribute has eventually come to be manifested in the nation's political process

Nilotpal Basu

Central Committee Member, CPI(M)

Politics is the last refuge of scoundrels—this oft-repeated observation seems to be the `in’ thing for the mainstream Indian media. There is almost “a day in and day out” bashing of anything that is connected with politics. And the nastiest of the lot are the political parties and their leaders!

Is this venom justified? Is the Indian political process really in a state of decline and has reached its nadir? Or is the case overstated and blown out of proportions? It is true that after having concluded six decades of existence as an independent republic—these are questions that need to be examined with the seriousness that they demand. India at 60 must seriously introspect.

But before proceeding with such a scrutiny, the question must be placed in perspective. Is India or its polity doing too badly—with respect to other countries in the comity of nations—at least with countries which had become independent around the same time, at least in the Third World, not to speak of those who have been independent and had the opportunity to evolve their political systems over a period of time into functioning democracies?

The answer must be emphatically negative. In fact, India has done quite remarkably in the sense that outside the developed world, whether in North America or Western Europe, of having an uninterrupted run of rule by elected representatives of the people. India never had to bear with any interruption of military dictators with the clicks of their jackboots disrupting the vibrant chimes of democracy. Democracy has taken deep roots. This is in sharp contrast to most other developing countries—most significantly in our neighbourhood. Not once have charges of any major electoral fraud blemished our record. That our democracy has survived is not without reason. The edifice of the Indian State is premised on three pillars—the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. Our Constitution, which has sprung out directly from our freedom movement, had designed itself on the principle of independence and separation of powers of each of these constitutional organs. Not that such separation has been always treated as sacrosanct, but whenever breaches have taken place, the processes and most importantly, the citizens—have asserted themselves to sustain the equilibrium.

One such serious breach was the internal Emergency in the mid-seventies. Stung by judicial disapproval, Indira Gandhi refused to step down from her office. The executive in that instance attempted to crudely undermine the judiciary. Aided with brute majority, the Constitution was amended to ensure a tilt in favour of the executive. But that Constitutional misadventure did not succeed. The regime was reversed.

Similarly, the emergence of communal forces in the late eighties posed a real threat to the secular foundations of the republic. But, by then, the polity had changed beyond recognition. No single party was in a position to call the shots. The judiciary saw to it that secularism was recognised as a basic feature of our Constitution. The exercise that the BJP-led government undertook to review the Constitution did not even lead to proposals for amendment.

The Indian polity is becoming more multi-polar. The possibility of one-party rule seems remote in the near future. Ethnic diversity, social differentiations, uneven regional development, linguistic and cultural plurality are all coming into play. Structurally, India and its society is a `coalition’. The political process has come to manifest this.

It is true that there are aberrations. There is corruption—and corrupt politicians. There is executive ineptitude and, at times, legislative incompetence and, of course, of late, judicial overreach. All these are putting strains on the institutions and the processes. The flush of idealism that characterised our first generation of political leaders who came out of the freedom struggle is missing. This is not abnormal. But the aberrations have not overtaken the Constitution-determined processes. Indian democracy and its political processes are alive and kicking.

The apocalyptic spectre is, indeed, cynical and obviously overstated. One cannot but recognise a hint of a globalisation-induced attempt to substitute a role of popularly elected leaders by `experts’ and `media overlords’ whose loyalty may lie elsewhere—embedded in a neo-liberal premise ordained by international finance capital. Look beyond individual goals

Every nation that is looking to excel needs leaders who have the vision to work towards the greater good of the people. That's a clarion call to the youth of India

Jitin Prasada

MP, Lok Sabha

The shroud of suspicion that marks the mindset of the Indian intelligentsia towards politics is a disturbing development. Examples of degeneration of principles in this arena have prejudiced the outlook of the youth. Considering a career in politics finds no mention on the list of the educated young of this country. It was a similar wave of opposition that I encountered when I broached the idea of taking the plunge. I went ahead with my decision, but have not yet quite been able to dismiss the scepticism towards the Indian politician.

It is not cynicism, but disillusionment. For today’s youth, politics is a dirty word. They have come to associate politics with unruly scenes in Parliament, cash-on-camera scandals, or else a pretext to raise the disruptive bogey of communalism. However, these are aberrations that do not touch the core of a political existence. This is not what politics is all about. There are real issues to be tackled — issues related to development, employment and education.

The current government has been able to achieve this by taking the debate away from Mandir and Masjid to employment-generation schemes and reservation in the private sector. You may disagree with the Common Minimum Programme, but you cannot differ with it on communal or secular grounds. To a large extent, governance is back on the agenda. Having said this, there is also the other side of the story. Around 60% of our MPs are above 60 years of age; whereas 75% of India’s population is below the age of 40. This lack of connection between the electorate and the elected is merely due to a generation gap. Today’s urban middle class youth have a strange sense of national pride. Yet, most of them admit that they can’t be bothered to go and vote. Lack of choice is not a tenable excuse for not exercising one's right to franchise.

I confess that in order to win an election, one still has to strategise. The best way to clear the rot in the system is to step in and make a difference. Today caste considerations come into play and issues other than development and performance are raked up. However, after being elected an MP, one can reform the agenda.

The people are looking at electing people who have taken to politics for a cause and not only as a means. We have the world’s most mature democracy where we can have a leading economist as our prime minister. Despite the rising influence of money in politics, no moneybag can even dream of becoming the leader of the nation.

But all is certainly not lost. I fervently appeal to the youth who are getting disillusioned with politics to come forward. They also need to grasp the fact that the best way to clear the rot that has afflicted the system is to actually do something about setting things right. Every nation that is looking to excel needs leaders who have the vision to look beyond individual ambitions and work towards the greater good of the people. It is a clarion call to the youth of this country, and it needs to be answered with the utmost urgency.