Of youth and Indian elections

Photo: Indiatoday

Being the world's largest democracy, Indian elections have always been closely watched. Recently, assembly elections were held in five statesUttar Pradesh, Panjab, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Goa. However, all eyes were transfixed on Uttar Pradesh (UP) because it is India's most populous state, with a population of over 200 million. While its size and number of constituencies make it the nucleus of volatile Indian politics, this time the electoral politics in UP was even more interesting. Two young politicians, 38 years old Akhilesh Yadav, son of Samajwadi Party (SP) stalwart Mulayam Singh Yadav, and 41 years old Rahul Gandhi of the Congress Party, took the centre stage in UP politics.
Akhilesh Yadav's SP won big in the elections, grabbing 224 seats out of the 403 on offer. This decisive victory has made Akhilesh the state's youngest chief minister. Rahul failed to steer his party and raise its alliance's poll numbers, securing only 38 seats. The incumbent Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) managed to get 80 seats.
Given the SP and BSP's traditional dominance in UP politics, it was not expected that the Congress Party would do exceptionally well in the elections, but its capturing the last spot, even below the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), surprised many. Rahul, who is even considered to be a future prime minister of India, has to blame himself for the poor performance in UP. Nevertheless, the Gandhi scion has some other excuses. In the centre, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led government, where the Congress is the most important ally, has been under severe criticism for its (mis)handing of corruption cases, which led to the rise of Anna Hazare. Moreover, it failed to curb the price hike of essentials. All these issues have resulted in poor poll numbers for the party.
While Rahul, the youth icon for the Congress, defended the election results by stating that he is in UP "for the long race and for the long haul," things are not looking good for his party in light of the 2014 general elections.
Although Akhilesh and Rahul had been given much media attention during and after the elections, Mayawati-led BSP was the biggest loser in the UP poll in terms of numbers. Mayawati, a Dalit lady who served four terms as chief minister of the state and even aspired to be India's prime minister, lost her momentum in UP owing to the old disease of South Asian politics. The rise of BSP cronies' personal wealth, corruption allegations against them and the party's wasteful expenses, such as building statues, voted BSP out of power. Mayawati's earthy maya has cost her party badly in the state.
On the other hand, the rise of Akhilesh Yadav has been phenomenal. During the election campaign he changed the face of SP, which had a bad reputation for indulging in money and muscle politics. An engineer by training, Akhilesh had been in command right from the beginning of the election campaign. He changed the nominations of a large number of candidates who were selected either by Mulayam or other senior leaders. The SP's election campaign had a special focus on youth, girls and students. The party had promised to provide free laptops for students and impart computer education. Unlike Rahul's "one man show" campaign, Akhilesh employed his party's cadres efficiently.
It is estimated that 5.5 million new voters in the 18-19 age group and 10 million in the 19-29 age bracket unequivocally chose Akhilesh Yadav, propelling SP to victory. He is also estimated to have wooed nearly 70% of Muslim voters, a critical factor in determining poll results in UP.
In fact, it is not only Akhilesh or Rahul who dominated the headlines, 33-year-old Jayant Chaudhary of Rashtriya Lok Dal is another young star who drew some attention in the recent polls. Jayant is Union Minister Ajit Singh's son and grandson of former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh.
Moreover, the dominance of young politicians was not only limited to UP. In Punjab, another young politician, Sukhbir, son of the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, was believed to be the architect of his party's thumping victory. In fact, according to some analysts, the 2012 election has brought to the fore generation X leaders as never before. The rise of new media, notably social media, are also helping the politicians to reach out to the youth. In this particular avenue, young educated politicians have an upper hand.
The rising role of younger politicians in UP as well as other parts of India might be due to two key factors. First, India's rapidly changing demographic settings favours a younger group of population. With 25 years median age, it is one of the youngest countries in the world. Second, the politicians, owing to money and muscle politics, are unable to meet the expectations of the youth. However, it remains to be seen as to what extent Akhilesh will be able to meet the expectations of young voters. The reason is that Akhilesh and other young leaders are inheritors of political legacies.
That said, the recent elections in India could offer some lessons for Bangladeshi politicians. A caveat here though is that the electoral politics in India is substantially different from Bangladesh's, given the former's size and diversity in terms of geography, culture and language, inter alia.
Nevertheless, youth globally speaks one language! Moreover, like India, Bangladesh is also undergoing a similar demographic transition dominated by a young population. If one follows the social media and the results of various youth surveys conducted of late there is a clear indication that the young population are frustrated over the country's fragile politics, political corruption and malgovernance. While the incumbent government is generally subject to much criticism for its inability to meet their expectations, the younger segment of the population in Bangladesh apparently has no great faith in the opposition parties given their past records.
The question is often raised whether this discontent (not merely limited to the youth) could lead to the rise of a third force in politics, possibly under the aegis of some young politicians? It is difficult to predict, but what is certain is that political parties have to create a space for their young leaders (who have relatively clean image) to woo the voters, young or old. From the recent Indian electoral experience it can be argued that, given the limited scope for a new force in politics, voters opt for second best options. In the case of UP, the voters chose Akhilesh despite the fact that his father Mulayam is arguably one of the corrupt politicians in India!
Finally, while the rise of the youth in Indian politics is a good sign, it does not necessarily mean this will result in real change on the ground. One important lesson that we may draw from the "Arab Spring" is that nowadays it is not too difficult for the youth to change a government but real change is a lot harder to achieve owing to the "nature of states" in the developing world. However, this is an issue that is beyond the scope of this piece, and I am tempted to take up in the near future.

The writer is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Governance Studies (IGS), BRAC University. E-mail: [email protected]