India’s national elections will be held in 9 phases from 7th April till 12th May. Last 10 years or two terms are ruled by a coalition Government led by misandrist Congress party. This situation is expected to change this time.
Misandry in India has a lot of political support in India. The country is often referred to as a socialist republic and all political parties are expected to swear by socialism to participate in the electoral process. In this article, I will give an overview of the dynamics in Indian political system and then I will connect it to misandry and anti-male discrimination.
The decades of India’s freedom struggle against British was fought by the Indian National Congress Party, led by M.K.Gandhi. After independence, this party won the democratically held elections for about 2 decades without much opposition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Congress
The political system in India is somewhat similar to British Parliamentary System, where the Prime Minister is elected indirectly by the elected representatives of lower house of parliament. India became independent in 1947 and the partition of the country created a deep political divide with about 14% of independent India’s population being Muslims. M.K.Gandhi never wanted to become Prime Minister, but he remained king maker as usual. Jawahar Lal Nehru, a very rich and powerful freedom fighter became first Prime Minister of India. Gandhi got assassinated even before India’s constitution was written. India became a democratic republic in 1951.
Indira Gandhi, Nehru’s Daughter:
Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi married to a man of Persian origins, who coincidentally had also the surname of Gandhi. Nehru was a socialist. He died in 1964 and soon his daughter became prime minister of India. She never claimed to be a feminist, but she was more ruthless than Vladimir Putin. She got India into Nuclear club and played extremely divisive politics. She worked with East Pakistan rebels to break Pakistan into two parts and the free East Pakistan, which later became what is today known as Bangladesh. Before 1971, current Pakistan and Bangladesh were together a single country, though geographically separated by 2500 miles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi
Decline of National Congress Party:
Indira Gandhi’s divisive politics and hardline stands ultimately led to quite some rebellions including the rebellion by Sikhs in 1980s, which led to her assassination. The Hindus went on to riot and more than 3000 Sikhs were murdered in Delhi and any other parts of country in a few days after her death. Her inexperienced pilot son Rajiv Gandhi was made Prime Minister by her Congress Party. Indira Gandhi also funded the terrorists of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka in 80s. Sri Lanka is a small Island nation located in Indian Ocean just south of India. In 1991, her son Rajiv Gandhi also got assassinated; this time by female suicide bombers of LTTE.
The Congress Party wanted the widow of Rajiv Gandhi to lead the Party. Now, here is the problem. She is an Italian, who became citizen of India only in 1983. She refused to get into politics. The dynasty politics played an important role in India for these 3 generations, though the country is supposed to be a democracy. People like me wondered, if it is a democracy or some sort of kingdom, where sons and daughter inherit the throne.
So, the Indian National Congress, which fought the British so well using non-violence in the freedom struggle, became a big nuisance for people of India after Gandhi’s death. It also rigged the elections in Kashmir for decades, which ultimately created unrest, rebellion and terrorism. India has to permanently station more than half million troops in Kashmir. In last 66 years, the entire country became corrupt, the judiciary became dysfunctional. People somehow got used to it and tolerated it. During the cold war, India aligned with USSR.
The Indian Congress Party’s divisive politics included all kinds of vote bank politics and it also promoted the culture of bribing people to vote. Vote banks were created on the basis of castes and religion.
Smaller Regional Political Parties in India:
By 1980, that is 30 years after independence, many smaller political parties emerged in India. Some of these political parties just specialized in a region or state and provided localization based on people’s needs. Some of them successfully defeated the Congress Party in their native states and started governing these states. Today, almost 30% of seats in parliament are held by 12 to 15 smaller political parties.
The current performance and popularity of some of these smaller regional political parties show that they will continue to exist in India’s political system for quite some time to come.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recognised_political_parties_in_India
India’s Conservative Party (BJP):
This political party today is as large as the Congress Party.
In 1980s, the conservative Hindus started rallying around a 60 year old Hindu Nationalist Organisation and its political party called Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or Indian People’s Party. The rise of this nationalist and somewhat intolerant party is due to Congress Party’s divisive politics. The Hindus for a long time suspected that Congress Party is appeasing Muslims for their votes and is discriminating Hindus and they need to do something about it. However, Muslims never really benefitted from policies of Congress. After independence, occasional riots occurred between Hindus and Muslims. There were always allegations of politicians engineering these riots. The goons and criminals also got integrated into India’s political system. The whole political system became a big mess.
Hindus make up about 80% of India’s population. In 80s, the conservative Hindus became frustrated with Congress Party and the nationalist BJP made them rally around a movement directed against Muslims. This party created an agenda to reclaim the land, where a famous 15th century mosque stood. It claimed that the mosque was built by demolishing an ancient Hindu temple of great spiritual significance. Since 80s, this party grew in strength and by 1991, the thousands of supporters of this party attacked and raged that mosque to ground and constructed a symbolic temple in the same site. This resulted in widespread riots and some 3000 people of all religions died in the process. This did not reduce the popularity of this right wing political party, as people were already fed up with terror attacks from Pakistan funded terrorists and the rebellion in Kashmir, and they looked for nationalism.
In 90s, the Congress Party weakened further and by late 90s, the right wing conservative BJP won enough seats to form the Government. To prove their nationalist credentials, BJP got 3 nukes tested in 1997. It also governed the country somewhat better than the Congress Party and gave people the hope that it may clean the system.
Sonia Gandhi, Widow of Rajiv Gandhi:
At that stage, the leaders of Congress Party again approached the widow of Rajiv Gandhi requesting her to lead the party just the way her husband, her mother-in-law or her husband’s grandfather had led the party and the country. This time the lady from Italy, who speaks heavily accented Hindi, agreed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Gandhi
From 1999 to 2004, the right wing BJP formed the Government for a full 5 year term and it mostly did good development work including modernization and development of India’s infrastructure. By that time, the services and software industry also propelled the younger generation of hard working Indians into the world scene.
But, in the national elections of 2004, the right wing BJP lost in spite of a lot of good work and the dying Congress Party now led by the feminist Sonia Gandhi became single largest party. It could somehow gather a coalition of small regional parties to form the Government. Her foreign origins put any chances of her becoming the Prime Minister to rest. The leaders of her Congress Party now installed a former Governor of Reserve Bank Manmohan Singh as puppet prime minister. The feminist Sonia Gandhi ruled the country from the background. Manmohan Singh is a soft spoken person with no experience in politics.
Rise of Misandry and worsening corruption in India:
The electoral reversal for right wing BJP in year 2004 proved very costly for men as the Congress Party with the help of Communists started massive onslaught on men’s rights. By that time, these were only two credible political parties available in national scene though there were a lot of small parties, who were forming Governments in some of India’s 30 odd states.
One of the reasons for fall of BJP is its ring wing position. It failed to get out of its somewhat radical past in spite of good developmental work it did for the country. The 15% Muslims and 5% Christians distrusted it and never voted for it, though many of them may not have really loved the Congress Party. Many small, but powerful regional political parties also refused to partner with BJP in any coalition. This helped the misandrist Congress Party.
From 2004 to 2009, the Congress Party, though weak and crippled, showed a lot of arrogance and passed badly drafted domestic violence act and promoted the large scale misuse of section 498a law against husbands. That is also the same time India’s men’s movement grew rapidly and it barged into the Indian media.
Congress Party now got back to its old ways and attempted to push a bill in parliament to reserve 33% of seats in Parliament and State assemblies for women. It aimed at women’s votes to consolidate and regain its old strength. Some of the regional parties who provide crucial support to Congress Party scuttled the bill in Parliament.
After its first 5 years term, the Congress Party did better in elections in 2009 as it won 206 out of 545 seats in Lower House of Parliament. Its attacks on men’s rights continued. Though it could not really push for women’s reservation bill, it almost got the bill to give half of husband’s property to wife passed.
The Indian MRAs met hundreds of members of parliament and even protested outside the Prime Minister’s house to oppose the bill to give husband’s property to wife, while the wife is free to retain her property as individual property. Thousands of mobile text messages and tweets were sent to MPs during parliament sessions as well.
As Congress Party started portraying the conservative BJP as a misogynist party, BJP also started behaving like a party of white knights, as it failed to develop strong conservative arguments against the Congress Party. BJP also decided not to risk losing women’s votes (49%) due to propaganda of Congress Party and Communists through Indian media.
During 2011 to 2013, massive scams and corruption scandals by Congress Party, involving billions of dollars, were unearthed by anti-corruption civil society activists. This rocked the parliament and the Indian society. Thousands of people took to streets in major cities like Delhi and Bangalore. Many sat in hunger strikes for days to demand corruption free governance and special laws and structural changes to stamp out corruption. Many called it, India’s second struggle for freedom.
As a result of these protests, some ministers of the Congress Party and its coalition partners ended up in Delhi’s high security prisons for couple of months. In this age of social media, the party very badly lost whatever minimum reputation it had.
The Indian MRAs were also victims of corrupt police and judicial system, where police often extort bribes worth thousands of dollars by intimidating men and their families who are implicated in false cases. These MRAs joined the anti-corruption movement and started giving indirect support against the misandrist Congress Party.
Emergence of a Libertarian Party:
In October 2012, a new libertarian party called Aam Aadmi Party (common man’s Party) was born out of this massive anti-congress and ant-corruption movement. Like Tea Party of USA, this party showed complete contempt for the rotten system and conducted rallies terming many parliament members as thieves and goons. It advocated for more power to people and smaller Government. It also blamed the influential business houses of funding the corrupt politician to get special favours in various policies and in mining and oil industries.
This new political party fascinated many middle class and poor sections of the society. Most of its members were young people in their 20s and 30s with absolutely no experience in politics or Governance. Large sections of people in India started seeing them as honest political party and some compared it to the Congress Party during the Independence movement led by Gandhi.
This party openly declared that it will not take any donations from Business houses for funding its elections. Thousands of people volunteered for its campaigns in the State elections in Delhi State in November 2013. In elections for the State of Delhi, this political party unexpectedly won 28 seats out of 70, while the BJP won 32 and the ruling Congress Party got decimated as its seats in State assembly diminished from 40 to just 8. As no party got majority, the elections are due again and this time the Libertarian Party is expected to win majority of seats.
Indian National Elections in 2014:
The term of the current Government will be over by May 2014. The India’s National Elections are largest in the world and they are due in the month of April and May, 2014 and the results are expected to be announced in mid-May. Due to the huge population, the elections are held in multiple phases in a period of 30 to 40 days.
The poll surveys indicate massive losses for the misandrist Congress Party. It was always on a decline, but it remained in power with support from smaller parties by sharing power. But, this time it is expected to do very badly and its end may come very soon. The Congress Party is expected to get less than 100 seats out of 543 constituencies for which the elections will be held. Its feminist leader Sonia Gandhi has now put her son Rahul Gandhi to lead the battle and she has prepared him for the throne. He is now harping on women’s empowerment in political rallies.
Indian MRAs have officially called for voting against the Congress Party and the Communist Parties.
The conservative BJP is expected to win more than 210 seats and it is expected to get support from some regional parties to get to the midway 272 mark in the lower house of 543 seats.
The Libertarian Aam Aadmi Party may not win more than a dozen seats, but may capture 7% to 15% votes on an average in more than 100 seats, where it is fielding its candidates. That is not at all a bad result for a party which is not even 2 years old. This party appears to be on center left and it may harm the Congress Party much more than the conservative BJP.
This Wikipedia link shows current state of India’s Lower House of Parliament in a pictorial manner. It clearly shows how diverse the Indian political scene is, with presence of a lot of regional parties, though BJP and Congress are the main national parties and in future the Libertarian Party may capture power, while the misandrist Congress Party dies a gradual death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lok_Sabha
Men’s Rights Scene after Elections in May:
The Congress Party has made men second class citizens in India. Its loss and gradual demise is a very encouraging sign for men’s movement. Its loss in elections may put a stop to downward slide of men’s rights, though we may not quickly recover the lost ground.
The Indian people still do not realize the damage misandry is doing to the society. If the conservative BJP comes to power, it may work to reform the judiciary and bring more accountability to the court system. This may help men’s movement. The growth of the libertarian Aam Aadmi Party may reduce police brutalities and extortion by police.
The real success of Men’s Movement in India will ultimately depend on its own leaders than the outside forces. The good news is that most new entrants into the movement are in their 20s. The movement can grow rapidly, if these young guys are guided properly to lead the movement.
