From Tryst to Tendulkar: The History of Independent India

by Balaji Viswanathan

  Jab Tak Suraj Chand Rahega, Indira Tera Naam Rahega [As long as the Sun is shining, Indira's name would live] - In 1984, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi wanted rode the sympathy wave following Indira Gandhi's assassination. India was not used to political assassinations and the only major one before that was the 1948 assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Thus, people were in a state of shock and the Congress party completely milked the sympathy with a historic majority. Indira's name was everywhere.

  Sabko Dekha Bari Bari, Abki Bari Atal Bihari [We have seen everyone. Now, it's the turn of Atal Bihari] - In 1996, there was a strong anti-incumbency trend. India has had a variety of coalition governments in the previous 7 years and there was an electoral fatigue. BJP wanted to make use of the clean image of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The plan almost worked with the BJP emerging as the largest party in the Parliament. However, its government lasted a mere 13 days and had to wait 2 years to form a stable government.

  Jancha, Parkha, Khara [Tried, Tested, Trusted] In the 1999 elections, Prime Minister Vajpayee ran against Rajiv's widow Sonia Gandhi. He wanted to highlight his experience against the greenhorn Ms. Gandhi. People trusted enough to send him with a much bigger majority than they gave a year ago. He completed the full term without much fuss - a rarity in that era.

  Ab ki baar, Modi Sarkar [This time, it's Modi's turn] - In 2014, Modi's campaign primarily centered around him and his leadership credentials. This level of leader-centrism is unusual even in a persona-centric Indian politics. The slogan and the campaign was a roaring success.

  Social issues centric

  Ondre Kulam, oruvane thevan [Mankind is one. God is One] - In the 1967 elections, CN Annadurai broke away from the atheistic Dravidian movement to adopt the slogan of the Tamil religious saint, Maraimalai Adigalar. There was a strong anti-caste stream in the first part of the slogan, while the second part of the slogan went against his mentor Periyar's anti-God movement. The slogan eventually took Tamilnadu firmly into Dravidian politics.

  Tilak, taraju aur talwar, Inko maaro joote chaar [Hit the Brahmins, Banias and Rajputs with shoes] In the 1990s, UP leader Mayawati brought the most casteist slogan of all by going explicitly at the top 3 categories of the Hindu caste system. She rode to power by galvanizing the lower caste votes.

  Maa, Mati, Manush [Mother, Motherland and Mankind] - In the 2009 elections in West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee ran with this slogan that portrayed her credentials as the proverbial mother fighting to save the state from the Communists. A few other top female politicians like Jayalalithaa Jayaram of Tamilnadu also use the sentimental value of the mother.

  Jai Telangana [Long live Telangana] - One of the longest running statehood movements culminated in 2014 with the creation of the separate state of Telangana formed out of the erstwhile Hyderabad state. It was among the most passionate movements in India with the supporters writing the slogan even on answers sheets in school examinations.

  6. Key Issues that influence election outcomes

  Inflation - In 1998, the price of onion shot up to Rs.40/kg [approx. $1/kg at that time] in many parts of India. The ruling BJP lost Delhi. In 2003, Congress lost the states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh for the same reason. Indian voters are very sensitive to the prices of essential commodities like onion and these often decide outcomes in state elections.

  Corruption - Since about the early 1980s, scams and corruption have come to the centre stage in political campaigns. In 1989, Congress lost from a historic majority in the previous elections due to the Bofors scam among many other issues. In 1996, Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao amidst a range of of scams such as money laundering Hawala scam. In 2014, a range of scams led by the spectrum auction destroyed the Congress campaign.

  7. Lessons from the 2014 Elections

  1. Social Media is key to winning the elections. As Americans found out in November 2008, social media is not disconnected from common people and has a strong influence over politics. When the Modi wave started to blow over Twitter, Facebook, and Quora two years ago, critics dismissed that as clueless rich kids blabbering things. They said, Congress still has a grip over the poor people who are beyond the social media. They have all been proven wrong. Social media reflects the opinions of common people, far more than people realize. Also, the rise of Obama and Modi show that marketing political ideas is not too different from marketing apps or content.

  2. You can have a political startup that can get India's ears. AAP has performed well, especially in Punjab. It shows that Indian people are open to new political parties.

  3. If you get too greedy, you lose your existing position. In January, AAP had a great hold over Delhi. They got a historic opportunity to form their own government. They threw it all away with clown politics and have been swept clear of Delhi. Don't try to bite more than you can chew. Had they put all their energies in just Punjab, Haryana, and Delhi instead of fighting the ghosts of Modi all over India, AAP performance could have been better. Good that they didn't have that common sense.

  4. Don't run politics on negative things. Other than Modi, every other politician was anti-something. Anti-corruption, Anti-communialism, blah blah blah. Instead of telling what they will do, they were just saying what they were against. People have clearly shown that they don't like this kind of stuff.

  5. It's the economy, stupid. At a time when India was facing a major economic challenge, both Congress and AAP came up with a crappy manifesto that said little of their economic agenda. You don't run a party with a toilet paper manifesto.

  6. Exaggerating things doesn't help. In the past five years, many parties have casually thrown around Hitler references to Modi and genocide references to the Gujarat riots. This kind of stupid exaggeration doesn't help anyone and has made people increasingly numb to any accusations against Modi. Even legitimate criticism against Modi was no longer taken seriously. The more they accused Modi with ridiculous terms, the more united India got behind Modi. Had the media and left not used those crazy terms, BJP would have submerged Modi with their own internal rifts. Thanks to the media, Modi could escape from BJP's old faults.

  7. Don't forget your voters. For years, Kapil Sibal's gang were running a game of death against social media. In the process, they completely lost track of reality. They became numb to what people thought of them. They thought that their "secular credentials" would win them votes.

  8. Don't forget the majority. Throughout this election, politicians talked more about the minority than the majority. They wore skull caps, professed secularism, talked of Dalits and so on. In this process, they ignored the needs and aspirations of the majority. AAP put the rights of the Valmiki community right at the top of their agenda. It is important to fight for the rights of the oppressed. However, creating a national party with promises to just one community is a very risky gambit and again they have not done anything beyond a lipservice. In the process they also made the majority worried. While Congress, AAP, and Third parties fought hard for the Muslim and Dalit votes, the field became very clear for BJP to take the majority like a piece of cake. Eventually, even the Muslims and Dalits deserted Congress and third front as Modi charmed them with his economic agenda.

  9. Personality matters. Throughout the 20th century, there was a move towards institutions. Politics and governance was taken over by parties, business by corporations, and administration by committees. These non-human entities had a big control. However, since the turn of the 21st century, we are returning back to the era of personalities. Although Jobs held only a fraction of Apple's shares, all the business media was fixated on him. Obama built a cult personality in the 2008 election. And now Modi. People like to associate with other humans, than some amorphous entity like a corporation, party, or committee.

  10. Start small and then scale it. Until 2014, Modi didn't stand in national elections. He was contended to be a regional politician. He had no interest for party leadership and other BS. However, he did work really hard to create a model state in Gujarat. Since he has
put all his energies into just one project, he was able to excel in that. The state is not perfect, but has given the rest of India a clear idea of what Modi could do. And when he was ready to scale what he did in Gujarat, India said yes. Every new political party must learn this from Modi - create a success story in one region and when you are ready to scale ask the rest of India for their votes.

  * * *

  Chapter 13: From Bullock Carts to Mars

  February 2003

  I was in a state of panic. Life didn't prepare me for this. A week ago I didn't know I would be there. But, there I was sitting in the corridor of the President's office in the palatial Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. In a few minutes, I would get to meet my idol and hero, President APJ Abdul Kalam. I was sitting alone and had just finished an elaborate etiquette training on how to sip tea in front of the President. Then my time came. I was asked to enter a hallowed office, behind which Dr. Kalam was poring over some research papers. I could not believe that I was sitting in front of the person who helped build Indian space and nuclear tech.

  Ten years since then, India launched a spacecraft to Mars and if it lands right will become only the second nation after the US to have a successful Mars landing.

  * * *

  Why is Dr. Kalam so respected? What are the key things that happened? Let's go 40 years earlier. To 1963.

  A few months after India's disastrous performance in the 1962 border war with China, a group of scientists led by Dr. Homi Bhabha, father of India's nuclear program and Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, a top physicist wanted India to experiment with space technology. Only a few years before then had the Soviet Union launched its first satellite - Sputnik - beginning a space race.

  India's ambitions were more humble. The scientists wanted to understand climatic patterns better. For their experiment, they chose a location closer to the southern tip of the country, in the village of Thumba in Kerala. It was a sleepy village surrounded by coconut trees. The location was chosen due to its proximity to the magnetic equator [a little different from its more popular cousin - geographic equator] that allowed a range of experiments to be conducted in the ionosphere of earth's atmosphere.

  The first rocket to be launched was a two-stage sounding rocket - Nike Apache - procured from the NASA of the United States. The Kennedy administration was closer to India than any other US administration and thus India got a chance to expand its sciences with a little push from outside.

  The place had little infrastructure. The scientists wanted to keep it fairly quiet. This meant that many of the rocket parts had to be carried through unconventional means - like a bicycle. A cattle shed became the temporary location for the rocket scientists to begin their operations.

  On November 21, 1963, these scientists had their first success. The Nike-Apache rocket headed up from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station [TERLS]. The sounding rocket was a success and thus began India's quest for space. Among the rocket scientists involved in the original mission was the young, bubbly Dr. Abdul Kalam. Over the next 12 years, 350 such rockets would fly into the atmosphere, enabling the scientists to perform a range of experiments to get a better sense of the atmosphere.

  Four years from the launch of the first rocket, India its one indigenous rocket - Rohini-75 - and it was successfully flown in November 1967. On August 15, 1969, days after the Americans first landed on the Moon, India announced the creation of its formal space organization - ISRO - Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

  While all this was happening, Indo-US relationships were increasingly turning for the worse. In 1971, India and Pakistan went on a full-scale war in which United States was overtly supporting Pakistan. The Indian space program was slowed down by the wars, However, in May 1972, India signed a space agreement with the erstwhile Soviet Union. The agreement allowed the Soviets to access Indian ports and launch vessels, while giving Indian scientists opportunities to launch their satellites from Soviet's bases.

  The first of the Indian built satellites, Aryabhata I (named after the famous Indian mathematician - who contributed significantly to the usage of 0 and place value system) was launched on April 19, 1975, from Kapustin Yar in southwest Russia. Within four days of its launch its power system failed. However, it was still a significant achievement for India. It was followed by two more Russian launched, Indian satellites.

  In November 1980, India was able to launch its own satellites from its new launch facility at Sriharikota near the southern metropolis of Chennai. In 1984, Rakesh Sharma became India's first Cosmonaut to head to space via a Soviet Intercosmos program.

  The successes started pouring down since then. ISRO was able to launch plenty of low cost missions through its indigenous satellite launches such as PSLV and GSLV. In 2008, India's unmanned mission to the moon was able to detect water and contributed to a big breakthrough there.

  How Does Spending on Space Help Reduce India's Poverty?

  India has gotten much better at predicting storms and cyclones thanks to our weather satellites such as the INSAT 3D. That helps the poor get their lives and possessions saved. It is the poor who get really whacked in any natural disaster. Apart from disaster warning, the satellites also help do environmental research to proactively avoid disasters in the future.

  The satellite data is also used for helping farmers plant the right stuff and fishermen locate the right areas for fishing using satellites such as the SARAL. Since most of our poor are dependent on fishing and farming, this helps directly solve poverty.

  A lot of our poor are in remote areas and die without access to the right medical resources. When you are sick, you cannot climb out of poverty. ISRO's telemedicine works to help reduce the number of sick and that reduces poverty. Not just curing the disease, but the works on GIS also helps prevent diseases by alerting authorities of disease spread.

  Just like telemedicine, ISRO works on tele-education. Ten years ago it launched the EDUSAT primarily built for education of the rural poor. You don't say, education doesn't help solve poverty.

  Remote sensing data helps India tap its natural resources such as water, minerals, and energy better.

  With the help of our satellites India has gotten better at defense and by strengthening defense we help avoid wars and that helps reduce poverty. Those cribbing about India's need for strong defense should research more on what happened to Indian society when India's defenses were weak in our long history. Heights of Indian development came only when our army was really strong (under Guptans, Mauryas, and Mughals).

  Indirect Benefits to the Poor

  Creates plenty of jobs for the poor engineers. While many of the engineers from urban upper-middle class India seek MNCs, many from poorer backgrounds join ISRO in aiding the nation. ISRO also helps India build a space ecosystem building lakhs of indirect jobs in research, academia, and industry.

  ISRO helps India stay at the cutting edge of technology and that helps the Indian brand. If you can successfully send stuff to MARS, can't you do advanced tech work? That generates more jobs in sectors unrelated to space.

  ISRO has built among the most advanced air guidance systems -GAGAN and this helps India in logistics and transportation.

  Poverty can be solved only through job creation, technological innovation, and productivity improvement. Our expenditures on ISRO directly help address these.

  Fast Forward to 2014.

  India has now successfully launched its mission to Mars. The mission was achieved at an extraordinary low price tag of $74 million - 1/10 of what a similar mission would cost NASA or ESA. If this successfully reaches Mars, India will be the first country to have the Mars mission succeed on the first try. This came under a significant attack from European and American journalists who derisively noted the lack of toilets for a nation launching such "unnecessary" experiments.

  Why India Needs a MARS Program

  It is exciting for the children and teenagers, many of whom might take up a career in science, technology and research. These kids
deserve an inspiration in the sky. If we can get a couple of hundred of these kids into hard sciences, the mission would have paid for itself completely.

  ISRO is already using the technology to help other countries put their equipments in space (for a lucrative fee, of course). If we continue to innovate in cost and speed, we could become a big hub for space projects. That would mean employment for 1000s of engineers and lot of foreign dollars.

  India needs to prove its technological capabilities as it is building up the technology hub of the future - not just space, but everything. If you could launch a Mars mission at the cost of setting up ERP in an enterprise, you could build anything. There are both direct and intangible effects of this demonstration. This would really benefit India's tech companies. This is actually rocket science! Again more $$.

  India needs to spend on research to master the science of the future. NASA had plenty of spinoffs resulting out of its space program that advanced other fields such as medicine, apparel, food, and navigation.

  We could have made the "Model T" of spacecrafts - inexpensive and quick. The mission was completed in just 14 months and $75 million with little prior expertise. More importantly, the mission got off the ground on the first try. China, Japan, and Russia have had to abort Mars missions in the past two decades due to launch failures. That is an outstanding engineering feat worth of salute.

  Indians have always been fascinated by space since antiquity. Our ancient scientists spent all their lives looking at space. In recent times, scientists such as Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Nobel laureate in astrophysics), SN Bose (Boson was named after him) have electrified the field. This mission is deeply fascinating even from a cultural perspective.