If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or email alerts. Thanks for visiting!
Howard Dean recently ‘accused’ the Republican Party of being primarily a ‘white Christian party’. Obviously, anything that Dean says is bound to be scrutinized closely in memory of his presidential campaign screams. Looking at his statement objectively, he wasn’t far from the truth. The Republican Party is 74% White Christian. Dean was stating the obvious. But did he mean that? If he implied that ‘white Christians’ equaled ‘intolerant fundamentalists’, then any tolerant liberal white Christian is likely to take offense but also might make the other kind think twice (at least the rational ones).
This incident reminds me of the accusations often flung at the BJP. Congress, the Left, and other regional parties call BJP a ‘Hindu party’ (though they call it communal instead…politically correct, you see). Now, aren’t the implications similar to that of Dean’s outpouring? Of course, by calling a party communal, it is merely implied that it is a Hindu communal party. I have written earlier on how Hindus are not a cohesive voting bloc and political parties often exploit this by pandering to other communities who in fact, do vote enmasse. In conclusion, it may be okay for a party to be labeled as a pro-minority but it is political hara-kiri to commit oneself to the cause of the majority. Ain’t this paradoxical to workings of a democracy i.e. majority wins? Of course, the Greeks never thought about coalition politics when they crafted democracy.
by Patrix | on Tuesday, June 14th, 2005 at 8:00 pm | 
Governance, India, Politicking . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
June 14th, 2005 at 8:27 pm reply
Depends,
What is your defintion of majority.
June 14th, 2005 at 8:38 pm reply
Gaurav - At the simplest definition, if one party has more votes than the other. Of course, I ain’t trying to condone overruling minority rights either.
June 14th, 2005 at 9:18 pm reply
Patrix,
What I meant by majority was not the political bloc, but the social bloc (based on religious/linguistic or other criteria).
As you yourself pointed out, that Hindus don’t vote en bloc.
So there is no paradox in this because there Hindus are not a monolithic majority ,but divided into caste which determine the voting pattern in normal (unless there is some compelling cause like Ayodhya)
June 15th, 2005 at 5:05 pm reply
Gaurav - Exactly my point! Is it bad (politically) for Hindus because they don’t vote en bloc? Even in case of Ayodhya, not all Hindus rallied behind BJP. However, Christans in America are a more cohesive voting bloc, regardless of their numerous segregations.
June 15th, 2005 at 7:30 pm reply
Patrix,
Although I am not living in US I am not sure Christian are any more cohesive than Hindus
Otherwise Bush would have got 85%+ votes.
His Born-again-Christian (combined with a no nonsense Texan)persona appealed to a majority (apprehensive about declining social mores and national security ),but still Kerry with his liberal agenda was able to get 48% of votes (Approx)
About Hindus not voting en bloc, I do not think that it’s good for a nation and its social and democratic system when people vote on ethnic-religious lines.
However in India, voting is done by Muslims (I dont like using term Minority) en bloc and what’s more based on narrow religious agenda (mostly “Islam is in danger”). That in turn, provokes Hindus.
I think the reason behind discord is not BJP (with all apologies to moderate right infesting Blogosphere). I think Hindus and Muslims have,well, issues and these issues are either swept under carpet (”History is irrelevant”, “Let’s only talk about economy”)
or distorted (obsession of our eminent historians to view eveything in terms of class struggle).
So I think it’s a good time (because we are confident and don’t carry baggage of perceived inferiority of earlier generation) to revisit and resolve those issues.
Regards
June 16th, 2005 at 9:56 am reply
Gaurav, I think you may be right about the Bush voting patterns (sorry about jumping to conclusions!) and I agree that any kind of joint voting decisions aren’t good for democracy especially if they are along religious/ethnic lines. But the truth is that it happens all the time. Humans are an illogical lot, some more than others!
June 14th, 2006 at 10:13 pm reply
Sorry about jumping to an old post, I will say you have a point there. Though any group voting should not be encouraged, the actual fact of matter is that Muslims( I am not really into being politically correct) do tend to vote as a group. That is why even the most stupid demands made by them gets a hearing.
Now, the question arises, who has this harmed? My take would be Muslims themselves. This pandering to narrow communal interests has kept them backward.