Manifesto - words are cheap (even free)

The war of the manifestos are set to beging. DMK came out with its manifesto yesterday and the headline for the news item in 'The Hindu' sounded slightly(?) disbelieving and tongue-in-cheek.

Wanting to refresh our memories, we googled the definition of the word 'manifesto' and the most common one is:

A public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions, especially of a political nature.

Check this out here.

Ram Viswanathan in his blog chennailiving also picked up the manifesto to raise a few issues.

Well, it would be interesting to see what the others put down as manifestoes, but the root of the word manifesto is from the Latin term mani festus which means clear or evident.

The only thing that is clear or evident here is the unmatched desire to please (or should it be fleece) the people and get back into power. Well, stranger things have been known to happen in politics, but don't you think our people would see through these gimmicks.

I only hope so.

Nothing Else Matters

Whenever i hear these words, i am reminded of a state of reversal. 'Nothing else matters' is a slow 'bluesy' number by the heavy metal band Metallica and if that is not reversal. And that is the way it is, it seems, this election in Tamilnadu. Not only do we have 'strange bedfellows', but there seems to be no regard for ideology or values in this mad struggle for power.

Shoba Warrier has been doing some interesting interviews with key personalities in the fray this year and one of them is R. Thirumavalavan of the Dalit Panthers of India. We all know know the drama around his rejection by DMK and the swift alliance with AIADMK. Shoba Warrier's crisp interview relives the saga.

And the most interesting piece in the interview for us was;

Like Vaiko, you are one of the strongest supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and Jayalalithaa is one politician who is
totally against the LTTE. Will there not be a clash of ideologies?
We don't confuse ideology with electoral alliance. Electoral alliance is
temporary and done to share power, that's all. She knows very well that we are strong supporters of Tamil Eelam but remember, the AIADMK is not against the Tamil Eelam people. We will not dilute our ideology for alliances. We are a separate party with a different ideology and alliances are made only to share power. You should not confuse both.

So it seems that it is all about power and 'nothing else matters' but winning.

Strange bedfellows

The saying goes that 'politics make strange bedfellows'. The unthinkable seems more and more possible.

A column in the Indian Express by Neerja Chowdhury postulated the joining up of forces of Ms. Jayalalithaa and Vaiko. I quote;

When some Tamil commentators had predicted — as early as 18 months ago — that Vaiko would make common cause with Jayalalithaa before the elections, it had appeared an implausible scenario. Yet both Vaiko and Jayalalithaa benefit from this tie-up.

Well, here is the man who people thought would never get back with the person who imprisoned him under POTA. But he has his reasons as we see from the interview here (courtesy rediff.com)

Here is an interesting quote from the interview;

And, you called her a fascist then.
Yes. These are all part of the game. It has happened. Let us forget the past. If you stick to the past, no political party can forge an alliance with any other political party. So, I will tell the public, let us forget the past.

Watch this space for the second part of the interview.

E Minus 43 : Hiccups and rainbow alliances

Due to technical difficulties, we are unable to post content as promised in the first post. But we should be online and on track by the end of the day tomorrow.

A quick word on the title of this post. We will lead the first post of the day with the notation E (election) minus 'number of days' remaining. This will also contain the heading of the lead article.
Picked up this very intersting piece on sify.com which has a pretty good election coverage page. The phraseology 'rainbow alliance' is bound to get more popular as the E-day gets closer. An excerpt from the article (with due credit to sify.com)

When the then Indira Gandhi government dismissed the MGR government and sought a fresh mandate, joining hands with the DMK, the people, reversing their stand, voted differently in the Assembly poll and brough back MGR.

But this time the going will be tough, says BJP Senior Leader M Venkaiah Naidu who predicts that neither of the two fronts will bag a majority. There will be a fractured mandate and the state could head for a hung Assembly, he predicts.

CPI leader D Pandian, a constituent of DPA is also not willing to rule out the possibility of people giving a fractured verdict. ''Even the weather experts failed to predict the tsunami and what will happen in this election, no one can predict,'' he says

.
Click here to read the article.

Whats in a name? - What 'Kudavolai' means!

Democratic systems are nothing new to the state we all live in. The 'Kudavolai' system (yes, that is the origin of this blog's name) was practised as far back as 900 AD as per the inscriptions of Parantaka Cholan on the walls of the Vaikunta Perumal temple in Uttiramerur in the Kanchipuram district.

This system consisted of people writing the names of people they thought were appropriate posts in the village administration on palm leaves or 'olai) and dropping them in a big pot or 'kudam'. The elders counted the leaves to install the one with the most leaves and installed him to that post. This was the first recorded instance of 'free and fair elections'.

Well as the years rolled on, so changed the way these elections were conducted. From the total absence of this institution during the time of India's bondage to the first elections after Independence on August 2, 1951, millions of people excercised their franchise to keep the largest democracy, our India moving forward to what it is today. Needless to say, the Congress won in that election.

And in all these elections, media played a key role. We know the way TV changed elections and the careers of people like Prannoy Roy.

This blog is an effort to take a closer look at this exciting phenomenon of our 'democracy in action' in the legislative elections in Tamilnadu that are slated to take place in 8 May, 2006. This blog will among other things attempt to profile various constituencies and their uniqueness, profile the various candidates and their track records (not just the celebrity ones) and profile the vagaries of this campaign.

As of tomorrow, 26th March 2006 there are 44 days to the election and we begin this countdown. In any competition we say 'let the best person win'. But, here we sincerely hope that democracy wins.