Hello Hello Hello,
Hope you had a great Diwali / Deepavali break! I did too and I am back with a new edition of Saptah, in which I will cover Politics & Governance. Now before you delete / hit the unsubscribe button, bear with me. Irrespective of where you stand on the political spectrum, politics and governance is same for all - which we should know to make more informed decisions & be better at whatsapp discussions (read: arguments) with your family.
To prep for this edition, I listened to the Amit Varma’s conversation with Shivam Shankar Singh titled “The Business of winning elections”. I am a huge fan of Amit Varma’s The Seen and the Unseen but this episode is special for two reasons: 1. Amit Varma and Shivam Shankar Singh literally complete me and 2. Shivam Shankar Singh was a political consultant to the BJP in the 2014 elections, the details he provides are fascinating. I highly recommend that you listen to this podcast yourself. In the meanwhile I will pick three threads from the episode that I thought were interesting:
Whatsapp forwards can’t match up to “Tauji with a hukkah” - Captureth the social media, winneth the elections should have been the fourth prophecy to Macbeth. But - have the power of whatsapp forwards reached their peak? Shivam Shankar Singh certainly thinks so. He gives an example of the recent farm protests in UP, Punjab where whatsapp forwards against the farm protests were countered by Taujis with hukka sitting in every corner (the visual itself is memeworthy). Whatsapp has indeed made broadcasting forwards difficult but its the branding of “whatsapp university”, “fake forward”, etc. that has hurt the efficacy of such messages the most - Thankfully! Also, people are just getting too many messages in too many groups. “Your happiness is inversely proportional to the number of your whatsapp groups” is a great T shirt theme. P.S. Annual reminder that the below message, sadly, is not true:
MP’s don’t really have a lot of power in parliament: Well they do have some power - popularised in many movies inspired by true stories - but they don’t in passing laws in the parliament. Enshrined in the Constitution by the Anti-Defection Law of 1985, an MP cannot simply vote against his / her party leadership! THE MIND BOGGLES. While voting with party is usually a pressure in other democracies too, in India an MP can be legally penalised if they vote against their party leadership. The next time you bump into your local MP please give them a hug, as they really are kind-of sort-of “helpless”. (Read this article for more details)
But are MPs really powerless in real life?: Like all things in life, the truth lies somewhere in between. An MP is allocated 5 crore per year to spend on his / her constituency called the MPLADS fund. This amount is not much and the funds approval and distribution is sketchy at best. No prizes to guess that MPs wield more “soft power” & “influence” on their constituents rather than legal / financial power and help keep the government in power - and this is straight outta Rules for Rulers. Beautifully articulated in this short video. (Thanks you Kirti S again - you are a hero!).
Hope you enjoyed this edition as much as I liked writing it. Do let me know what you think and kindly share. See you next Saptah!