The top leaders of both the Congress and the BJP fret that they are producing Dalit, OBC and minority leaders. The point is, how can leaders come up when entry barriers are so high and the glass ceiling so low? The Democrats have got a second life because they discovered Obama, a modern, all-American, Harvard-educated “black”, as their new liberal icon. If the Congress was a meritocracy, maybe a Mayawati would have emerged there. That combination, of a depleted and yet India’s largest single vote bank and a new Dalit woman leader, would have been lethal. But such a thing is impossible. Rahul will now have to find a whole new Dalit leadership in no time, and since they will all be seen as part of the usual supporting cast they will never be able to challenge Mayawati for Dalit votes. And which Muslim has risen through the Congress ranks over four decades now? The BJP’s situation is worse. Forget the minorities, the different manner in which they treated Bangaru Laxman (a Dalit) and Dilip Singh Judeo (a blue-blooded Rajput), both caught on camera taking money, underlines its upper-casteist fixation. In fact, if you look at the party’s 25 most familiar faces, you will find more Muslims than Dalits; whether that speaks for its secularism or its casteism is a judgment you can easily make.

It is because of this that so little changes in politics, our battle-field of ideas remains so static. It is because of this, the non-renewal of ideas and minds, lack of new talent or even slogans, that our politics keeps slipping backwards, breaking further, rather than consolidating, with a centre of gravity that is weaker and wobblier by the day. All that in a rapidly democratising world that is producing new leaders and new ideas as never before in a hundred years.

... contd.