Who will win? Obama? Clinton (who is courageously challenging male supremacy in American politics)? Or a third person? It’s for Americans to decide. I am rather concerned about how India’s next parliamentary polls will be. Will there be any poetry in the campaign for electing the 15th Lok Sabha, or only dull prose? Will any leader offer a real agenda of hope and change, of resolutely addressing the big challenges before the nation? Or will it simply be an exercise in retaining or changing a government?

Don’t expect any poetry from the Congress leadership. It has little to offer except repeating an old tattered line (‘Defeat communal and fascist forces’) and a new falsehood (‘We’ll remove power scarcity with the Indo-US nuclear deal’). Anyway, which Congress leader today looks, or sounds, even remotely prime ministerial? Don’t expect it from the communists and UNPA either. That leaves the BJP, which, along with its existing and new allies, has a distinct chance to return to power. In 1996, 1998 and 1999, its lead campaigner was Atal Bihari Vajpayee, himself a poet. His campaigns also had poetry, some of which indeed got translated into his performance as India’s third longest-serving prime minister. Question is: Will the BJP campaign in poetry or prose in 2008/09? Will it offer real hope to the aam aadmi, beyond merely accusing the Congress of betraying him? A concrete plan to mitigate the plight of kisans? An agenda to achieve something as big in ‘bijlee’ and ‘paani’, as it did in ‘sadak’ during Atalji’s six-year reign? Will it promise India’s ambitious youth: “Dream big; we’ll work with you to make your dreams come true”? Will it open the doors of opportunity to crores of deprived children with mega-improvements in education and healthcare? Will it dare to make development and good governance an emotive issue? And taking a leaf out of Narendra Modi’s recent campaign in Gujarat, will it pledge zero-tolerance on corruption, a pledge it could not quite keep in the NDA rule?

... contd.