Why do Indian politics appear to be so devoid of issues?

• People are too preoccupied with making a living to care about complex policy concerns.
• India’s population is not literate or educated enough to engage in complex policy concerns.
• People have determined that we, the people, are uninterested.

Climate change is one of the reasons for water scarcity in India’s hill states: the amount of rainfall and snowfall in the hills has decreased. This is a lived reality, not a fantasy.

However, no one appears to care. In Himachal Pradesh or Uttarakhand, climate change was not an election topic. Parties were not competing to see who had the greatest strategy to tackle climate change.

Some argue that issues such as climate change and air pollution do not become political issues because most people are preoccupied with economic concerns. People are too preoccupied with making a living to care about complex policy concerns. In such circumstances, unemployment and inflation should be significant concerns. However, they are hardly mentioned in contemporary political discourse.

Is there no concern about air pollution? They would not be purchasing air purifiers if they were not. Many people cannot afford an air purifier but would like to have one. Why don’t people put enough pressure on politicians to push them to propose competing solutions for combating air pollution? This was not an issue in the recently held municipal elections in Delhi, which were held amid the peak of the smog season.

Politicians claim that people aren’t concerned enough about these concerns to influence elections. Voters believe politicians are unconcerned about these concerns. It’s a case of chicken and egg.

The Identity Politics Trap

So, what do politicians believe voters care about? Caste, religion, freebies, and power. When asked voters about this during my electoral travels, they blamed politicians.

Why do you vote based on caste? “Because that’s how politicians see us.”

As a result, the most pressing concerns of our time are relegated to the pages of manifestos that no one reads. The fact that these manifestos are presented a day or two before election day demonstrates how important our politicians believe issues are.

Even the worst populist, such as Donald Trump, will go from state to state, making boasts about how many jobs his programs helped create in that state. Climate change has recently been the most contentious subject in Australian elections, aiding in the fall of the incumbent party. People in the United Kingdom care about whether or not the National Health Service is appropriately funded when they vote.

The traditional explanation was that India’s population is not literate or educated enough to engage in complex policy concerns. That is nonsense: there is a big critical mass of Indians who are educated, engaged, and capable of participating in public policy issues.

Public opinion crystallisation

The answer is that no one is taking the initiative in establishing the agenda. A weakened civic society is unable to capture the attention of the media. Our opposition parties are befuddled in an era of BJP dominance, frequently depressed that the public does not respond to them.

If someone had told you in 2010 that India would see a large anti-corruption campaign demanding a new ombudsman, you would have laughed. Lawmaking is not the material of popular uprisings. But that is exactly what happened in 2011. Similarly, in 2011, you could have been disappointed that women’s safety is not a political issue in India. However, it became one in 2012, so much so that women’s safety became an election issue in 2013-14.

Climate change, air pollution, educational quality, the need to boost public investment in health, the necessity for a data privacy law, and even a re-examination of the misuse of special laws can all become major public problems. All they need is a spark. A party, a leader, a non-profit, or the media could be the catalyst.

Who will bell the cat?

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Unfortunately, no one appears to want to attempt. People have determined that we, the people, are uninterested. Nobody likes to ring the bell.

Walking from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, from the southern to the northern tip of the Indian peninsula, Rahul Gandhi has wasted his effort in abstraction. He has gone from the philosophical to the transcendental.

Instead of gaining attention on the topics that matter to the public, he’s creating headlines for training students in martial arts and alleging that ‘Rahul Gandhi has killed Rahul Gandhi’. A typical civilian on the route would have no idea what the Bharat Jodo Yatra was about.

The word “leader” means someone who leads. Indian politicians will have to have faith in the people to start setting the agenda, start talking about things that really matter, and make them the center of our politics.

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