Namma Obama

The 2009 Lok Sabha elections are still a few weeks away. But our Nethas have already broken old records for how low they are willing to stoop to win votes. Between Varun Gandhi's hate speech & the hate contest that followed, and SP's manifesto effectively calling for a ban on English language and Computers, the prospects for Indian politics is rather bleak.

But before all hope is given up, I wanted to introduce an emerging politician that is attempting to prove that there is still HOPE! The politician I'm talking about is Krishna Byre Gowda. There have been blogs out there calling him "Namma Obama" (Our Obama in Kannada). You can find out more about him at krishnabyregowda.in or from just searching on his name and reading blogs. Here's a good one http://krishnabyregowda.blogspot.com/2009/04/krishnas-obama-of-bungaluru.html

For a refreshing change, Krishna is actually a clean politician with a vision (How sad. His wife actually works for a living). In any case, I bring this up because a common discussion topic among the desi diaspora is how corrupt Indian politicians are. But what we too often forget is that it is next to impossible to emerge in Indian politics without money to campaign. Take Krisha for example. He has to reach out to a vote bank of ~2 million people in about a month. His main rival Ananth Kumar was a cabinet minister in Vajpayee's government and has very deep pockets (you know what I mean). So, short of a miracle, it is hard for anybody with limited access to capital to give him a serious run for his money (pun intended).

I'm curious to know if any of you (particularly those that contribute to above mentioned discussions) has thoughts on how clean politicians can break this barrier. Maybe Internet marketing will solve this problem for future politicians--at least in places like Bangalore (Bihar can wait for another 100 years). It seems to have already come to Krishna Byre Gowda's rescue in a big way. He should be glad he's contesting from the IT hub of Asia, and has a techie as his wife to manage his online campaign. Maybe this will go down in Indian history as the first time Internet was effectively used for election campaigning by a major candidate. I doubt Mulayam Singh has the vision. Otherwise, I would have wondered if this had anything to do with his dislike for computer education.