Ep 53. Nothing Much just Basic Election Fraud

Yep, now we are dealing with potential proof of electoral fraud. Nope, it wasn't the EVM. It was good old fashioned list manipulations. Why can't AI & techies make our frauds more high-tech at least? We can't do anything classy in this country. Sigh!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Mind your Buffalo podcast.
This is your host, Ravikan aka the Buffalo Intellectual. I
know I've not been doing a lot of these regular
podcast free podcast episodes because of course, like you know,
the the last few months have been crazy. The book
has come out, Meet the Saurnas now you can see

(00:25):
all the book reviews come out recently. I think Frontline
covered it, The Hindu has covered it, Hindustan Times did something,
did a little bit of an interview of mine, and
Decan Herald. I'm forgetting. Like you know, it's been covered
like in mainstream media and it's been selling out there.
So the response has largely been positive, surprisingly, but I'm

(00:51):
I'm happy with that many of you like the book.
You text me, you send me emails. I haven't been
able to respond to all of them. Please forgive me
if you sent me some very personal because these are
usually very personal, reflective notes, and I apologize because I've
also been endlessly on the road. I did a live

(01:12):
too a few months ago, as recently in the UK,
and now I'm back. But like I have, like the
regular all consuming job as you if you if you're
a regular listener, to the podcast. You kind of know,
just like you know, it's it's it's a it's a
demanding job. Let's just let's just say that a little bit. So, uh,

(01:33):
let me try and it's just a camera. Oh boops,
the other way around the other way around. There we go.
For the audio listeners, they must be wondering I was
trying to toy with the camera a little bit. Tells
you all you need to do about the production quality
of this, uh this shit show. But yeah, I've been
doing a lot of that, And of course I try

(01:54):
to give the paid subscribers regular episodes because like you know,
they're paying money. But as a result, like now, I
recently started a substack, So my teaching job, my writing,
promotional obligations, my live tour of the stand up, my
paid podcast now a sub stack weekly, Substack digest, Like

(02:17):
I want to have some fun with that, like because
that's a format I really like writing. Like, so the
newsletter is available on substack there, and then there is
this live share. So there's like a whole bunch of
things on top of my regular job. So I apologize
if this show kind of loses out because I keep
getting these stacks Okay, Like, why is your podcast you're

(02:40):
only releasing the paid episode and not the regular ones.
It's not by any idea of disservice. Is just like
there's a lot going on, and I do feel a
little more responsible to the paid subscribers, so I make
sure like they get their value of money a little
bit because I rely on the subscriptions a lot. So

(03:03):
but those tend to be more topical, Like today's episode
could have very easily been a paid episode because like
there's so much to unpack about it, and I'll get
to that in a minute, like this whole electoral voter
fraud thing, and like you know, I want to kind
of make this main show a little more interview based.

(03:24):
I want to invite a bunch of guests. So maybe
I've said this before, so you'll possibly start seeing that happening.
All right, Like, let's just get to the topic of
the r Raoul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition, told
us that he was going to drop a atom bomb. Okay,

(03:45):
he said he's going to drop an atom bomb, and
boy did he. He kind of came out and has
talked about election possible election rigging through voter fraud and
This is very interesting because I have in the past
done episodes on you know, on the voting pattern on

(04:12):
seats and like, you know, and and I observe politics carefully,
and one question I would get very often is, uh,
EVM EVM manipulation is happening, and they're like fixing through
EVM and all that. And my standard response to that
has has been that I don't think it is the EVM. Okay,
I don't think evms are being rigged because and my

(04:35):
answer to that has always been very straightforward. If in
a country like India you have to start rigging evms
to skew towards a particular party, or you have to
kind of mess with that, like there are all these theories,
you know, EVM coding aage, the company which makes the

(04:57):
electronic voter machine, the EVM has connections to the BJP,
or you know, all these conspiracy theories. Kavo, I say,
you know, remotely hack horrah all the like. I think
what rahul ganis expos has done has kind of said

(05:19):
we were looking in the wrong direction. Okay, it is
it was not EVM. Like so in that sense, like
unless tomorrow some new evidence comes where we see oh
there was also EVM kind of fraud. Then I stand corrected,
but I will still stand by what I have said
that I don't think it was EVM because the amount

(05:42):
of variables you would have to take for doing something
like rigging a machine and coding it differently, Like elections
in India are so so closely watched and scrutinized, and
you know, political leaders usually have like all these sorts
of connections within the machine, so they would have eventually

(06:07):
figured out or someone somewhere would have slipped up, and
we've not seen it. Plus it like you know, people
can like you know, very like it's a technical thing, right,
a machine rigging, right, So someone somewhere would have figured
out what is the error? How are they doing? It

(06:28):
could have at least proposed theory. We've heard none of that.
We've just heard people say that the results don't make sense,
and they've always just immediately said, oh, it is EVM.
What we are now discovering possibly is that it's not
even the EVM. It is something even more basic than that.

(06:50):
It is old school you know, voter fraud through voter
list manipulation, you know it It is in this kind
of a format. It doesn't matter whether there is an
e v M or whether there is a ballad box,
it would still produce very similar kind of results. If

(07:11):
this is exactly what is happening and what Raoul Gandhi
has done, I'll talk about it in a bit, but
it was very very interesting. I think I saw this
tweet online, this woman, Sarahyupani. I follow her a lot
on Twitter, like she's she makes a lot of sense.
I think it was her. She tweeted something like, you know, yeah,

(07:34):
evms are also to high tech. You know it was
It was a nice joke. Is why the hell did
we assume that the voter manipulation would be something high
tech like you know, machine core, remotely, bluetooth say this
that you know Wi Fi hacking? Like, why did you
think it would be that? This is? This is not

(07:55):
a country which does innovation very well. It it is
old school grant force multiplier effect like that. That's effectively
the Indian Savanna like model for domination or innovation. The
electoral process is no different. Having said that, this is

(08:18):
still early days. I don't know when you listen to
this episode, but this is still early days in terms
of in terms of this story developing, so we don't
exactly know, you know, how it plays out, Like maybe
more facts will emerge, maybe maybe things will get proven wrong.
But just as a brief summary what Rahul Gandhi has done,

(08:42):
I think he again, Like I said, the politicians have
a very close understanding of ground realities. Okay, this is
not just about Congress or PJAP. Most mass parties, national
parties or even dominant state parties have a very strong

(09:05):
understanding of constituency okay, And this has always been the
case in India. Elections have been happening for a really
really long time. I'm talking even before the digital era
and all of that, people had a very strong sense
of like privately, at least the new right public meda

(09:27):
could be statement. They privately they would know whether they're
winning a seat, whether they're losing a seat, whether like
tight seat fazga yea like you know it can go
either ways. You broadly also understand which parts of the
seat you have done well, which parts of the seat
you've not done well. And even though you know, like

(09:49):
now nowadays you have data for everything, but like even
without that data, in most cases, you have a broad
sense that if this is a looksava constituency or this
is with ans about constituency. It has many parts. It
has many like towns and villages. Which towns, which villages,
which their seals and blocks? You likely did well with

(10:11):
which voter segments you know, men, women, cast religion, you
know so and like where you'd lack Like if you
are fighting an election with any sense of seriousness and
there is a party machinery behind you, you have you
have put in crores of rupees often your own money,

(10:34):
right in your election campaign. You've done mobilizing, You're getting
daily feedback from you know, every part of the constituency.
You're you know, all of those things are happening. So
you have a fair sense of if you're a successful
politician or if you're from a fairly successful political party.

(10:54):
Patachal Ziagachy broadly hook Cara right and now, especially in
the last fIF ten years, elections are very very you know,
data heavy, right, Like I often use the cricket and
analogy like till the nineties, Indian cricket team was very
you know inspiration talent Mehnath based you know, I remember

(11:18):
late nineties couple dev was brought in to be coach
of India and uh it was a very legendary pairing.
You know, coaches couple Dev and I think captain was
such in Thindulkar and India was hammered badly. I think
we went for a tool to Australia and we were
hammered very badly because the sport had changed around them.

(11:39):
Because couple Deve was like still coming in and saying that,
you know, Mehnat Saikalo and like, you know, John Lagado,
it's for the country. It's a very old school way
of doing it. Whereas the opposition and the other teams,
by the late nineties early two thousands, they had started
like studying the micro behaviors of players. They knew, you know,

(12:02):
what your stock ball was. They know that if you're
a fastballer, k even if you bolus seven over spelled
usually by the third over your SpeedStep. So you know,
like they they went very sports analytics based and then
India Indian team obviously also eventually adopted it. And of
course now we are probably the best, if like one

(12:25):
of the best, if not the best sports analytics team
cricket team in the world. And there's a very good
reason why we intend to do well even in situations
where we are not doing well. Like I'm digressing on cricket,
but I think something very similar happened with elections. I
think elections were still fought very much on that old

(12:47):
school couple. They've like, you know, Hawaika, share, constituency may,
what is a ma hall and things like that. I
think in twenty fourteen election, the one which MODI one,
I think it was Niskuma or somebody who had given

(13:07):
the statement that you don't win elections on Twitter, you know,
because there was a very old school belief in ground
realities and work. I think what has happened after twenty
fourteen and twenty fifteen, a lot of political parties have
realized that social media, digital mobilization, data and analytics actually

(13:30):
allows them to do groundwork more effectively. What I mean
by that is that it's not that it's not that
data has replaced groundwork. No, No, data has enabled grassroots
outreach in a much better way. I remember reading this book.

(13:54):
It was just like looking over to my bookshelf. It's
called How to Win an Indian Election by she Wam
Shunker sing like it's like this pulp little edition. I
think Penguin had produced many years ago, and this is
like I'm talking twenty sixteen, seventeen eighteen, Caspasoga. Someone can

(14:14):
look it up. Let me just like while I'm talking,
let me just look up when this book is because
I don't have a producer for the show. How to
Win an Election? How to Win an Indian Election is
the name of the book. Shivam Shunker sing this book

(14:38):
came out and all this diribitting to Yeah, twenty nineteen,
I was right. So I think this book, I think
is a very interesting book because what he does in
this book is he's actually worked inside the BJP political
machinery and he's like telling their method and he's talking

(14:58):
about the Tripura election and it's a very interesting one
because Tripura was a CPM thing and the Chief Minister
was Manikshah Saha, Manisha whatever. Maniksa was like actually quite
loved and beloved by his constituency. Now I'm just like worried,

(15:18):
like am I pronouncing his name right? Manik Saha Yepisa
chief former chief minster of and he was so BJP.
If you remember in that era twenty fifteen sixteen seventeen
was still kind of like riding on this idea that
Congress is corrupt and you know, Congress is corrupt and

(15:42):
he's like, no, no, wait, I got this wrong. Hold
on is the current no? No, Maniksha is a current
Chief minister. Oh god, who was the CPM Chief Minister
CPM Chief Minister three Urah Manic Sarkar. There you go.

(16:03):
You can't blame me for this, Okay. Manic Sarkar. Manik
Saha is the current CEM of Trepura. He replaced like
you know that louse Canon b Plubb, who was the
BJP's original Chief Minister of Tripura, replacing Manic Saha Mani
forr Manic Sarkar. Manic Sarkar like Sarka was a Chief

(16:27):
Minister of you know, the Communist Party of India and
he lost the election in twenty eighteen. I've just kind
of made a mess of this whole discourse. What I
was trying to talk about is that. And don't worry,
I'm not gonna edit any of this out because this
is how this is how a live podcast works, even

(16:50):
though I'm like beaming it out. Uh So, most of
my podcasts are, by the way, just one take so
good or bad, Like I don't have any production crew,
so like I'm this is how it plays out. But yeah,
what I was saying is Manic Sarka was from the
CPIM Communist Party of India Marxist and he was the

(17:13):
Chief Minister of Tripura from nineteen ninety eight to twenty eighteen.
And BJP had never won in Tripura, had no presence
in Tripura, and twenty fourteen MODI had won, and the
whole post mode wave narrative was Congress Upa is corrupt

(17:34):
and BJP like BBP was seen as a party of change,
which was not corrupt. But in Tripura they run into
this problem because Manic Sarkar is fairly popular with the people.
He himself leads a very humble life. He's a every
day and he's like one of those old school communist guys,

(17:55):
like he's like he's not a master a lot of wealth.
It's not like you know, the West Bengal CPIM like
Tripla CPIM. He's like in the backgrounds, he's doing his
work people, he's reaching to the people. He's trying to
do the best he can with the meager resources that

(18:16):
his state has. That's the other problem with the northeastern India,
the northeastern states, they don't really have on none of
the northeastern states, they don't really have an internal economy, right,
and in these parts they rely very very heavily. They're
almost dependent economically on New Delhi, right, because the local

(18:39):
economy is not worth it is not able to sustain
that kind of dependency. And in a lot of these
places there have been insurgency and separatist movements. So the
cost of maintaining law and order and you know, integration
is way more than what the state capacity can generate. Plus,

(19:01):
because the Northeast region is locked inside India, it is
sort of disconnected from this natural belt which comes from
China all the way into Southeast Asia, so they're kind
of like cut off from that natural trade route, and
they are also kind of like separated from the mainland
Indian trade route. So in that sense, like economically, it's

(19:22):
a big puzzle and I think India is trying very
hard to solve it. Now. Now we're trying to build
a sea corridor which connects you know, West Bengal to
a port in Burma from where they will connect it
to you know, the Northeast. You know, because we can't
go through Bangladesh. It's pretty volatile. The historical overland route

(19:47):
is not worth Like now this is becoming a Northeast thing.
But like anyways, my point is Northeast state local economies
are very dependent on New Deli because they don't have
a lot of natural resources, and whatever mineral resources they
have often get used up by the larger Indian nations.

(20:11):
So like you don't see a lot of state level
resources that these these places have and as a result,
most of the political pattern in these states is the
state governments follow the national government. So as long as
historically Congress was in power in New Delhi, you would

(20:34):
see a very strong Congress presence in Northeast states and
a party like BJP, which had never been kind of
relevant or even present in the Northeast. After twenty fourteen,
you see BJP become like win all across the Northeast
because again, if you control New Delhi, you tend to

(20:56):
end up having a very very very big strategy advantage
and you can do things. Because to do to win Northeast,
the kind of development, infrastructure, economic policies you need to
act those can't be made in the state. Those have
to be made in New Delhi because they will pay
for it and all that. So to their credit. Actually,

(21:18):
this is one of the low key successes of the
BJP regime, which for some strange reason BJP also doesn't
talk about much. Also, now after you know, money poor,
it's completely the entire discourse has become shifted. But BJP
is actually done pretty pretty well in the Northeast, like

(21:42):
in terms of from like from whatever I can understand
in terms of the focus, the resources, the infrastructural projects
that they have invested in, like it's a region they
take much more seriously that India has historically. But I'm
talking about the twenty nineteen or eighteen whenever it was

(22:04):
a Tripur election. It is a CPIM chief minister who's
popular with the state. People like him. He's not a
corrupt guy. And this guy I told you this book,
like you know he's writing in this book, he himself
is saying, like our usual narrative that Congress is corrupt
does not work in this election because this guy, he's

(22:26):
honest and people like him, right, and he has been
the chief minister forever. BJP has no sort of presence here,
So how do you win that election and in that
in that book, what this guy Shivam Shankar saying is
talking about is actually pretty fascinating about how they give

(22:47):
these workers these little like digital pads and like every
every day they are coming out the data has been mapped.
Then of course the usual you know, media narratives and
like this VPM in Tripura, gist is not ready for
the kind of resources and the kind of big guns

(23:07):
that like you know, BJP is able to bring upon them,
and the unthinkable happens. Not only does Mani Saka lose,
BJP a party which had no presence in the state
sort of wins. So in many which ways I think
those that was one of the last major era of
our last major example of you know, this old school

(23:30):
electoral reality with the new one. But I think by
now in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, and now
in twenty twenty five, by now all political parties to
an extent have kind of understood this model. They have
in some way shape form moved towards it. They all

(23:51):
use all these election consultants, you know, like back in
twenty fifteen, this whole Pashan Kishore bubble was created, which
is such a sura fantasy like some educated like bumman
will come and he will have like some technology, curkay,
he will hack the electoral system and become a king maker.

(24:14):
But I think data analytics did compliment in a lot
of cases, even seasoned old politicians in their sixties, seventies,
eighties realized that, you know, technology is not their enemy,
but actually can in very meaningful ways help them keep
track of grassroots politics, keep mobilizing things and stuff like that.

(24:39):
And by now everybody has kind of come across and
we've seen this in you know, we've seen like Bengal
West Bengal election, like you know, the Mamada campaign. You know, they,
I think out did the BJP in what was what
used to be a stereotypical BJP campaign, you know, Kala
hobby and all of that. But I think this is

(25:03):
the reason why in a lot of cases there used
to be this idea that how can EVM fraud be selective?
Like why are BJP winning some elections and why are
they losing some elections? Right? If you have the keys
to the kingdom, right, so why are they using it selectively?

(25:34):
Sorry for the audio listeners, I was trying to light
a cigarette. So this used to be a common question
and many BJP people used to always use this. They
were like, yeah, you claim voter fraud when you lose
an election, you never claim it when you're actually winning
an election. So clearly there is like you're just bad

(25:56):
losers and all. And I think for a lot of
neutral people, a lot of people sitting on the fence.
By the way, you have to realize there are many
many people in India who vote for BJP, but they're
not really like hardcore BJP supporters. They just feel that
the opposition is not very credible. They broadly aligned with

(26:20):
the caste islamophobic agenda of BJP, but they're also suffering
under the regime. They're not very happy with the regime. Right. So,
and we were seeing this like currently while we are
talking this whole ethanol patrol nonsense thing is playing out
every day, I'm seeing, like you know, so many people
complain to eat, Like people are just very realistically upset

(26:46):
with this government. In common very common anti incumbency measure,
the tax regime is they're upset with and I'm talking
these are I'm talking of elite, rich, urban situated people,
right all petrol Madla. So in India, how many people
have personal vehicles that this is like a core issue

(27:07):
for them. I'm talking of Eliot who said samari Alites
who set the agenda, many of them them are unhappy
with the regime. They they like, you know now with
operations Hindu and uh, you know, I don't think there
is a lot of like everybody feels like the government

(27:27):
is fumbled a little bit, right, so you can you
can sense that idea a little bit that things are
not as rock solid for this regime as they used
to be, right, but they're not automatically switching over to
you know, the alternative because a there is apart from Congress,

(27:50):
there is no national alternative as such. And before Bharajodo Yatra,
nobody really trusted Rahi right, So Barajolaiatra was actually very
very interesting because before bara Jodo Yatra, Rahul gan even
by people who had sympathy for the Congress, they used

(28:10):
to see him like this out of touch Elie Dynast.
After Barajodo there are people who are sort of BJP leaning.
They also started coming out and saying that okay, ye
this this guy is a serious politician. He walked across
the country. So I think that did shift the narrative
a little bit. Now, if you think about it, the

(28:33):
only alternative to national alternative to BJP is Congress. But
Congress has not yet managed to get that national narrative,
this one overarching narrative. It is not able to build
the way Moody excuse me, was able to build in
twenty fourteen. And part of the problem has been that,

(28:57):
you know, Rahul Gan Congress and in fact, many people
have been suspecting that some strange business has been happening
with elections. My theory has been on this, like you know,
some of it has to do with cast politics. Congress
is trying to reinvent itself as a Bahujian political party.

(29:22):
I don't know how that works out, truly speaking, I
truly don't understand because this is Gandhi's party, right, they're
talking about Babasai, but Rahul Gandhi is coming from the
Nehru Gandhi family like he's waiving the constitution around. But
he's literally the great grandson of Javalal Nehru. So I

(29:42):
don't know how that actually works out, how that adds up.
But now it's very clear for the last year and
a half. For the last two years, the Congress is
going to reinvent itself. The Congress has realized that this
is tokenism will not work. They need to reinvent themselves

(30:04):
as some sort of a Bausian party. I think what
they're going to do is they're going after the OBC
vote because I've heard Rahul Gandi say this. This is
why the cast census becomes very important to them. They
don't want to alienate the schedule cast. But I think
they have correctly guessed that the schedule cast in India

(30:27):
will especially the umbid correct ideological core. They may abuse Congress,
but they will instinctively vote for Congress if the Congress
starts talking a little bit about social justice right and
they can use that minimum base and do a massive
OBC outreach. I think BGPS understood that as well, which

(30:50):
is why they have announced the cast census, because if
Congress becomes like starts getting access to OBC world banks,
especially the dominant OBC world banks UH in in keeping
with the schedule cast and the minority Muslim votes, they'll

(31:10):
overthrow the BJP. So I think the BJP is trying
to hold on to OBC volatics there, they've been historically
much better than Congress in giving positions of power to
OBC leaders, you know, so like chief ministers or important

(31:31):
cabinet ministries or things like that. So they're they're they're
doing their bed. So that's the major access on which
politics is shifting. But I think what what Raal Gandhi
has kind of brought out now, it is very interesting

(31:51):
as a mass leader, as a ground leader, coming from
a national party, they kind of had a sense that
some electtions numbers are not adding up. Based on what
their sense is, and he talks about it, He's like,
I'm seeing it like places where I've done rallies, we
are getting very little votes and things like that. How

(32:13):
does that add up? Like how do ten twenty thousand
people show up in one spot and two weeks later
an election happens and we get wiped out. So something's happening,
and in a very interesting way. Some years ago, there
was a professor in Ashoka University. He was also like Sarda,

(32:37):
but like it was a very interesting premise he had,
like he's an economics guy, I think, and he said
that you know, by laws of probability in closely contested elections,
if I remember his paper correctly, in closely contested any
kind of you know, close mathematical probability holding, like the

(33:01):
results should be almost fifty to fifty, like a coin toss,
you know, Like it's like the probability of getting heads
or tails is fifty to fifty. So in closely contested
elections over hundreds of seats, the dispersion pattern of victory
and loss should align closely with fifty to fifty. But

(33:25):
what he saw was that in most of the closely
contested seats, BJP ends up winning a lot more seats.
So what he was saying was this is not voter manipulation,
but maybe there are many factors for it. Maybe the
BJP was better organized, maybe they had like a better groundwork,

(33:48):
maybe like each constituency is different, maybe local factors just
you know whatever. But like the IT cell got very
aggressive unnecessarily over it, and they they yelled at him.
It was almost like a top down push on the
I t CEL target crow. And it was not a
target on Ashoka University, mind you, because the it still

(34:10):
didn't really go after Ashuka after that, although Ashuka has
a lot of these left liberals Savanna, you know anti
BJP and t more the professors, uh you know who
don't ask him about anti cast Like as far as
anti BJP, they're quite progressing, but the BJP I T
cell has really not gone after these institutions in a

(34:32):
in the way they did after this one particular professor.
It's almost like they they were very bothered by this accusation,
and like, when I look back upon it, that's the
only part of it that was a little strange to
me overreact career. But then I didn't think very honestly,

(34:55):
I didn't think much about it. I just assumed ki
I T cell, maybe these people are bored. Maybe this
week they didn't have anything, so they just attacked, like well,
they also do that periodically, and maybe it was just that.
But in hindsight, it's very interesting. It's almost like they
they are sending a message like don't snoop on this.

(35:17):
And what Ragadi did I think? After the selections, he
was like, let's take five six in his own words,
let's take five six constituencies, Let's do a rigorous data analysis,
let's check the votes, and then his team informs him
that look the way they present data, it's not possible
to even do five constituencies, forget fifty constituencies. So within

(35:41):
one constituency, within one section of it, they go very
painfully they comb through the data. Now, that's what he
has come out and presented like it is microfiltering into it. Now,
some of the things are prima facie very very bizarre.

(36:03):
Like one of the things that Alan presented is that
there are many voter addresses where the address is house
number zero. Okay. He also presented like some examples in
a lot of cases where there are eighty or whatever
seventy eight people living who have given the same address

(36:25):
which is the same one. BHK, right, So how can
this be? This is clearly incorrect data. He's also talked
about like things like people having multiple epic IDs or
like you know, have active voter IDs across so they
can technically multiplely vote. He's also talked about examples of

(36:50):
you know, how the photos are often missing or really
tiny where you can't like see it. Now, all of
the lee should not happen. But as an academic, as
anybody who has done some amount of field work in India,

(37:11):
you will immediately realize how this is not surprising, especially
for something like the election commission because we don't realize it,
like a lot of citizens. To be honest, it's not
their job to think so deeply about the electoral process.
For us, an election commission exists whose job is to

(37:33):
transparently conduct the election. One process of that is our
voter list. One now, everybody, one man, one vote, one person,
one vote. You figure out who that one person is,
where he or she is living, and where do they
vote right now? In principle there is no complication about this.

(37:54):
In execution, it is incredibly fucking difficult to do this
in a cuntry of our size and dispersion. Right, So,
election Commission kya ya mapping, voter mapping, data mapping, corniq
conjara right, A lot. That is a real key, Like

(38:15):
who is doing it? Like are they outsourcing it to
market research companies. I've never seen a job add which
says come work with Election Commission of India to verify
voter lace. So like in a lot of cases they're
just getting government employees or you know, some they're outsourcing
the job. I don't know what they're actually doing, but

(38:38):
somehow the person whose job it is to go on
the field and you know, map this and catch everybody
and map it at driss photo Khe Now, it is very,
very highly possible that some of those people in a
country like India that when you meet someone they don't
have all their documents on them. You can meet someone

(39:01):
they don't have all the facts. They are not here.
You know, you go to the address, They're like, no, no,
there's one more person this weekend. He's traveling. You come back,
you know, five days from now he will be here.
Like it's very difficult, Like what do you do in
a lot of these cases, right, photo the photo is

(39:21):
not like you can't catch it. I'm just thinking of it,
like I'm not defending the election commission. I'm just thinking
of it from the point of view of that person,
you know, whose job it is, like maybe it's an office,
whatever it is. I actually, very honestly don't know the process.
I'm just telling you as an academic, as a researcher,
data collection is extremely difficult in a country like India,

(39:46):
especially when the data collection is going to be like
every person has to be mapped. Rights are a challenges angey.
So some of the things that the Congress that Raugan
this team has picked up right could also be very
much a part of that process. But here is the like,

(40:09):
for me, the most revealing thing has not been what
rowled on these saying the most revealing thing has been
Election Commission's response to it. Right. Election Commission could have
just come out and said, yeah, well these things are regretted.
But sometimes you know, our people go on the field

(40:30):
or we don't have data, this is a bad practice.
Thank you for like you know, like it's difficult, but yeah, hoa,
this is not we are trying to screw elections. You
are not trying to add voters. We are not trying
to do that. That is not what the Election Commission
has come out and said. Election Commission is not coming
out and saying look there are methodological challenges. Election Commission

(40:54):
instead is trying to bully and threaten Congress right like
within ours issued thing saying okay o mebolo case kam right,
and I think Congress and anticipated it. It was a
very interesting move that he went on stage alone, which

(41:17):
is I think a very like daring and also a
very powerful political move. He made himself the face of
this thing, Abagar case vihoga and if this has proven wrong, right,
I will take it on my personality. It's a big
political risk, right, He's not put anybody in between. He

(41:40):
went on stage and now he's a face of it,
for good or for bad. If tomorrow this gets discredited,
he will lose his political career. But if this is
not discredited, and so far it hasn't been, he comes
across like a very very uh straight up front, direct,
daring leader. And I think I think that is what

(42:00):
we need to kind of think about. Like I said,
it is the Election Commission's response that is making me
feel very suspicious. Also, now you combine this with other
see that that's a job like I if you're if
you're an academic, if you're a person like me who
looks at culture and discourse. I have often said this.

(42:23):
My methodology is you read culture and discourse and you
pick things which might seem unrelated, but you can maybe
if you connect the correct dots, you can see a
pattern which which reveals its own truth. Or maybe those
things are as random and you're connecting at dodgs. But
for me, when I see in hindsight, there are a
lot of forensic clues here about discourse. Like I said

(42:46):
that Ashuka university professor overreaction is a very interesting one.
Key Applokanaki aggressively that guy had to leave the university.
And as soon as that he left the university, as
soon as that whole paper and that whole discourse got
shoved down the BJPID cell. It's been years now, they

(43:07):
kind of left Ashoka alone. They haven't really gone after that, right,
because when they were attacking it, they were saying, Ashoka,
they are these people, they are anti national Oka academic
a Jana say, anternational come but in focus atalia, Like
I said, this could be random, but maybe the idea

(43:29):
was they don't have a problem with a Shoka. Sorry,
I just like kind of knocked the mic. So if
you hear like an audio spike, I'm sorry. Maybe they
don't have a problem with Ashoka University or these private
university or these liberal antimodia academics. They just had a

(43:52):
problem with this particular topic and as soon as this
kind of got resolved, they kind of like moved on.
So that was suspicious or maybe like I said, they
were just bored that week. Also, it makes us think
of CNRC very differently. CNRC was a very strange agenda

(44:13):
that the BJP pushed in twenty nineteen. Twenty twenty, like
twenty nineteen looks aba, BJP won a crushing majority. They
came in all guns blazing. Immediately they went and dismantled
Article three seventy and took away statehood from Kashmir. The

(44:35):
ripple effect of that Kashmir decision is still being felt,
it is still ongoing. But that should not be surprising
for you. For me, that is core BJP agenda. That
has been always a core RSS Hindu Masaba BJP agenda
Ki kashmirka whatever, So that in effect is not surprising.

(44:58):
They also did CNR, but they also did farm laws,
which you know got like heavy, heavy protests. Eventually the
farm laws were withdrawn. But farm laws we are so
sucked there, okay, Like it is a core agenda because
India one of India, and this is by the way,
one of the reasons why we are also facing tariffs

(45:19):
and shit like that is because India is very very
clear that it is not going to let other countries
enter its agriculture and dairy market. Right that is one
of the strongest fort whichever government does it in India,
by the way, is political suicide for them forever, because

(45:42):
that's the only thing which keeps India from becoming like
one of these sub Saharan or Meso American countries, which
are or African countries which are totally, totally, one hundred
percent like dependent on foreign companies, become food importers, their
own ingredient army gets destroyed and things like that. The

(46:02):
only thing saving us from that is this high tariff
barrier at these restrictions to the Indian government has and
we basically protect our agricultural and farming industries. But in
India it is still not very corporatized. And so the
idea was to try and transition some of these agrarian

(46:30):
economy and into the hands of big Bania corporations, you
know Bania led corporations. I'm saying Bania led corporations, but
you know basically saval led corporations, because beyond Savarna corporations,
India doesn't have a lot of non Savarana corporations, but
basically Indian companies who are going to eat up the

(46:54):
kind of bargaining power and wealth of a lot of
Oh that was the anxiety of a lot of the
farming entrepreneurs, which basically means in North India charts, which
is why no wonder they're the ones who came out
very aggressively in the protest. But this is a policy

(47:15):
which is again not surprising. It is something that the
government wanted to do. It is potentially one of the
major major because India's mining is already in the hands
of these corporations, India's energy and you know, all of
those markets are already there. Defense one of our Bashians

(47:36):
has also been opened up or gradually being opened up
to these players, Abani Adani. Everybody is like kind of
entering that space. So agriculture is one of the last Bashians.
So it makes sense that Savarna regime would kind of
pivot to that. Protests happened, they had to scale it back. Whatever.

(47:57):
My point is, that is also understandable. C NRC was
a little mysterious, like why are you doing why why
are you so aggressive on this policy? Like you know, fine,
one element of it is like you're you're you're framing

(48:17):
it as like Muslim anti Muslim and immig like you know,
people from outside and things of that nature. It got
esconstant this whole you know, uh, intruders have come in
from outside, and you know it was very Hindu coded.
But if you think deeply, right, the NRC didn't really

(48:42):
make a lot of sense. The NRC, the National Registry
of Citizens is fundamentally UH voter mapping exercise, which by
the way, is what they were always saying that you know,
a lot of these Bagla issues have come in, which
is a straw horse argument they keep using, and so

(49:05):
many people have come in that voting patterns in entire
constituencies are changing, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Now, as SAM has
always had an issue with it, I'm not going to
go into that, and it's very tricky, I feel as
Sam is for an outsider, very difficult to understand. But
from my outsider perspective, like these it is, it is

(49:26):
pretty border line xerophobic, like the it's not even just islamophobic.
If your non assmes, you're kind of like seen as
not part of the political process. So as Sam's anti
outsider agitation has one hundred year history because even before
nineteen forty seven, this has been their core and possibly

(49:49):
the only most motivating political variable, and the Assamese identity,
assames nationalism even a separatist movement that sprung out of
it is in many which was coded back to that, right,
so ASSAM is kind of different. But to take that

(50:10):
and make it a national program kind of didn't make
any sense. So that's the other thing, like why are
you kind of so aggressively pushing this policy? And then
like you know, in fifty cities there was chine bag
and like COVID kind of saved us. I always say
this COVID saved India because the government had put itself

(50:32):
in a corner. It really could not be seen as
backing down from this collective agitation by Muslim women. It
would have killed BJP politically in the eyes of its
core constituents. It would have killed more these legitimacy. So
they couldn't back down, but they couldn't continue on the path.

(50:53):
Like the only other way they could have escalated it
is like fine, sent police in and like led them
or as these Muslim ladies, in which case you've just
unleashed hell, like you lose international credibility, will you will
be now seen as a monster. Right, So they didn't
want to do that and they didn't want to back down.

(51:15):
They were like for two three months. If you remember,
like everything just kind of like hung in place. There
was a northeastly massacre of the riots, whatever you're gonna
call it. All of that was going on, and then
suddenly COVID came and everything had to be like shut down, right,
And they never went back to it, like twenty twenty two,

(51:37):
twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, election year, twenty twenty five,
like they can still go back to the NRC. They
haven't gone back to it because primarily they understood they
don't want to be in a situation again where forty
cities they're mass protests and they don't want to be
in that sage. That's my analysis. I could be wrong.
But now again you're seeing this Bihar special. You know this,

(52:02):
this this si R which in Bihar is going around
like suddenly mapping voters. Now, like why are you doing
this at this point? Why is it disurgent? Why this posh?
Why this aggression? It is a policy which is very
open to criticism. People are abusing the crap out of it.

(52:25):
It puts a lot of stress and owners on the citizens. Also,
it's not like there was a major question, ok, like
high Ski so up it's not a bit of political
risk you're taking for an issue jiski quo that makes

(52:48):
you makes you think a little bit. Also, this idea
that Bihari workers are you know, in other cities or
other states. So we are mapping voteralists with the Lee election.
Get time with on like you know, I say this
often to my friends. Now, Delhi is a Bihari city
in North India. Right, there's so much Bihari and Eastern

(53:09):
up labor which has settled in especially parts of northeastern North,
not so much North Northwest Delhi, Southwest Deli and all that,
like basically the outer peripheries. I think Indian Express did
a great could be wrong Express only I think it
was did a great cover story on how the demographic

(53:29):
of Delhi has changed. Right, So members of Parliament Manustewari
and all are going from like un these are Bihari politicians. Basically.
Congress has also launched Kanaya kumar Us basically a Bihari politician.
You know. So in many which ways, the Delhi with
Answer by election is heavily hinging upon Bihari voter. The

(53:50):
luks of our representative in multiple constituencies of Deli Deli
as seven constituencies in at least three of them Bihari
labor or Bihari workers or Bihari citizens are very heavily
you know, responsible chat Puja is a political issue in Delhi, right,
so delic election metw happening worker you know, like these

(54:14):
people are also going back, like they must be spending
three or four months a year back in Bihar. They
must be spending seven eight months in Delhi or hy
s versa. You're not going and checking in that, but
in the Bihar election, you want to be very careful
as to again is political demanding. There was no organic consensus.
Nobody came out and said, look, we really need to

(54:36):
do this. There was no ground swell on it. This
was not an opposition issue, This was not a government
tissue to a quker, right, so there is a lot
of question now as of today, sir, again, like you know,
they are not responding well to Rauldan these revelations. So
it is these kind of things which really real kind

(55:00):
of make one suspicious. So that's that's where I am at.
Like we I think all looked in the wrong direction.
Everybody was looking at ev MS, but it's not maybe
maybe there is an EVM manipulation also, who knows. But
till I see concrete evidence, my stand remains unchanged. I

(55:22):
have not seen anything credible except mathematical projection and conspiracy theory.
I've not seen anything about the ev M being manipulated.
But this is not even ABM. This is like a
like I said earlier, it is a even more basic
form voter list can level pay he manipulate again. And

(55:44):
I will conclude with this that voter list thing, all
the kind of errors that Raul Gandhi is talked about
see addition is easy deletion voter list because said this also, okay,
like we are just talking about all the surplus voters
that are added, right, that is easier. But there are

(56:08):
voter deletion also see water deletions. It gets noticed very easily.
If I'm a voter, I go to the voting day
on the booth and I find my name not there,
I'm going to scream, I'm going to shower, and there
will be representatives from all political parties that it will
very quickly become news. Right, So water deletion is not

(56:32):
a wherey is not the way you want to go
when you're trying to fix the lists. I would imagine, right,
that's not a very good strategy water deletion data. But
wi Amari processes are so rigorous that there is a
generous latitude give it a right, So voter deletion is

(56:57):
the angle it would be if there is manipulation and corruption,
it would be through water edition, which is what Rawlan
is showing. But what is showing is could be genuine
methodological issues for a country like India. But I think again,
I will summarize, Okay, it is the reaction of the

(57:17):
Election Commission of India, which which kind of makes Raulan
the sound more credible. You know, like nobody will graudgu
youate if you say, yeah, this happens sometimes that you know,
we we don't get registrations. We try to reject some

(57:38):
of these, but you know, we can't track monitor. Like
then the whole discussion becomes why can't you track monitor?
You should be doing it, that's your job as Election
Commission of India. It's a different discourse. Then it's a
question about election commission competency, right, But here there is
a question of election commission credibility. Right. Competency is different competencies, like, yeah,

(58:02):
we should be having zero percent of data error, but
it is really difficult. And the things you've pointed out
are some of the results of some of the practical
challenges for a country like India. But that is data competency.
You have made it about credibility by trying to like,
you know, fight back. And I think some people have
pointed is out on social media and Twitter and that

(58:24):
why is BJP defending the Election Commission If there was
a data competency issue, election commission can't just handle the data.
There's too many variables, too much entropy. So the way
voter edition deletion job ourra would affect all political parties,
including BJP. Right, so all political parties should have come

(58:45):
together insaide call Election Commision what the hell is happening?
The fact that Election Commission is turning around and trying
to threaten the Congress and the fact that BJP people
are coming out and defending the Election Commission again is
another one of those signs. Again, this could be random,
but is another one of those signs to support career, right,

(59:08):
Like if there is an issue with Election Commission data
and let's say that BJP doesn't believe the Congress, right,
they can just say fine, like you know, I don't
think there is an issue with it, but these guys
have said it. And if there's a data issue, election commission, please,
like you know, why don't you why don't you just
like look into this. Why are they trying to defend

(59:31):
the election Commission unless there is some agreement or discussion
or some collusion. So it's actually a very very sad
day because it kind of really upends electoral legitimacy in
this country. And like I said, so it's a story

(59:53):
which is still opening, and it's come at a very
very bad time for this government because they are losing
credibility on all all fronts. Donald Trump and the tariff
horse have not played out well, I think, And I'll
talk a little bit more about it on my Patreon episode.
Trump's policies are a total, total, giant rejection of the

(01:00:20):
last seven eight years of India's American foreign policy, and
it is it must be shocking to be in New
Delhi right now part of the regime and to face
this the way Trump has rejected India, the way this
has happened is honestly shocking. It means the Indian entire
foreign policy is to now pavot entirely do a three

(01:00:44):
sixty lean closer towards Russia. I don't know what that
will mean for a China policy. We don't know. But
this whole idea for the last fifteen years that oh,
America is scared of China, and India will be America's
useful tool, you know, like counterbalance to China. No, the

(01:01:04):
Americans have a counterbalance to China in Asia. It's called Japan.
It's right there. The Americans bombed the crap out of
the Japanese. The Japanese were their mortal enemies. Then the
Americans built the Japanese up and the first line of
defense against China is Japan right, So in many of

(01:01:26):
which ways, they don't need a second counterweight. Japanese are
like hard core allies and totally dependent on the Americans.
So they have a counterbalance to China, which is Japan right.
Like it was I think too ambitious and naive of
India to thing like we would be the counterbalance because

(01:01:46):
America is a democracy, we are also a democracy. Yeah,
it doesn't really work that way, and I think that's
what you know, the Modi government is finding out right now.
They are also behind on this whole anti incumbency thing,
the ethanol patrol. The Simur narrative has not played out well.

(01:02:08):
Like they don't look like winnards from any stretch of
the imagination. Even BJP leaning people have questions and the
opposition has done a good job in the they've asked questions.
They're like, okay, who mediated? Like again, Trump has damaged
Moody way more than any opposition leader in India can like,

(01:02:31):
from Simbur to Taraf czis totally totally knocked this guy's
credibility and now comes this electoral thing. So very interesting times.
We'll see how this goes. Thank you for listening. Have
a nice day, bae. Bye. Hey you finished the whole episode. Well,

(01:03:00):
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(01:03:21):
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