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This is with reference to "The strategies that win elections" (Business Line, December 10). The elections in the four States are over.

The results have put pundits and politicians alike in an introspective mood, a precursor to further elections in the offing, especially to the Lok Sabha. Are there any lessons to be learnt and inferences drawn? Yes, there are.

Ideological abstractions were given the go by, perhaps, for the first time in the history of India's democracy, and the electoral battles were fought on the turf of actual achievements — or lack of them — spelt out in terms of development on the ground and economic benefits such as roads, water supply, electricity, schools, primary health care and so on, which are physically visible to the common person.

Ideologies such as "secularism" and "hindutva" are mere abstractions which are not within the grasp of the average voter as was the "supremacy of the proletariat" of communism.

Educators tell us that many children have difficulty in learning alphabets or arithmetic because these are abstractions to them. And so, they have to resort to the process of demystification such as "A for apple" in English and similar approaches in Indian languages.

Voters are also like children and have great difficulty in grappling with the ambiguities of ideologies in politics.

Kangayam R. Rangaswamy

Madison (US)

Letters to the editor and contributions can be sent by e-mail to:bleditor@thehindu.co.in

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