In the May 1987 issue of The DayAfter, one of our investigative analytical stories was entitled Ah! Calcutta! to focus on the vagaries and uncertainties of the electoral system in India. Taking note of the Day After the Elections, our story began thus:

"A mere one per cent swing in favour of the LDF in Kerala brought them into power, but in the West Bengal elections, despite gaining almost six per cent more of the total votes cast than it had in 1982, the Congress could get only 40 seats against 49 in 1982. Against 35.6 per cent votes in the previous elections, this time the Congress got 41.4 per cent. As a matter of fact it polled almost two per cent more votes than the CPI(M). Yet, a Congress victory was almost never on the cards except in the realm of fancy or as a case of terminal optimism."

The questions raised in this investigation were: What went wrong? Why could not the gain in votes be translated into more seats? Why was it that despite proving itself to be the single most popular party in the State, its tally of seats was so pathetic? One of the reasons given by our analysts then, seemed to have become a long-lasting feature of defeats suffered by the Congress. Our analyst had argued: Basically, the Congress defeated itself. Unfortunately, it not only maintained its sad record of fierce infighting, subversive activities, open disloyalty, rebellion, defection and intrigue, but "improved" upon it. The evils... and ills.. snowballed.....

Many of the arguments and observations made in that electoral analysis seem to apply to the Congress culture even today. For example, it had been pointed out in that story that "Things could have been much better for the Congress, if the nominees for the Assembly election had been decided well in advance, like the Left Front candidates". In the same story was also the observation: "...the biggest single factor in the Left Front victory has been Jyoti Basu. Whether people like him or not, he is universally admired. His image as an honest and an astute politician is head and shoulders above any person Congress could provide as an alternative".

We had also raised the issue about those who did not care to exercise their right to vote. Our analyst had commented: "But there must be many who did not care to exercise their right to franchise, perhaps due to not caring about the outcome".

As one looked back, one did find truth in the argument that it was thanks to that section of society which just did not care that the governance of confusion and corruption has reached shocking heights. We were to assert again and again, over the years, through editorial comment, reports and analytical comments, that those who did not vote and were indifferent to the electoral process, mostly belonging to the affluent and the elitist classes, were guilty of high irresponsibility and total disregard for the democratic processes and institutions, of which they were the maximum beneficiaries.

The privatisation debate, which has ever remained alive and is still on even today, was raised by us continuously, before and after May 1987. We had a very thought-provoking presentation by Elliot Berg which indicated that confusion and contradictory trends obtained in national economies all over the world. There were those like Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy and Japan which were initiating the sale of their public sector undertakings and their stocks to private entrepreneurs. There were those like Yugoslavia which were going ahead with decentralisation and there were those like India, Pakistan, the Republic of Korea and the United States of America which were experimenting with deregulation. He had predicted then that "Privatisation of management and load-shedding via deregulation or contracting out is probably the next 'wave of the future', suitable for economies at all stages. It was interesting to take note of the writer’s observation at that point that "Regrettably, we found little evidence of privatisation activity, aside from the efforts in Bangladesh and Chile". What happened to economies in these two countries through mindless privatisation and corrupt disinvestment is a shocking chapter in the history of world economies.

The DayAfter was also among the first and the earliest of the Indian media to raise its voice against oriminalisation of politics and distortion of democratic processes and institutions. In the political analysis entitled Where Do We Go From Here, we had raised these critical issues. The two observations in that analysis were "The most disturbing sign is that the levers of democracy are passing into the hands of crooks and power cartels of money bags and politicians without principles who have openly declared that their personal and group interests, their business feuds, supersede all national interests and concerns." Look around and see the results of the thinking Indians ignoring that early warning. We had also raised the question "How long will the nation tolerate these political and economic parasites, steeped in corruption and immorality, and the sanctimonious hypocrites that they are?" The question stares us all in the face even today. We had then described the state of the nation in unequivocal language. "The media leaders have exposed themselves as the willing agents of one or the other business lobby, the politicians have exposed themselves as pygmies in giant saddles and the senior echelons of bureaucracy as willing or unwilling nincompoops". How is today any different from yesterday? And what would be the day after like with the abiding attitude of drift, disinterest and tolerating abiding injustice and exploitation by the corroded minority which has infiltrated all strata of power, political, economic and bureaucratic? The DayAfter questions stay for all those who have a conscience to answer.