Contrary to a philosophy now much in vogue, it is the computer, not hyper-reality made up of ?images, spectacles and the play of signs? which is changing the logic of production. It reduces the number of jobs in manufacturing. It expands the services sector. It abolishes the class struggle in high-tech societies despite widening income disparities. The differentiating of skills robs the working class of its role as a major agent of social change. All that the world of hyper-reality does is appropriate more and more of the people?s leisure time. For a society of a billion people like India?s at a pretty low level of development, entering the 21st century does not mean catching up with high-tech nations. It lacks the resources for the requisite infrastructure and research facilities. Even a much faster rate of growth sustained over many decades can absorb only a small fraction of the labour force in industries based on the latest technologies. Most of the new jobs today will have to be created in labour intensive sectors. High-tech enclaves will be always comparatively few. And the computer will not be half as ubiquitous as in the West. If a change in the logic of production had depended on a daily dose of hyper-reality, it would have been easy for this country to get into one of the top slots in the new technological order. Unfortunately, what the network of television channels, with a ceaseless flow of images and signs, does is transform the rules of the game concerning the struggle for power. The market drives the economy including the media and the media in turn shape political culture to a much greater extent than was possible before the continuous flow of moving images of the day?s events on telescreens in millions of living rooms. It is all too easy to exaggerate the degree to which overexposure of millions of viewers to selective images of events at home influences their outcome. But things are made more jazzy to keep the programmes down to a level where even those who run can see and listen, the format of debates is designed in such a way that anything that cannot be got across to a mass public in a snappy sentence or two fares poorly and a wild or stinking remark is magnified to the point where it forces its way into a hundred headlines. All this radically changes the parameters of whatever issue is under discussion. The hyper-reality acts as a distorting mirror. The results can be seen in the current election campaign. Personalities, not issues, have taken over almost the whole space which truly belongs to argument. Almost all the major problems like increasing unemployment, the alarming rise in the incidence of crime, the unending squalor of the urban landscape, overwhelmed by the chaotic growth of slums, the chronic power and water shortages, the near absence of roads in many parts of the country, the miserable mess almost every state has made of its finances, and the hefty increase in defence expenditure, inevitable in the highly uncertain security environment, have been successfully blacked out. Is it any wonder if this has trivialized the campaign of every party? The prime minister continues harping on the buying and selling of votes in the Lok Sabha at the time his government was voted out. Does he never pause to reflect on his own wrong choice of allies who made no secret of their personal agendas? And has he no time to ponder on the legitimacy of the popular mandate itself if people vote for persons who are too prone to trading in loyalties? How can his party make a major issue of Sonia Gandhi?s foreign origin when the Constitution makes no distinction between those who can trace their lineage to Vedic times and those who have acquired their citizenship recently? It is undoubtedly difficult for the prime minister?s party to resist the temptation to bask in the glory of the splendid job done by the army in Kargil under the most trying circumstances. But unfortunately for it, there is no let-up in Pakistan?s determination to achieve its goal in Kashmir by intensifying cross border terrorism of which the state has had more unnerving experiences of late than ever before. The withdrawal of Pakistani troops and mercenaries from the Kargil area has been followed by their all too frequent incursions in Kupwara and other sectors, with a series of deadly attacks on one security post after another. The time to celebrate the Kargil victory will come when the government has allayed the widespread suspicion about its slovenly response to the Pakistani preparations for occupation of a large chunk of strategic territory in Kargil. The enemy could have been stopped in his tracks by frustrating his plans before his forces could consolidate their positions on the snowbound heights. Even now, the government has to convince the public of its resolve to put a stop to cross border terrorism once and for all and dispel the fear which warps the lives of thousands living in villages on the Indian side of the line of control now subject to almost routine shelling. A piquant irony of the present election campaign is the way the media, which otherwise condemns anything smacking of dynastic rule, hang on to every banality mouthed by Priyanka, Rahul or Varun since they are all supposed to be possible inheritors of the Gandhi-Nehru mystique. May be they are all nice and well meaning youngsters. But does the whole country need to be told about Priyanka?s exchanging a polite nothing with a panwala or picking up a jalebi from a halwai?s shop? Of course, no one expects these young people, having their first brush with practical politics, to come up with bright ideas. What is far more distressing is the way their elders dole out half-lies and exchange insults. Is learning the art of steering clear of all important policy issues a part of growing up? The party bosses all too often dish out banalities and leave it to their more reckless colleagues to descend into imbecilities. Some of them whip up communal and caste hatreds. Many expect an unwieldy alliance of 24 parties, slated to secure a slender majority according to most opinion polls, to provide a stable government which knows its mind and acts decisively. They make light of the tension between the hardliners and the moderates in the ranks of the dominating partner, all too apparent from the way the sarsanghchalak, Rajendra Singh, raked up the issue of the temples at Kashi, Mathura and Ayodhya. But none of this can wish away the vast potential of the sort of contrary pulls that often paralysed the present government before its ouster. The situation in the other camp is in no way more reassuring. Even if the Congress improves its tally somewhat despite the last minute bid by Sharad Pawar to split the party, he may have caused a loss of almost 20 seats to the Congress in Maharashtra ? but only at the cost of emerging as the head of what will be at best a rump of 10 members or so. It is not Sonia Gandhi?s ambition which has made her a rallying centre for the Congress. It is the failure of the party to throw up leaders who can get out of their regional ghettos, acquire a nationwide base and imbue the party with a new elan. In any case, it will be a long haul for the party to rebuild itself as the embodiment of a new national consensus in the changed circumstances of today. Its drawing closer to such dubious persons as J. Jayalalitha and Laloo Prasad Yadav is not going to refurbish its image or enable it to play the stability card with the confidence of Indira Gandhi or even with the deftness shown by P.V. Narasimha Rao in the early phase of his five year term as head of government. Both the economic crisis, with the fiscal deficit touching a dangerous level ? even disregarding the heavy costs of the war, the nine billion rupees likely to be spent on current elections and over Rs 12 billion earmarked for additional dearness allowance to government employees ? and the security situation have become more tangled than before. Their management calls for far greater skills and much more room for manoeuvre than will be available to any government in the near future. Whatever surprises the final election results hold for the country, a long period of stability at the Centre, better governance of the two most populous states in the cow belt, the end of industrial stagnation in West Bengal, an end to the new practice of extorting protection money from the affluent in Maharashtra, and the chances of the left getting rid of the obsolescent ideological baggage it has lugged around for too long, are most unlikely. The reason is not the malfunctioning of this or that party. It is more the fault of a system which inhibits any sense of urgency in dealing with big problems, creates ever new fissures in public life and fosters an all-pervasive culture of corruption. Non-issues may have occupied centrestage in the election campaign. But once a new government takes over, the real problems will assert themselves with a vengeance and there will be hell to pay.