ASTROLOGY vs PSEPHOLOGY

In examining this horoscope, it must be seen that this is a horoscope in which there is so much struggle involved in attaining the high position of the prime minister and it does not appear strong enough for him to retain this post too long. May be, the Labour Party itself may not do so well in the next general elections after three terms under Tony Blair. ( 8 SEPT 2006)

English translation of an article in Dainik Bhaskar, a Hindi newspaper.

After my sickness in 2000, I lost interest in astrological predictions, in individual and mundane areas. When some journalist friends insisted on my giving prediction on mundane events, I gave them, hesitatingly both for the Star Teller and the mass circulated 　Hindi Bhaskar. Fortunately I got the correct horoscope of Gordon Brown on which I made many successful predictions. One of them has been quoted here.

My predictions about UK politics did not go wrong as I got correct horoscopes but in the case of India in the case of both Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi I slipped and ;ater apologized for my failed predictions which other astrologers are not known to do.

When Kush Singh wrote to me expressing his desire to write on UK elections, I encouraged him and he wrote out the piece which contains his accurate predictions. Kush comes from a political family (his father was also in Bihar cabinet once and is still active in politics). He himself went to England for studies and also, later for business which gave him deep interest in the politics of England

More amusing for us was to watch the dirt and bargaining of politicians of different parties, just like India, but on a much smaller scale preceding the coalition. Will it be CC (Cameron and Clegg) or BC (Brown and Clegg) was difficult to decide in the absence of the birth details of Clegg. The dirt in the manourvres and tactics preceding the final decision showed that human nature is the same everywhere. In the mother of democracies, as UK is described by some, the sordidness of it all was like a familiar scene for us Indians experiencing the dirty politics for decades.

In India first in 1967 we had many coalitions in different states known as SVD governments of India which collapsed soon. Then in 1977 the Janata Government headed by Morarji and later from 1989 till today we have not had a single party government except PV. Narasimha Rao’s which was a minority government surviving difficult times and completing five year term. The adroitness with which PV. Narasimha Rao his government gave him the status of a Chanakya in Indian politics.

The best predictions about elections anywhere can be given if psephology and astrology are combined which will never happen as we have seen in the case of monsoon prediction in India. In 1987 late Hardeo Sharma predicted in March in Vishwa Vijay Panchanga about the drought while the IMD had forecast a normal monsoon. In 2002 I had written in the mass circulated Bhaskar, a Hindi newspaper about the coming drought three months in advance and in late July, the Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh told the nation about the drought. The IMD does not have to its credit a single correct forecast about drought since it was created sometime in 1875. Yet the meteorologist will not combine the extra terrestrial phenomena which astrologers use.

But in India we have many brilliant poll forecasts of our psephologists. Prannoy Roy of the NDTV stands out like a giant in the world if you consider the gigantic proportions of Indian democracy with all its complexities. The best of western psephologists could not have evolved a better technique and model than Prannoy Roy has done for India.

But there is a difference between psephology and astrology. The astrologer predicts on the basis of scantiest data, two or four horoscopes and not the mass data of voters’s response collected by a large team employed by psephologists costing enormous amount.