A VOTEBANK FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE
Its ironic that the day before the Mumbai Tragedy...and i put a post on the "Politics of Irrelevance" .... a criticisim of the electoral politics of our times... where governance is no longer the issue.... politicians trying to garner votes by votebank and divisive politics...trying to divide and rule.
So many of our prejudices are inbuilt and ingrained into our collective subconcious... that it is hard to rise above them.A Bihari is uncouth... the Uppercaste are oppressors...the Muslims are Terrorists...politicians play on such prejudices and as long as they reap political dividends ... nothing much shall change.
Governance as it seems is not an electoral issue at all...the opposition in Delhi was fighting the ruling party on an issue of "The Plight of a Terror Suspect"... now what the mandate of the delhi government either the present or the future be on a terror investigation is beyond my imagination....it was a non issue....its only charm was the fact that it can strike at peoples latent emotions.....it was disturbing sign of our times where it was necessarily the communalising and politicising of Terror.....and the sad part was there were so many buying into this argument.....which necassarily was a play on poeple's prejudices by reinforcing stereotypes....Such electoral politics are as i put it in my earlier post is a Constitutionally sanctioned terror attack.
In the aftermath of the Mumbai carnage.... an audacious attack on India....those who put forth that argument are running for cover... we have seen the turnaroud from Narendra Modi singing paens in praise of Hemanth Karkare the day when he died...when untill the last day of his life he was being slammed by the very same Modi.... we have seen polticians and spokespersons of the BJP flip a complete u turn and denying that they ever panned the ATS.
Today we see the Indian Government being rudely woken up... the citizens are fed up with their slumber party.
The overriding emotion of today is total disgust at our politicians across the spectrum....and political parties of all hues.
But blaming politicians alone is the easy way out.... the politicians are sensitive to public opinion....if the majority in the public votes on good governance.... we will have politicians trying to deliver it.... if majority votes based on religion, region or caste....we will have politicians pander to that constituency....that is the truth of democracy.
We know that we need strong institutions.... A strong police force not answerable to the local goonda (read politician) but to the people.... we need an Institution at the national level to tackle terror...a Federal Investigative agency...A Robust intelligence gathering agency.
More importantly we need all of these agencies DELINKED from Political Interference.
But what are the odds of this happenning ???
Even if the agency and institutions are set up...reforms are made...i for one dont believe that our politicians will not let go of their control on such institutions....which in effect defeats its purpose.
Is it not strange that Politicians make an issue of tougher laws...but more remain mum on issue of refrom on say Policing?? .. To answer that myself....no it is not strange one bit.... tougher laws means more power to themselves.... reform of policing means abdication of their power. Both are required but one without the other defeats the entire purpose.
We need a constituency which pressurises the politicians to make that change happen....a constituency who keeps watch.
For many who would like to believe this tragedy would not have happenend if it were to be a different political party... i got news for them...they are just kidding themselves.
Today when there is a bankruptcy of genuine leadership in our country... the only recourse at the moment is the emergence of a constituency of aware and informed citizens.... a group which outrightly rejects politics of religion, region and caste...There is no saving grace for such parties no matter how hard its followers justify.
The need at the moment is to create this constituency of good governance ...which should be so big that no politician can ignore....when a politician sees that his future depends on good governance thats what he will aim at....and therefore i hope that increasingly ....one person at a time...or in masses....add on to this constituency...It might be mere wishful thinking...but then again it might not...time will tell.
So many of our prejudices are inbuilt and ingrained into our collective subconcious... that it is hard to rise above them.A Bihari is uncouth... the Uppercaste are oppressors...the Muslims are Terrorists...politicians play on such prejudices and as long as they reap political dividends ... nothing much shall change.
Governance as it seems is not an electoral issue at all...the opposition in Delhi was fighting the ruling party on an issue of "The Plight of a Terror Suspect"... now what the mandate of the delhi government either the present or the future be on a terror investigation is beyond my imagination....it was a non issue....its only charm was the fact that it can strike at peoples latent emotions.....it was disturbing sign of our times where it was necessarily the communalising and politicising of Terror.....and the sad part was there were so many buying into this argument.....which necassarily was a play on poeple's prejudices by reinforcing stereotypes....Such electoral politics are as i put it in my earlier post is a Constitutionally sanctioned terror attack.
In the aftermath of the Mumbai carnage.... an audacious attack on India....those who put forth that argument are running for cover... we have seen the turnaroud from Narendra Modi singing paens in praise of Hemanth Karkare the day when he died...when untill the last day of his life he was being slammed by the very same Modi.... we have seen polticians and spokespersons of the BJP flip a complete u turn and denying that they ever panned the ATS.
Today we see the Indian Government being rudely woken up... the citizens are fed up with their slumber party.
The overriding emotion of today is total disgust at our politicians across the spectrum....and political parties of all hues.
But blaming politicians alone is the easy way out.... the politicians are sensitive to public opinion....if the majority in the public votes on good governance.... we will have politicians trying to deliver it.... if majority votes based on religion, region or caste....we will have politicians pander to that constituency....that is the truth of democracy.
We know that we need strong institutions.... A strong police force not answerable to the local goonda (read politician) but to the people.... we need an Institution at the national level to tackle terror...a Federal Investigative agency...A Robust intelligence gathering agency.
More importantly we need all of these agencies DELINKED from Political Interference.
But what are the odds of this happenning ???
Even if the agency and institutions are set up...reforms are made...i for one dont believe that our politicians will not let go of their control on such institutions....which in effect defeats its purpose.
Is it not strange that Politicians make an issue of tougher laws...but more remain mum on issue of refrom on say Policing?? .. To answer that myself....no it is not strange one bit.... tougher laws means more power to themselves.... reform of policing means abdication of their power. Both are required but one without the other defeats the entire purpose.
We need a constituency which pressurises the politicians to make that change happen....a constituency who keeps watch.
For many who would like to believe this tragedy would not have happenend if it were to be a different political party... i got news for them...they are just kidding themselves.
Today when there is a bankruptcy of genuine leadership in our country... the only recourse at the moment is the emergence of a constituency of aware and informed citizens.... a group which outrightly rejects politics of religion, region and caste...There is no saving grace for such parties no matter how hard its followers justify.
The need at the moment is to create this constituency of good governance ...which should be so big that no politician can ignore....when a politician sees that his future depends on good governance thats what he will aim at....and therefore i hope that increasingly ....one person at a time...or in masses....add on to this constituency...It might be mere wishful thinking...but then again it might not...time will tell.
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