Dr Smita Pandey
King Alexander the Great questioned a captured pirate ,â€What is your idea in infesting the sea?’ The pirate answered, “the same as you in infesting the earth. But because I do it with a small craft I am called a pirate…you command a large army so you are called King… ’’
We, the people too are similarly guilty of making marauders Kings. We have elected cheats, liars, thugs and crooked men of every hue and given them the mandate and legitimacy to become ‘great’ leaders who can deprave India at will, ad infinitum. Our invaluable franchise has to be exercised to elect authentic, principled, transformational leaders-not these outworn masquerades desperately capturing and then dishonorably clinging to power . Horse-trading politics has become a norm. Ethics has to invigorate politics. Virtuousity must define politics.
As India continues to wallow in under-development, and the majority of our population continues to be denied the basic amenities of existence-food, health, sanitation, clean drinking water, education, electricity- in 2019 we again have the opportunity to choose to throw out the inept, corrupt ,incompetent leaders who project fantastic visions of transforming the nation and swayed janata with their theatrics and rhetoric and then failed to deliver us from the morass of misery that their mal-governance has only exacerbated. Propaganda holds us in its thrall and every failure is projected as victory and sanctified by catchy mantras like “Garibi hatao, Desh bachao†, jumlas “Achche Din’’, Sabka vikas, magically made possible by a “’government commanding unprecedented majority in Lok Sabha’’. This mandate legitimizes the brazenness with which wrong is made right and scams and fleeing scamsters become the sine qua non of every government- irrespective of the political party in power.
We must correct matters and end this vicious circle of evil. We have elected these ruthless monsters and we must destroy these dinosaurs we have fed and allowed to dominate the political arena now. We have to make the right choice- elect competent experienced, honest men with a proven track record of serving the public and not self. Thoreau had presciently observed, “can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?… Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislation? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.’’
So far we have elected leaders who neither respect laws nor have any propensity or faith in doing right for the public which has elected them. Result is evident. While most of the political leaders have seen their income multiply manifold, while the shell companies of their kindred span the globe, while multi-crore deals with kickbacks are legitimized, growth of our nation remains stunted. Education is critical for progress of our society and for empowering the vulnerable masses from their dependence on the maibaap sarkaar -which has a vested interest in keeping them ignorant, impoverished and absorbed in the struggle to scrounge two meals a day .Nowadays they have a fresh terror confronting them-preventing stray cattle from devouring their meagre crop. Every village in the fertile Gangetic heartland is living this horror narrative. A harvest of two sacks of rice has been eaten away by cattle and womenfolk are literally weeping over their lot. No schools functional here, no health centre, no television-populace cannot even afford a radio ,no electricity, no water supply-this is the reality of most villages bordering the National Highway.
The Tragedy is bigger. As the villagers themselves say, “’sab kaam kagaaz par ho gya hai.’’ The targets have been achieved on paper tomtomed on television- Every village has been electrified, declared defecation free, beti padhao has incentivized education and a plethora of other schemes have transformed the rural scenario. Reality remains brutally harsh. Does term rural distress encompass even a fraction of their destitution and hardship? After decades and decades of schemes and projects, illuminated by the names of Nehru, Indira, Rajiv, Atal, Modi- why is only abject misery visible everywhere in the great granary of India? The mass of people continue to live lives of great desperation.
When will this Goebbellian propaganda end? When will we ensure that we elect people with a commitment to provide justice and social and economic equality to our helpless brethren? When will we stop selling our vote to obnoxious, morally corrupt candidates -jugglers, dons, outlaws, criminals of every hue, hypocrites who are totally devoid of conscience and are ruthless, power hungry and waiting to throttle public interest at every available opportunity? We have to stop electing Evil. The political system has to be purged of money and its accompaniment muscle power. We ,the people, have to do it . Now. every man must ensure a clean, enlightened government by electing people with integrity. Let us take the critical steps toward obtaining it.
