08-25-2007, 01:18 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>They have failed India</b>
Pioneer.com
Jaya Jaitly
The rot began with Indira Gandhi and is irreversible. Now, in the same month that we celebrate the 60th anniversary of Independence, the Left-Congress combine is reviving that infamy
On August 15, I went, as usual, to the location where our political colleagues gather to unfurl and salute the national flag and sing the National Anthem. It is usually attended by policemen detailed there, the various poor applicants and supplicants and satyagrahis who hang around political establishments till their work gets done, the office staff, people of all ages who lived in the staff quarters at the back, and any friends and fellow socialists who happened to be around.
Strangely, this year we were joined by a remarkably large, serious and distinctly participative group of monkeys. They do not usually come to this area on holidays, since their quota of bananas come from Government staff on working days only. Primates of all sizes, with intent patriotic expressions on their faces, watched the short ceremony and even came forward politely when a box of laddoos appeared at the end. It was difficult not be struck by the intensity of their participation and, in fact, their very presence.
Questions that immediately came to mind were, are they the only public audience now available? Since the 'people' have been kept at sanitised distances from most such occasions, have the politicians also kept away from the democracy's public engagements? And, finally, where do people and politicians stand in this exciting experiment of building our free country?
The recent celebrations of the 60th anniversary of India's Independence threw up a lot of media analyses on our journey through democracy. Largely, these were like a ticker tape parade; full of balloons and tri-coloured ribbons, and the GenNext, cosmopolitan view of India. Intellectuals and celebrities contributed their opinions. Occasionally, the Emergency was remembered, more as an aberration positioned against our vibrant democracy.
The annual speech by the Prime Minister on the ramparts of the Red Fort, the same desultory and strictly governmental salutes by Governors of the States, rigid events in which only the netas and netris counted for anything, all went by and were reported in a turgid manner. Perhaps within all this lies the answer to the question in the title.
If the question is considered a rhetorical one, and the answer is 'yes', we must conclude that since politicians belong to political parties, these too have failed the people, and that the hundred odd functioning parties - the legs of a centipede called democracy - have also failed India.
If this is the frightening conclusion, the return to an Emergency and a dictatorship would not be far. However, there is a democracy, and it is worked very well by the common people, while the politicians, save a few honourable exceptions who are consequently sidelined, have used democracy to serve themselves rather than the people or the country as a whole.
From 1947 to the late 1960s, 'India' was the key word and 'Indian' the only identity. Leaders and the common people lived unostentatiously. The display of wealth was only for the maharajas. Long before we declared ourselves 'socialist' by amending the Constitution, there was a spirit of egalitarianism built into the psyche of those who ruled.
Caste was not a defining factor for acceptability among the people since sincerity, commitment and genuine involvement in struggle moulded the leader before the people's eyes. All castes were finally Indians and everyone was fighting for a free India. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and others also fought together for the same future since the idea of a free country was superior to religion, although later many factors distorted a unified result.
Many leaders of high stature like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Lokmanya Tilak, Govind Ballabh Pant, Rajendra Prasad and numerous others shared the practice of politics through an immensely moral dimension largely enhanced by Mahatma Gandhi.
The decline began with Indira Gandhi. She was primarily concerned with her supremacy in the party. Internal democracy and elections within the Congress were discarded in favour of loyalty and commitment to her leadership. The Emergency was clamped to throttle democracy and genuine dissent. Sections of the media, judiciary and bureaucracy got a taste of Mrs Gandhi's hunger for obedience and sycophancy. It seems her insecurity deepened when in contact with people with independence and courage.
With an ideologically corrupted establishment and a party with no genuine membership, corruption became the next great virus for the simple reason that elections, the lifeblood of a politician, had to be funded now from sources other than member ship fees and people's donations.
Once Mrs Gandhi rationalised corruption by describing it as "a worldwide phenomenon", and her loyalists were graded according to their ability to fill party coffers. This spread to every nook and cranny of public works. The Janata interregnum, which had moral voices like that of Jayaprakash Narayan, did not last long enough to correct these ills , many of which got into the bloodstream of our bodypolitik and became chronic.
In the next avatar of the Janata Dal, the National Front, caste came to the forefront. While the issue of corruption brought VP Singh to the position of Prime Minister, the socialist ideology promoting abolition of casteism and equality between all castes was mishandled and corruption forgotten. This resulted in the gradual proliferation of petty, individual casteist platforms run by people with no defined ethics or national vision.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>India and its democracy now became just a means to get to power for its own sake, and a means to access the rich collection of goodies that went with it. There are plenty of ideological justifications trotted out for this - "our colonisers milked us dry, so now its our turn", or, "the Brahmins oppressed us and ate all the cream, so now its our turn", or, "the white civil servants ruled over the brown masses for their benefit, so now its our turn", or, "the other party did it while in power so now its our turn", and, "the other caste did it while their Chief Minister was in power, so now its our turn". </span>
For those politicians moulded during this latter period of moral decline, democracy is now an instrument to be worked only for personal power and monetary advantage. The common people of India proved they were ready for democracy and work to sustain it. Most present-day politicians must re-learn that the idea of India is power for these people, and not just for themselves.
<i>-- The writer is former president of the Samata Party, who works for the uplift of handicrafts makers</i>
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Pioneer.com
Jaya Jaitly
The rot began with Indira Gandhi and is irreversible. Now, in the same month that we celebrate the 60th anniversary of Independence, the Left-Congress combine is reviving that infamy
On August 15, I went, as usual, to the location where our political colleagues gather to unfurl and salute the national flag and sing the National Anthem. It is usually attended by policemen detailed there, the various poor applicants and supplicants and satyagrahis who hang around political establishments till their work gets done, the office staff, people of all ages who lived in the staff quarters at the back, and any friends and fellow socialists who happened to be around.
Strangely, this year we were joined by a remarkably large, serious and distinctly participative group of monkeys. They do not usually come to this area on holidays, since their quota of bananas come from Government staff on working days only. Primates of all sizes, with intent patriotic expressions on their faces, watched the short ceremony and even came forward politely when a box of laddoos appeared at the end. It was difficult not be struck by the intensity of their participation and, in fact, their very presence.
Questions that immediately came to mind were, are they the only public audience now available? Since the 'people' have been kept at sanitised distances from most such occasions, have the politicians also kept away from the democracy's public engagements? And, finally, where do people and politicians stand in this exciting experiment of building our free country?
The recent celebrations of the 60th anniversary of India's Independence threw up a lot of media analyses on our journey through democracy. Largely, these were like a ticker tape parade; full of balloons and tri-coloured ribbons, and the GenNext, cosmopolitan view of India. Intellectuals and celebrities contributed their opinions. Occasionally, the Emergency was remembered, more as an aberration positioned against our vibrant democracy.
The annual speech by the Prime Minister on the ramparts of the Red Fort, the same desultory and strictly governmental salutes by Governors of the States, rigid events in which only the netas and netris counted for anything, all went by and were reported in a turgid manner. Perhaps within all this lies the answer to the question in the title.
If the question is considered a rhetorical one, and the answer is 'yes', we must conclude that since politicians belong to political parties, these too have failed the people, and that the hundred odd functioning parties - the legs of a centipede called democracy - have also failed India.
If this is the frightening conclusion, the return to an Emergency and a dictatorship would not be far. However, there is a democracy, and it is worked very well by the common people, while the politicians, save a few honourable exceptions who are consequently sidelined, have used democracy to serve themselves rather than the people or the country as a whole.
From 1947 to the late 1960s, 'India' was the key word and 'Indian' the only identity. Leaders and the common people lived unostentatiously. The display of wealth was only for the maharajas. Long before we declared ourselves 'socialist' by amending the Constitution, there was a spirit of egalitarianism built into the psyche of those who ruled.
Caste was not a defining factor for acceptability among the people since sincerity, commitment and genuine involvement in struggle moulded the leader before the people's eyes. All castes were finally Indians and everyone was fighting for a free India. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and others also fought together for the same future since the idea of a free country was superior to religion, although later many factors distorted a unified result.
Many leaders of high stature like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Lokmanya Tilak, Govind Ballabh Pant, Rajendra Prasad and numerous others shared the practice of politics through an immensely moral dimension largely enhanced by Mahatma Gandhi.
The decline began with Indira Gandhi. She was primarily concerned with her supremacy in the party. Internal democracy and elections within the Congress were discarded in favour of loyalty and commitment to her leadership. The Emergency was clamped to throttle democracy and genuine dissent. Sections of the media, judiciary and bureaucracy got a taste of Mrs Gandhi's hunger for obedience and sycophancy. It seems her insecurity deepened when in contact with people with independence and courage.
With an ideologically corrupted establishment and a party with no genuine membership, corruption became the next great virus for the simple reason that elections, the lifeblood of a politician, had to be funded now from sources other than member ship fees and people's donations.
Once Mrs Gandhi rationalised corruption by describing it as "a worldwide phenomenon", and her loyalists were graded according to their ability to fill party coffers. This spread to every nook and cranny of public works. The Janata interregnum, which had moral voices like that of Jayaprakash Narayan, did not last long enough to correct these ills , many of which got into the bloodstream of our bodypolitik and became chronic.
In the next avatar of the Janata Dal, the National Front, caste came to the forefront. While the issue of corruption brought VP Singh to the position of Prime Minister, the socialist ideology promoting abolition of casteism and equality between all castes was mishandled and corruption forgotten. This resulted in the gradual proliferation of petty, individual casteist platforms run by people with no defined ethics or national vision.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>India and its democracy now became just a means to get to power for its own sake, and a means to access the rich collection of goodies that went with it. There are plenty of ideological justifications trotted out for this - "our colonisers milked us dry, so now its our turn", or, "the Brahmins oppressed us and ate all the cream, so now its our turn", or, "the white civil servants ruled over the brown masses for their benefit, so now its our turn", or, "the other party did it while in power so now its our turn", and, "the other caste did it while their Chief Minister was in power, so now its our turn". </span>
For those politicians moulded during this latter period of moral decline, democracy is now an instrument to be worked only for personal power and monetary advantage. The common people of India proved they were ready for democracy and work to sustain it. Most present-day politicians must re-learn that the idea of India is power for these people, and not just for themselves.
<i>-- The writer is former president of the Samata Party, who works for the uplift of handicrafts makers</i>
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