Results and Beyond
On 7th August, 1883 when Indian National Congress was 8 years old, Shri Aurobindo has said, “We cannot afford to raise any institution to the rank of a fetish. To do so would be simply to become the slaves of our own machinery.”
Now, when the congress is 124 years old I would repeat the same. There’s a reason why I recalled this famous saying of Shri Aurobindo. I was watching the election outcomes on Saturday when I heard the 5th generation of Nehru-Gandhi, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, talking to reporters. He was praising the efforts of Advani. He was saying, at 80+ years of age Advani fought with great determination. He also said, “Great Job Done Mr. Advani”. A person, who has served this country for more than 60 years, is getting a pat on his back, from a 5 years old politician, just because he belongs to a particular family, a particular institution. That’s the irony of Indian politics. We must ask ourselves, are we matured enough for a democratic system like this?
This result opens up many dimensions which we must analyze. The first point, which I have already raised, is much bigger than our normal assumption. Why we always go back to a particular family? Can’t we produce a good leader amongst more than 10 billions of our population? Do we still have the slave mentality?
The second point is talking about Indian vision. We all agree to the fact that as a country India has its own set of problems and to solve them we need our own solutions. We have a different culture, different tradition, and different demography and we need a different strategy to tackle them. We can’t run our country on the same model US, UK or any other country is following. We need a political system which addresses an “India-centric-vision”. When our people will understand “who we are”? When we will realize that there’s more to think than few emotional issues? When we would start talking rationally?
Next item to be discussed is what kind of politics we want in our country? I can see more than 100 secular parties which ask for vote because they are secular. It looks strange to me. When that is the only criteria to ask vote then why we need 100+ parties. We can have just one secular party? If there’s any other difference, let’s talk about them? Indian politics is revolving around this secular and communal philosophy which looks absurd to me. We need parties with vision and not parties with religion. Let’s talk about issues like connecting cities, connecting rivers and connecting people. I get few arguments, if we have issues why don’t we talk on them. Yes, I agree we have issues but there’s no need to politicize them. There are other platforms to tackle those issues.
There are few good outcomes also from this election. Declination of caste politics from north India, especially from UP and Bihar, is one of them. The defeat of almost all “bahubalis” is a great thing for Indian politics. Though there are few wrong traditions also popping up, like, emergence of MNS. Mumbai went through a bad phase last year. People came forward and chanted the national anthem in one voice but few of them voted for a hard-core regional force. We made some good progress in this election but there’s a long way to go. I hope we’ll have more awareness towards this. I hope we’ll get better maturity from voters in coming future. I hope we would realize our real issues and our real leaders.
Nice insight. Keep up the good work.
Rahul commenting on Advani..he is not even qualified to do that..unfortunately there is a huge number of people who would lick Rahul’s a** just because he is a Gandhi..I sometimes wonder whether Indians deserve to self rule at all.
Sagar,
That’s really an interesting question.. “do we really deserve to have self rule ?”
I guess all Indians should look for an answer to this. It is important not only in this context but it’s important to decide the fate of our country.
Cheers,
Ambuj
Nice post Nitesh. Loved that. I liked the way VajpayeeJi started a series of projects to improve India. It’s a big country, nothing can be finished overnight. But didn’t get into the minds of common Indian.
Also, Indian people liked the magic Congress did increasing the salary of a large amount of Central Govt. Employee. The State Governments had to follow the same wrong measure on their behalf.
Result? Life has become more measurable and unbearable for middle class people like me. Indian people love magic. Let the magicians rule our country. I guess, Magician PC Sorkar(Jr.) could have been the best candidate.
I think the first thing we need to fix is our identity. We think of ourselves as being Punjabi or Kannadiga or Malayalee or Tamilian… less often do we say Indian. We need to somehow create a strong national unity, with which will come an unbreakable identity.
And as far as political dynasties, it’s a very ‘Indian’ thing to do. We expect a good actor’s son to a good actor, we ask about family history when we’re fixing marriages (case in point: a family friend’s mother rejected a prospective groom because his cousin sister was divorced. Say what?). I’m not defending it and I don’t like it at all. But, it’s part of a deeper problem that is embedded in our culture.
I think the first thing we need to fix is our identity. We think of ourselves as being Punjabi or Kannadiga or Malayalee or Tamilian… less often do we say Indian. We need to somehow create a strong national unity, with which will come an unbreakable identity.
And as far as political dynasties, it’s a very ‘Indian’ thing to do. We expect a good actor’s son to a good actor, we ask about family history when we’re fixing marriages (case in point: a family friend’s mother rejected a prospective groom because his cousin sister was divorced. Say what?). I’m not defending it and I don’t like it at all. But, it’s part of a deeper problem that is embedded in our culture.
Nice post Nitesh. Loved that. I liked the way VajpayeeJi started a series of projects to improve India. It’s a big country, nothing can be finished overnight. But didn’t get into the minds of common Indian.
Also, Indian people liked the magic Congress did increasing the salary of a large amount of Central Govt. Employee. The State Governments had to follow the same wrong measure on their behalf.
Result? Life has become more measurable and unbearable for middle class people like me. Indian people love magic. Let the magicians rule our country. I guess, Magician PC Sorkar(Jr.) could have been the best candidate.
I think the first thing we need to fix is our identity. We think of ourselves as being Punjabi or Kannadiga or Malayalee or Tamilian… less often do we say Indian. We need to somehow create a strong national unity, with which will come an unbreakable identity.
And as far as political dynasties, it’s a very ‘Indian’ thing to do. We expect a good actor’s son to a good actor, we ask about family history when we’re fixing marriages (case in point: a family friend’s mother rejected a prospective groom because his cousin sister was divorced. Say what?). I’m not defending it and I don’t like it at all. But, it’s part of a deeper problem that is embedded in our culture.