November 14, 2010

Will “propriety and integrity” prevail in Indian politics ever?

Out of curiosity, I googled ‘definition of politics’ and as defined on Wikipedia, Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. It consists of "social relations involving authority or power" and refers to the regulation of a political unit, and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy. Going by this, the politicians must be the people who make these decisions, regulate the political unit and who tactfully and methodically formulate policy.

How the decisions impact the political unit and how the policy is laid down is a subject matter of “propriety and integrity”, supposedly. I am convinced beyond any doubt that that is how the civil governments should be run to uplift the mass to a new level of advancement and prosperity. All the readers of this blog will be convinced about this fact too and many of those who do not read this blog except our own politicians would be convinced too. Over the past two decades, the greatest worm of our politics has been corruption which is not the subject matter of the post at hand. I would like to keep myself to two words only – “Propriety and Integrity”.

The intent of politics has perhaps not gone down very well with as many as 90% (just a rough approximation, could be more) of our politicians. CWG games becomes a hit and here comes a bunch of people in Dhoti-Kurta claiming for its success. Tata wants to set up a factory in Bengal and here comes a 'lady draped in a saree with blue borders' claiming to be the sole protector of rights of 'Aam-Janta'. 26/11 happens and here comes Mr. L K Advani (Leader of Opposition) to the site on that very tragic night blaming government for failure of everything that could have gone wrong. People from Bihar and UP migrate to Mumbai for work and here come a self proclaimed universal protector of 'Marathi Maanus' and his troops beating them up. Obama visits India and statements from the opposition party says why did not he mention the P-word in his opening speech at the Taj. The list will go on and on.

I fail to understand the intent of the acting party in each of the above and many more cases. Where are the “propriety and integrity” elements? Will ever our politicians understand what the 'Aam-Janta' needs and what their cause of concerns are? Can they please take a clue of administration from Narendra Modi-sans-hindutva, Sheila Dixit and Nitish Kumar (yet to be proven, but by many counts he has handled Bihar very well). This will clearly tell what we need as general citizen of this beautiful country. I sincerely hope that we get to see "propriety and integrity" in daily affairs of politics some day.

3 comments:

KC said...

Great post, but honestly there is nothing like patriotism in Indians anymore. All people who had a true love for our-country died long time back after giving us independence. As we stand today, we all have our personal agendas and egos to satisfy. Don't know why, but Indians are programmed to find faults (everyone is a born-auditor) in everything we witness. No one appreciates what is good. Especially, politicians are like androids who do not have softwares called Honesty, Integrity, Propriety and love for our-country. And they are managing the show, sad but true. :(

Ramesh said...

Our politics has largely descended to noisy theatre with issues and good governance almost irrelevant. But then the fault is ours - as voters we elect noise makers ; not guys who quietly govern well. Sometimes a little less democracy is helpful !

Vishal said...

@ Kapil - your words are still echoing in my ears. That is exactly what I am closely observing for past few months, "Indians are programmed to find faults (everyone is a born-auditor) in everything we witness. No one appreciates what is good."

It is really disheartening to see only personal agenda and ego ruling the daily affairs. We can at least be good citizens of a great country and good human being if nothing more.

Ramesh - I just love this perspective of yours. I wonder if we can ever deviate from current scheme of vote bank theory. It is really great to witness voters getting mature in few states. I am not sure if that will have a rubbing effect to other states too.