Shaming the Shameless

  

 

Roughly 800 million people, more than the populations of the US, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia and Bangladesh combined will be eligible to vote, making the upcoming election the largest since Independence in 1947.Fervent hope of every common man/woman is to elect representatives who have the fundamental virtues that are essential for a statesmen: integrity, courage, perspicacity, vision, empathy etc. Regrettably all political parties, especially the major ones, playing assiduously by the rules of realpolitik, throw up candidates whose antecedents are far from desired, yet they get elected.

 These stalwarts are that special breed of turncoats, the Aya Rams Gaya Rams, whose singular aim is to stay in power or close to the seat of power, whatever the cost. They bloom during the election season and have no compunctions in party hopping, like honeybees in a garden, for the political nectar. The end result is that more than 35% MPs in the current Lok Sabha were tainted with charges ranging from murder to rape, theft, misappropriation of public money etc. They turned our Parliament into a “nest of crooks”, where lies are considered truth and truth is considered seditious.

 

 Given the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of such leaders, the craft of governing well has been forsaken and disrespected and replaced by scams, indecision and unethical compromises. No one can deny the truism that the political standards have been falling over the years. But the yawning holes which the decline has opened up indicate the dearth of their cerebral and ethical caliber.

The country has for years been ruled by this small clique of pettifogging, wire pulling, self centered and opportunistic political elite, who have yet not developed in the people a sense of true citizenship in which national identity trumps any other allegiances to religious, ethnic, or tribal identities nor they have succeeded in tackling the underlying political, economic, and social challenges the country faces.

Now that the ever growing deficiencies of our political elite are out in the open, one wonders whether the popular elections, which we are so proud of, an adequate criterion to judge our country’s commitment to democracy. What is the way out for a country of 1.3 billion people from the machinations of the likes of Jaswant Singhs, Jagdambika Pal and Sabir Alis et al who having been denied ticket by the parent party (whose virtues, ethos, policies and programmes they eulogized 24/7) suddenly become unbearable and abhorrent to them. Wonder what their patriotic values are and the small price they will extract to sell their country to the enemy? Should they ever get into the Parliament is what every Indian needs to introspect.