On Joining Electoral Politics in India:Part One

There was no time better to be born in India then now-The same statement was made by Mr.k.v.kamath(CEO and MD,ICICI Bank Ltd),sometime a year and a half ago, in one of his many free wheeling interviews to one of the senior journalist of a leading business channel. The statement I believe was made in business and economic parlance, and at least for that time it was correct in that sense. Now, in the political as well as nation building context, no time is good or bad and hopefully all of us sane people of this country contribute our bit in this direction and are making India a comparatively better place in the world. For, as per the tenets of the constitution and the sovereign, democratic set up of the polity that we have, anyone above the stipulated age can fight election for occupying the public office and try serve the people of his constituency in particular and nation at large.

Now, as per my understanding of the competitive electoral politics of this country there is no basic qualification criteria for running in the elections, either for state assembly or parliament. As a result, a huge group of unworthy candidates have been entering the fray and winning elections since the past at least ten general elections and state assembly elections. This makes a person like me all the more agitated, as I have seen and experienced very closely what difference does it make when the political constituents adhere to transparency, fairness, commitment and high level of probity in public life. My own grand father was a very active participant in the freedom struggle of the country and represented many important set-ups pre independence in course of achieving “purna swarajaya”, and shared the lofty vision and dreams, for equality in the society and all round development.

The ideas and strategy meted out by all the top leaders of the day, and the tenacity and dedication with which the political representatives tried to execute the same under their respective state incumbents was noteworthy and a matter of huge pride and satisfaction. Shri. Jiwatsha Sharma Himansu (My grand father)was among the very few MLA in the first Bihar legislative assembly (1952-57),who won from their respective constituency with such a thumping majority. The constituency was kaswa and the margin with which he won his first legislative assembly election on INC ticket was 40,000 votes. He served his first tenor as MLA, and relinquished active politics in early 1960’s.Himansuji,as party workers,voters and colleagues affectionately and reverentially called him, was a doer, and a core nationalist. He was not an opportunist one and never treated electoral politics as a mean to earn livelihood. He worked and devoted himself to the services of the nation and died, in oblivion (although he lived his full life and died at ripe age of 97 years),though the congress party could have treated him well and he never deserved to be ignored, in event of war of egos, and that was the prime reasons, why the then chief minister Shri.Krishna Babu denied him ticket for the consecutive second term, even if, the observer Morar ji Bhai sent by the then prime minister Nehru ji wanted to give Himansuji a second term. The decision for not allowing Himansuji to contest was taken, after constant insistence on the behest of Shri Krishan Singh and couple of his colleagues in the ministry. Even after this ,Morar ji Bhai was of the strong view, and communicated to Himansu ji that he should contest elections, but being a man of wisdom, fairness and an adherent of highest level of integrity and probity in public life as many of the other leaders of that time, he on the basis that as he has lost the confidence of his leader (that was Shri Krishna Singh),politely declined Moraji Bahia’s request and slipped into political oblivion.

It’s been almost nine years that he passed away; as i am growing older I am finding myself better placed to understand him. His work for the nation and the society, his imagination, his inquisitive nature, his infectious energy level, his outspoken nature, his literature and lots of other attributes and traits he possessed. It is bewildering and painful too, what I see in the ongoing political class, and in comparison to that,what our leader in the initial years of independence and pre-independence conceptualized and envisioned, in terms of the policy, practices, ideas and inclusive growth for the nation at large.

The ethics and value system that is the most basic attribute is conspicuously missing from the life and activity of nation at large and political participants, who is a part of it…....

General Election Threadwire - 2009.

The first phase of polls for the fifteenth General elections was concluded yesterday amid violence by naxal outfits across all the states that went to polls.Majorly the states of Orrisa,Bihar,Maharastra,Jharkhand,Uttar Pradesh,Andhra Pradesh went to polls for 124 parliamentary seats and the over all voter turnout was been impressive.Amid threat of extreme violence in the constituency of kandamal of orissa district the voter turnout has been commendable (90%)and that gives the reassurance to all of us that power of democracy is alive and kicking.The record says that there was extreme instances of violence, of a nature of genocide in this parliamentary seats against a specific community. The most interesting pattern of voting came from Bihar,wherein,people supposedly for the very first time have voted for Development.The interaction with the locals revels very distinctly and in clear terms that the impetus on development,that the Nitish Kumar government have shown,and the efforts taken that is visible in various part of the state,is the major resone for change in mindset of the voters.It won't be surprising if the entire state and the adjoining state of jharkhand(in anticipation)is swept by the NDA alliance.The mandate in the state of Bihar will no doubt will be for development and caste and other regional consideration will surely be on the back seat.In this election the impact and numbers of the, oft quoted ''Bahubali''candidates and their win- ability is minimum and the selection of candidate by at least the NDA combine is reasonably good,if not exemplary.

If one analyse and observe the pattern of polling in the recently concluded assembly elections in the state of Madhaya Pradesh,New Delhi,Rajasthan,Assam and Chatisgarh,one can see that the voter has started emphasing on issue based voting,and the same was lacking till recently.The issue under consideration is mainly local area development.The same ranges from good roads,to primary school, to agricultural inputs, to benefits form state as well as center run development and social upliftment programmes. This is for what democracy stands for and can work.Until recently in most of the states the voting pattern was caste and religion based that had little to do with other realistic issues of local and national importance.Still the largest state of the nation have not found the right reasons to vote or rather not aware to do so and it's ironical, for the state which sends the maximum numbers of Members of Parliament.We do find a lack of strong leadership with fresh bent of mind across parties in the state Utter Pradesh which is all the more ironical as it has sent the maximum number of Prime Ministers for maximum times in the last 60 years of independent India.

Most of the political analysts that includes some prominent political leaders across party lines are coming to terms that the voting pattern can not be impacted upon only through social engineering and cast calculations.Add to it at the time of elections efforts to win over a specific (read Muslims-20% of the total population)community to vote for them.It has been sixty long years since we got free,as a nation, to run it with the help of our representatives,but unfortunately the lack of clarity in policy initiatives and faulty execution, by the successive INC government compelled the nation to still be in the poor and developing country category.

I believe that we as a nation got the basics wrong,and the staggered development that we have seen in the last 60 years is unimpressive and not for the entire citizenry that ,of course, includes the 600 villages of this country where resides the 65% of the human mass. The two basic things that was needed in the initial 20 years,post independence were rationalisation in the human population parameters and proliferation of a chain of micro and small scale industries across the country.Contrary to that the population multiplied with remarkable ease and the incumbents were busy adopting and implementing the erstwhile USSR Model of industrial development,that was entirely not in line with the requirements of a newly born free nation that was very poor.But then.it happened,and that resulted in major gap between the haves and have nots,with unbearable and unimaginable deprivation in the hinterland.

The fruit of employment, of public money, is not seen in the hands of majority of Indians and still the story continues in most of the states of course,in less severity. Now the simple question in front of a young nation is how to put things in place and how to rationalise the efforts of development with equitable distribution of fruits ? Is a nations with 67% of the population bellow 30 years of age,experiencing the positive transitions towards a more inclusive society ? Are we ready to take the guard ? ''Request all you readers to stirr their minds and give comments for ideas for change,as the idea of India is the ideas for change''