Democracy
the spine of India is tested for its flexibility once in five years by way of
elections. Our present scenario rather sends a known yet questionable shock to
the larger population of our country. The essence of elections is to be change
agent or moreover to blunt the power being focussed to single minded
individuals or organisations. The manifestos towards election by various
parties which was meant to be road map on how the livelihood of general
population would be uplifted has turned to be maps of appeasement targeted
towards specific vote banks. The elections are to be conducted free and fair,
considering the security of voters and without any influence of foreign powers
on the government. The capability of the civil servants to implement electoral
policies plays a vital role in rejuvenating the incumbent parliament or a new
one that would be voted to power. While everyone’s opinion is ‘What went
wrong?’’, the right way to phrase would be ‘What can be set right?’.
The
biggest malady the country faces today is that the Political Parties which are
supposed to lead the country to platforms of success are in reality standing in
platforms of disaster. There is definitely a need to clarify what success to a
country means, while the present scenario suggests that jingoism prevails over
the welfare of the general population. The
success of a citizen is to find happiness of his /her identity in the country,
the identity may be of the natural self, religious group, ethnolinguistic
group, etc., While the British led the way in their colonial expeditions with
its imperial policy of ‘divide et impera’ (divide and rule), the concept has
been used by the book by various nations in the recent times like India
(Communal Tensions and Ultra-Nationalism), United States (White Supremacy),
United Kingdom (Brexit), Hungary (Anti-Semitic Political Campaign), and more recently in Israel (Crude Laws
against LGBT Community).
In India’s context democracy
provided a different perspective from the long rules of monarchy to more or
less Abraham Lincoln’s “A Government of the people, by the people and for the
people”. As times moved forward the concept of democracy has become more
distorted with a growing uncertainty on how political leaders themselves think
about the question of what constitutes the people and the social fabric at
large. While the present cream has made sure to use this muddle to their
benefit, with the aide of social media which actually confuses the already
confused voter. The decision of a voter to pick his /her candidate is more of
spontaneous choice of what stays in his / her mind. The words of rhetorical cinematic
Villains “People tend to forget” is a theorem that is proved on a daily basis.
The inner senseless rage of a common man is the fuel for these wary politicians
be it using it as wedge between monolithic communities, gaining political
mileage through the achievements of longstanding team or stooping to use the
nations armed forces as placards. The egoistic and narcissistic ambitions of a
group single minded opportunists is pressed upon the general public. The general
public act as flag-bearers even though one knows that everyone near you is an
unsuspecting flag-bearer (pun intended). The advent of social media has eased
the common man to be free to voice opinions, the major setback being that these
opinions can be influenced faster than thoughts. While these tactics are used
to good effect to profit from negative campaigning and yellow media. They best
possible solution is to take experimental step on Ranked Ballot System (Instant
run-off voting) rather than conventional system. This would induce healthy
competition of good governance among the Political Parties.
Until
then the best choice the one who is of lesser evil a candidate not the party,
the simple fact is that these politicians are exaggerated representation of our
own virtues and vices.
