By Gregory Shullai
If what I write in this article is obscure to any politician, and raises the blood pressure a bit, I do not think that it is necessarily I who is to blame. This often happens when politicians read what writers write about them. It will be clear enough that the facts which I rely upon are the demonstrations we observe on Facebook, demonstrations that reflect the hope of the people of India, the only prerequisite being that the reader is seeing the same demonstrations that I am seeing and deducing from them the same conclusions that I am regarding what is prevailing in the country, and furthermore that he/she is aware that in the run up to the 2028 Parliamentary Elections, or even before that, there must exist a tabula rasa – a clean sheet in the way in which the elections will be conducted because today everyone believes the system represents a contradiction that has destroyed every sinew of whatever Indian political morality was built up since independence and no one fears anymore what the State might do against those that defy the immorality that has engulfed Indian democracy. There can be no doubt that there is something speaking to the people of India urging them to “do something” and they likewise obey a strict law which is set above them, within them – the last cry of a morality which is audible to them and for which they must live because we are a nation of conscientious men and women. To put the matter into plain words we do not wish to follow the path that will lead people to look upon us as decayed, disgusting and unworthy of belief, because that is what the people believe is what people everywhere consider us to be at present. The loss of this worthiness is something that diminishes us as individuals and as a nation, and we do not want to ask which political party is needed to rescue the nation because at this rate there will be nothing left to rescue. If the people themselves regard themselves as worthy of what democracy represents, then, regardless of whether we deem ourselves as saffron, white or green, our belief that we are still honourable should not permit us to be led into lying and cheating and defying our old ideals. The time for the present leadership has ended – it has embarrassed us – we are embarrassed at what others think of us.
This time we feel that we have been bitten by the political and moral tarantula to say the least. The ruling party has taken everything for granted. Everything that matters in a democracy has been lost sight of by the whole of the political system in the country – the end quite as much as the means to that end. The leaders have forgotten that in a political system that is democratic the process of strengthening the democratic institutions is that end – not the Party – they have forgotten that the politician is required for this end alone, and not for the businessman or the supporters of the Party. The Party is yet to realize that politicians are needed who themselves are educated in politics, superior and outstanding thinkers who can prove that they are statesmen – ripe and mellow products of a political culture at every moment of their lives in word and in gesture – not the big chested, fat bellied, bald headed louts who know nothing more than how to manipulate and debase an election, the kind that are now thrust upon us, thrust upon the youth of the land by an election system that is totally manipulated by the ruling party. With rare exceptions, what is lacking in India is the first prerequisite in politics – that is to say “the politician,” hence the decline of Indian politics. There may have been some of the rarest exceptions in the past and there may also be some in the present and it is to them that we are indebted for the development that we see up to this point in time.
What is really happening in India is that people who are essentially religious bigots are using religion as their launching pad into politics and becoming politicians. Unscrupulous men and women who have been able to stir up a religious hatred of any group that is not a part of the dominant religious group of the country and in this way in the smallest period of time they have a host of followers who become their useful and exploitable servants. We grew up studying that India is a living example of unity in diversity. We pride ourselves as a country of many cultures…a diaspora, a mosaic of different cultures and faiths. Sadly, all this is disintegrating.
Leadership in a democracy is essentially the prerogative of the superior individuals and that being so, it should concern only the exceptional. A person must be privileged in order to have the right to lead the country. All great and exceptional things cannot be a common possession. What is it that has brought about the decline of India as a nation globally? – the fact that politics is not a special privilege, the fact that the process by which we allow anyone to become a leader is faulty and “amounts to the worship of mediocrity and the hatred of excellence.” The fact that we invite scoundrels instead of the intelligentsia. It must not be forgotten that becoming a politician is a privilege – an exceptional privilege for the few, and by allowing every “Tom Dick and Harry” to become a politician we have brought about the total downfall of what Indian democracy stood for. If we base our judgement on what is happening now, we have a very strange situation though not a situation that we are unfamiliar with. What’s happening in Indian politics is something that has happened before in that the ruling party is being brought down by a people’s movement…but this time a movement that has no political ambitions to say the least. As to where this will lead is anyone’s guess but judging from what has happened in Nepal; if the same happens here, it is the best thing that has happened to India since independence.
What is coming can no longer come differently because the people are educated more than enough to understand that they have to bring in a change. The future of India is showing itself in the youth that are out there in Jantar Mantar relentlessly battling nature and the administration tooth and nail. People understand one thing and that is that the country is moving towards a catastrophic situation in which everything democratic is being given a deathblow year after tortuous year, restlessly, violently, headlong like a wind that knows no boundaries, that knows no home no country. Those who reflect on what is happening attribute it to one cause alone…the lack of basic education in the leaders – not the Party. The people know only one thing and that is that they cannot trust any political Party anymore because the people leading these Parties lack basic education. Anyone who speaks on what we are going through at the moment – nay on what we’ve been going through in the last five to ten years, will have only one thing to say and that is that the death of everything democratic – religion, justice, freedom, equality, etc. are all being gradually dismantled by a government that had no other goal than to confine power in the hands of a few – only two one might add.
What has emerged from this is that it has trapped our political parties and leaders in more than just a contradiction – a contradiction in the sense that the country does not seem to be headed in any fruitful direction because all that our politicians want is power and power spells “MONEY” – not freedom of the democratic institutions. It may be true that contradictions are what have dominated Indian politics because for every change that has taken place a contradiction dominated the reason…the Congress was decimated in 2014 because of a contradiction on a policy paralysis, and this time the ruling party is coming under a perfect political storm because of a contradictory religious agenda and the belief that the Party is being run by an organization from behind the screen – a self-contradiction! The majority see no logic in what is going on – only pessimism.
The movement that is taking place in India has been long in waiting; waiting to find expression regarding the basic principles of democracy; and with this expression comes the need for a task that must be accomplished in the immediate future – bring out a new set of principles upon which the country will move forward in the years ahead. Bring out the minimum requirements that are required of anybody desiring to contest an election – raise their standards to the level that the Indian diaspora has risen to. The old form of democracy that we have experienced must be brought to an end because only then will something new come out; ask yourself the question, why has the end of Indian democracy become necessary? because the values our political leaders have at the present have turned out to be detrimental to the future of the people and we the people have come to realize that we must experience a total destruction of that which was so that something which is good can find root in this country once again.
But after all, why must we proclaim so loudly and with such intensity what it is that we want and what it is that we do not want? We have been patient, and patience is a venerable quality which extracts from its followers one thing above anything else; it demands that one must act only after understanding what one serves – slowly, profoundly, attentively, prudently, with inner thoughts, with the mental doors ajar. The people have shown their patience and the movement that is taking place appeals to anyone who uses common sense to read into the why and wherefore. There are other signs; everyone’s ears are primed to listen to the slightest news that anyone has to say on politics – and especially if it echoes anything to do with a BJP leader – even here in Shillong.
