Indian Politics Today

Today the Indian political culture has touched a new low and the struggle for power has assumed an ugly aspect. As a result, there are daily splits, new alignments and misalliances, and turnabouts. It is an occasion that we must now think for close scrutiny of the dialectic of desertions and darkness that makes nonsense of not only the electoral code and ethics but also of the spirit of our constitution. Undoubtedly, politics involves worsening of the human sensibility and moral erosion cannot be avoided except in those rare cases where visionary leadership helps slow down the process of prosperity and integrity of the country. It is the black consciousness which creates the nexus between power and evil. In the recent years, phenomenal growth of black money is seen which the result of the death consciousness is.

Most political parties, despite their track record of corruption and skullduggery, manage to deviate into a show of authenticity with rhetoric and a suitable agenda to extract the best out of the particular occasion. Under such an atmosphere, the innocent people before they go 10 votes are offered a feast of half-truths and equivocal dreams as also a whole plate of platitudes and rationalizations. Of course, the darkness and the plague spots are kept hidden so as to be out of the public vision, The elders of any party have gone on to coin fancy phrases to justify all those evil practices and policies which the other party in power had converted into an electoral art.

There is a new political turn to the play of politics with the requirements of the times. A perverse kind of transparency in the politics of manipulation, double deals, wild ambitions, and treachery has emerged. Those who are bent upon capturing power at the center would not stop at anything and moreover, would drop all the fig-leaves of the earlier postures and pretenses. This can be described as the politics of utter shamelessness. It would promote political profligacy and promiscuity. As of date, one party has lost its dynamics, and even its primal impulse, and the Indian scene now demands a culture of the coalition. As such, the scramble for numbers in a hung Parliament is generating political promiscuity where the lust for power will drive scores of members of parliament into new liaisons again and again. Under such circumstances, strong rules under the constitution are needed to stop coalition governments from turning into a circus of political dissolutions. In fact, it is a matter for the political pundits to ponder upon. If time and again such scenarios emerge and precipitate a similar crisis, then the only way out is a change in the constitution towards establishing a strong but accountable presidency

Moral principles and parliamentary codes are a luxury for the political parties these days and they can forego all this in the face of hard realities. They are proclaiming the faith in pragmatism which is a philosophy to bypass the question of ends and means and concentrate on the practical side of things. But the expression in relation to politics has acquired a certain kind of acceptability. Real deals are needed and not the theories of dreams to run the present governments. If the chaos that is cooking now and threatens to overwhelm our policy is to be avoided, the low type of pragmatism has to be countered well in time. And intelligentia (serious about the matter) have to see that they do not follow the easy-going route to power but honor their own known credentials. They should get into the strenuous mood and face the ordeals of laboring spirit.

Now is the time of crying need of honest polarisation. The people are divided between those who stand for nationalism and those who advocate regionalism, between those who propagate casteism and those who don’t, between those who want to change India into a strong Nuclear force and those who want to kowtow to the West. Also, the people seem to be divided between those who want economic emancipation for the masses and those who wish economy for the MNC. Instead of polarisation on these extremely vital issues, there is a single issue, how to grab power. The politicians and parties have brought about a fraudulent philosophy. Aided by a class of pen pushers and professional theorists, this is unfolding of a great new era, an era of coalitions in which ideologists and one-party governments have no place. It is also called true federalism where regional parties, even one-man outfits, must rule over one thousand million people.

It is true that in the end, the Indian culture and heritage would prevail over every type of circumstances, in case accountable presidencies come to be established in our country. It may not be forgotten how the Gandhi dynasty has been shown the door twice in a most crushing manner. But the cost meanwhile could be very high in terms of an interregnum of regressions, retreats, and repression on a massive scale. Though corporate consciousness asserts its power in the end and it seldom creates a state of vigilant opinion on its own. And that is precisely where the nation’s intelligentsia, academicians, writers, and the media persons come in to play their respective roles. They have to create the nation’s new consciousness. The inherent energies of the people and their instinctive longing for justice and equality would do the rest.