Politics is a social science and
in a country like India ,
the science of politics affects the social weaving in a major way – negative as
well as positive.
Unfortunately, in India ,
the political scenario has been mostly negative with its ill-effects of
corruption, apathy and elitism.
Family rule, nepotism, dynasties
and unbroken chain of tenures have created fiefdoms of politicians, that slowly
and gradually, in collusion with the spirit of the ‘political camaraderie*’ (as
eulogized by a senior politician), have coalesced to form a parallel kingdom of
many ‘princely’ states with politicians and their families ruling with ever-spreading
tentacles.
The Kings, the Princes, the Princelings,
and the Acolytes, and their Hegemony – and their Rule!
For an India of an indomitable democratic
spirit, it has to broken, it has to be revered, to get aligned with the
textbook functionality of politics (or the academically defined
responsibilities of political science.)
Wikipedia has this to say on
politics (in company with its different halos) – “Modern political discourse
focuses on democracy and the relationship between people and politics. It is
thought of as the way we ‘choose government officials and make decisions about
public policy’.”
There are discourses, debates and
definitions on ‘politics and political science’ but the crux has to be this. In
India
‘this relationship between people and politics’ has been highly skewed in
favour of the politicians.
Time has come to change that.
2011 revived a long forgotten spirit of the gravity of the peoples’ power with
the anti-corruption movement of 2011. 2013 saw a step ahead in that direction
giving power to an ‘apolitical political party’, just one-year old, with almost
of the members having apolitical background. None of the ministers in the Delhi
Cabinet have had previous political experience.
Yes, experiments these are; no
need to certify them as of now; but can certainly be lauded. It is good to see
that Indian democracy is now experimenting again, after a long time, keeping in
centre the concerns of the common man, the voter, the person-next-door, a
person like you and me.
That is the need of the day. That
has to be the war-cry demand of the times we are living in, in a Republic that
is also the world’s largest democracy.
The terms ‘politics of change’, ‘politics
of values’ and ‘politics of ethics’ need to take the centre-stage of the
political discourse in the country.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
*Never attack family: Digvijaya
Singh's lesson on political ethics to Arvind Kejriwal
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/never-attack-family-digvijaya-singh-s-lesson-on-political-ethics-to-arvind-kejriwal-280101
