THEY ARE US !

I offer sincere apologies for the delay in posting the new blog. I would begin this one by answering Aruna’s query. Her question was that- why should an urban, educated person waste a day for voting when he/she doesn’t have any expectation from the government? She also mentioned that the Government elected, would work only for the poor people in the villages, so why should the urban elite be bothered.

This is the kind of question which stems from the educated class’s indifference to the system of governance. We in our comfort zone of home, office, malls and pubs often tend to negate the role that government plays in our lives. But lurking in the backdrop of our existence is the mammoth organization, the administration controlled by the government. Since we are taking about urban India today lets take an example of any city, say Bangalore. Who looks after the roads in the city? Who controls the law and order here? If there is a problem of water, sanitation, traffic jam or security… in each of these cases it is the government we have to depend upon. If metro is being constructed in Bangalore then it is done by the government.

Not only this, if we develop such an indifference towards the political society and the system of adult franchise then we do not have the right to question the administration if they fail to deliver what is expected of them. Tomorrow if there is a bomb blast in MG road we will not have the moral right to question the intelligence failure of governmental machineries like the state police or the Intelligence Bureau. We have already forfeited this right when we refused to come out and vote, thinking it doesn’t affect our lives.

The city of hydrabad was gifted with 19 flyovers by Chandrababu Naidu when he was the Chief Minister of the state. But when the election came, his core constituency, the urban voters conveniently forgot to reach the polling booth on the day of the election. The post script of that election is that the new Chief Minister does not care what happens to the IT parks in Hydrabad, as long as his rural voters are happy with him. It would be worthy to mention that, I am not justifying Naidu’s neglect of the rural Andhra Pradesh, I am just citing the example of how the indifference of the voters can affect a city.

There is another attitude that we have to face. It is the individual mentality of – it is just a case of one vote, if I don’t vote…how does it matter? But think of what happens when a million people have a similar thought… a million vote lost.

There is yet another argument- the Government doesn’t work at all and why do we vote if we have to choose between the devil and the deep sea? Well, the government in any nation is only as good or bad as the people of that place. During the recent trust votes everybody was saying the MPs are on sale, what a sad state of the society! I agree the MPs are on sale, the police is available on rent and justice can be purchased…but tell me honestly how many of us don’t have a price tag on our head? Is there anybody amongst us who refused to bribe someone and take the harder way out? We may have haggled over the amount we pay but never on why we pay the bribe. When asked we just blame it on the system. But who are the constituents of the system? Aren’t you and I are the ones who make the system. Then why is this escapist attitude of blaming others for our miseries.

When we are left with only criminals to choose from, I guess that’s not the time to retire from voting. As a matter of fact that is the time to go to the root of things and establish a cleaner choice, the choice which I wrote about in the last entry.

And this brings me to the next query. Tushar had asked how a middle class person can take time out for politics and go about the process of cadre building. How can he manage home, office and build up a party as well. It is an interesting question and I don’t know if my take is the right take, if there is anything called the right take.

I feel we need to start getting a little more institutionalized in our approach towards forming a party. We all agree that without huge amount of money we cannot run a party. We can start taking a transparent way in doing that. Emulating the US way of fund raising dinner can be a good means to get the mullah. However this process would require deeper thought and a lot streamlining.

Once the cash issue is handled, then we can have a few party full timers. They will be paid salary by the party. This is the process used in the cadre based parties like the CPI(M). They have over 7000 cadres on their payroll. I guess that is how we can get manpower. But at the helm of it we would need someone who is wholly engrossed into the process of building up the party. A face which would appeal to a lot of people say a Shiv Khera or a Rajinder Singh can help. These are the people with proven credentials of public service.
Once this structure is ready, then the normal middle class comes into play. These are the people who would form the base of the party. They will not have much of the party work to handle but they will act as publicity agents. They would influence people around them about the new party in the block and do some positive word of mouth. This can be done in the offices, homes, clubs and in parties.

If this process happens successfully then we may have a new political party of reckoning in the near future. But again we would need a few politically motivated people to take it forward. The question remains that who would they be? I don’t know if I would quit everything to join the party as a whole timer. I might …again I might not. However this should not stop us from preparing the blueprint of this new ray of hope. I sincerely invite your suggestion to take this process forward. I do not think I have been able to answer Tushar’s question with crystal clarity. Anyone with a better idea…please pitch in.