An essay on Indian politics, and an innocent dream of an educated woman

"To most men, power is such a thing

seems a worthy end, just the pursuit of it

Power is a trip.. just ask anyone who's rich

But, tighter is your grip, if you don't appear to scratch the (power) itch"

I am acutely reminded of a pinching absence of leadership these days. We sure have

a plethora of world leaders gracing powerful posts - charismatic, ambitious and
even aggressive. But, can any of them think beyond themselves? Could they possibly
be concerned beyond how to secure their positions of power, to extend their reign
for just another term, to foist their most malleable cronies as able leaders upon
unsuspecting junta, and once in power which natural resource rich nations to
strategically aggress upon so as to arrogate more power to themselves? I suspect
not.

We have all seen to what a helpless state the whole world was reduced to, when
those in extreme positions of power seemed to take even more extreme positions on
some inviolable principles such as human rights, world peace, and sovereignty of
nations. It was a kind of learned helplessness that the world felt. Except for
some protests by well-behaved and peace loving civilians who were too tame to make
an impact in a terrorised world, and for some civilised nations that had courage
enough to vocally espouse civil liberties over aligning themselves with the most
powerful nation, nothing much was done. Many conscientious nations fell to the
abilene paradox for fear of offending the leader of the pack. It's like the
elephant that got used to being tied by iron chains all its life and forgot its
strength when suddenly it found itself tethered to a meagre rope which would have
been shred to pieces by a mere tug, if only the elephant had remembered its
strength. We forgot that our voices could be raised. And, perhaps raising a
dissenting voice could have changed the world order a little.

We seem to have sacrificed our thinking prowess to the feel good prosperity of the
globalising world, as we belonged to the fortunate slice whose concerns revolved
around maximising our quality of life - and not to the slice who were fighting,
right under our noses, for basic rights like freedom - from fear of life, abject
poverty and aggression. And those of us who were inconvenienced about these goings
on took on the aforementioned 'elephanticitis' and thought our scope of
citizenship did not extend beyond our own individual lives.

Where are the leaders who sacrificed their lives, their youth and their ambitions
for the sake of their ideologies? Where are the ideologies? Where are the leaders
who risked being unpopular and stood for what they believed in?

Certainly there are ideologies aplenty. Especially in my country with any number
of political parties and a different ideology to suit each party. Before i am
accused of any hypocrisy, let me confess with some embarrassment that i hail from
a political background and am guilty of witnessing the greed, lust for power and
its other trappings from close quarters. With all my avowed aversion to politics,
I have indeed had my rites of passage into the corridors of power; grown men
grovelling before the power brokers for tickets before elections, for votes after
the tickets, and selling their souls for unworthy objects of pursuit after winning
the votes.

Coming now to the specifics of my country, we are a people who revel in our
leaders. We are in love with being in love with our leaders, or rather public
figures. We are especially fond of our celluloid heroes. We have a special gift
for projection. Let me explain. If the celluloid heroes happen to have enacted
some mythical roles, we are absolutely at ease attributing those mythical heroic
qualities on reel to their real life characters as well. This is very true for
atleast South India, without exaggerating (covering the states of Andhra Pradesh,
Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Kerala which to a statistical ignoramus like me amounts to
around one fifth of the indian electorate) That explains our predilection for
choosing people with theatrical abilities for public offices.

When Brad Pitt was asked once by a reporter what he thought China should do about
Tibet, he replied 'What does anyone care what i think China should do about Tibet?
I am just a f&** actor, a grown man who wears make-up'. I liked that. Atleast he
was a grown man with no presumptions of grandeur that come with being a star!
Grandeur so commonplace for his counterparts from India!

Now pose the same question to our Indian stars, excuse me, the stars from the
south. For context, we have had atleast 5-6 Chief Ministers of south indian states
and many new super stars springing up all the time, particularly at the twilight
of their movie careers when nothing more is left to be milked of public
imagination for their roles - college going, prancing around trees and romancing
teen heroines their grand daughters age. They are sure to have an answer to the
China question or any question for that matter, and there will be armies of fans
ready to immolate themselves at the significance of the star's reply or lack
thereof! I grant you ,however, that their answers may not be as stupid as those of
Sarah Palin's!

In the north, my countrymen are admittedly not as enamoured by super-stardom as

with family names and dynastic legacies, when it comes to politics. My point is -
there is no problem per se with any of our queer preferences, except that such
public figures/ heroes do not have any real vision, desire to improve people's
lives or aspiration for leadership, but just hunger for more public adoration and
cult status. Yes, we are not really ignorant and we are aware of our power, power
to elect our leaders. We do get tired of such 'all charisma and leadership in
trauma' leaders after voting them to power, and do promptly replace them at the
next election. But, the substitute is just an exact replica in terms of leadership
abilities though he may look and feel different to the untrained eye...

The problem comes with the lack of real choice presented to the Indian public.
Here comes an idea, though it took a lot of courage to even propose. We need to
take ownership of our democracy just like the Americans did in atleast actively
expressing their electoral preference in the recent Presidential election. India
needs a third alternative besides the two ruling parties which have been tossing
the baby of gullible indian public between them. The third party should constitute
only educated thinkers who can run the country like a turnaround management. The
solution might sound silly to you, but tell me how many able politicians like
Manmohan Singh have you seen who also have the boldness to embrace the murky
waters of politics or the spine to stand by their ideologies and convictions, and
not take the beaten path of millions of non-descript indians like us out to just
eke out a living?

Wasn't an Indira who would unswervingly take decisions and stand by the
consequences of her actions better than these eternally insecure and petty lot of
rabble-rousers who might delight in the next terror attack so they can get some
publicity. Who would tell these imbeciles that taking advantage of one opportunity
to do something of real value to the public is better in the long run than vying
for the public attention and imagination, and offering no leadership at all?

After all, yeh public hai yeh sab jaanti hai yeh public hai. (Afterall, the hoi
polloi knows it all.)
The educated thinkers and the next lot of able leaders should see the world of
politics as separate from a shameless means of self-aggrandisement and take it
upon themselves that it is we who can change the world rather than spend our lives
analysing the unfathomable, wallowing in helplessness, and suffering as passive
audience of the tragedy unfolding before us..

Politics was also a noble profession once, when noble minded men were at its helm.