I Have A Dream For My Country

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.