Category Archives: Politics

In all the realities, politics, economics and all the social realities!

Bihar state which had just gone to the Assembly polls preceded by one of the intense election campaigns, of course in the earlier lines of most extensive use of abusive rhetoric. Never before we saw certain desperation on the part of even national leaders who descended to some unacceptable levels of name calling! This should become unacceptable in the coming years!

It is a great pity. We have heard some time ago and in the end we can see how the Bihari voters reached their judgement. Democracy requires periodic change in power holding and this must be realised and kept in mind!

Corrupt candidates : Of course money power was there. Each one of the more affluent candidates had an average asset of Rs.1.47 crores (30% were in this class), as for the parties, BJP had 31 crorepati candidate, 91 candidates had average assets per candidate of Rs.5 crore and more, JD(U), 37 candidates, 30 candidates, had an average Rs.3.31 crores, RJD 35 crorepati candidate , RJD 35 crorepatis, Rs.4.79 crore, LJP 31 candidates out of 42 candidates, INC 17 out of 25 candidates BSP had 10 out of 19 total candidates. Some independent candidates had declared assets worth more than 1 crore!

Some candidates have declared more than 85 crore, 45 crores and 32 crores! The data is quoted from the Association for Democratic Reforms.

This side of the Bihar political story needs to be understood in proper perspective. Politics in any State, no less in Bihar is now a big money game and dynasty game and everyone is trying to figure out how the top leaders in Delhi and the state capitals can fit themselves into such a cosy inequity, unequal society and caste combinations. The ugly reality is that in the country democracy has not taken any roots, let alone deep roots.

It is all about money, power and immoral working of the society and politics and economics. Is there any semblance of social justice or economic justice as Mr.Tejaswi Yadav tried to articulate?

Let the readers, perhaps the most enlightened ones figure out this question in their own ways!

Bihar is a uniquely endowed state. As everyone knows the political parties are all using the very existing caste inequities in a cynical manner, come what might be its outcome and the major parties are the guilty one, piggy backing on the dominant local ones, the BJP on the JD(U), the Congress on the RJD, may be the attempts to the entry point in Bihar is very much similar to what is the reality in Tamil Nadu, where both the congress and the BJP find themselves in the same boat! As for Bihar at least in some ways the ground level realities are what must concern us.

In Bihar we learn that farm labour is almost 49% of the population while overall farm labour in the country is 42 per cent. So, the question of jobs for this segment is now the critical point and how this farm jobs issue will be tackled is now almost last out of the election debates, the Prime Minister’s election campaigns are full of inspiring new slogans while Tejaswi Yadav well positioning himself as a new messiah, talking all the time about the more secular political issues and his image this time has gone up over much to the change of the major national parties.

May be this is how politics is played out or how election strategies are worked out. As for agriculture issues, it is a vast subject and a magazine column is not enough to dwell on all the subject’s diversities.

The new three laws enacted by the Punjab Government is only a major obstacle. How the Opposition parties-ruled states would co-operate with the central government?

Amarinder Singh, the Punjab Chief Minister has written an article on the farm legislations. Punjab is a big State which draws heavily on the seasonal migration of Bihari farm labour! And Punjab CM must be perhaps the biggest landlord in the State! On the one side is the feudalism that symbolises farm land ownership. The Chief Minister today has introduced a farm reform regime that is both equitable and also towards equal society not an easy job at any point of time!

Why we say this is to draw attention to educated sections at least that farm reforms is not a joke and not so at election times!

So, at least rest at ease that for a short time let us confine to the three farm laws enacted by the Central government. Change must come about in a modern economy, more so in the rural economy.

At present, there will be unequal distribution of farm land and it is the basic reality. We also have to admit that farm land would be owned at any point of time in an unequal way only. There has to be big farmers so that new investments and new technologies come into the agriculture operations.

The progress has to be slow only. Nowhere in the world farm lands are owned in an equal and equitable way. In villages agricultural lands are always owned in a hierarchical manner. Rural sociology must explore in detail this phenomenon. This reality must sink in and we have to promote agriculture by keeping the history of agriculture in all countries in mind. Even today, in Europe and more so in Eastern Europe seasonal agricultural labour migration is a reality.

This is the reality of agriculture everywhere. Let us study more and evolve some realistic discussion and debate. The positive side of Bihar agriculture is not fully written about, it seems Bihar otherwise, seems to be a rich state in terms of its natural resources. Its fertile alluvial soils, abundant river resources are not much written about. The Ganges river is a mighty resource. Its tributory rivers – Sone, Gandak, Burshi Gandak/Bagmati, Kosi, Mahananda-have always made Bihar a rich state! These rivers and the abundant waters have turned the state the ideal destination for the second Green Revolution. From Green Revolution to a new Corn Revolution! Many farmers in the Kosi-Seemachal belt, Bihar today produces 50 quintals per acre which is comparable to that in the US Midwest Corn heartland.

Bihar’s corn revolution is entirely private sector. The credit goes to multinational Sed companies which introduced the cultivation of single-cross size hybrids. They, along with large trading firms and feed millers, recognised the potential of planting these during the Rabi winter-season. When mild temperatures with clear skies, absence of flooding and low pests/disease infestation were conducive for higher yields. Moreover this crop can be harvested during April-June, when there was no corn available from the rest of India or even from South America.

Bihar farmers took to this hybrid maize cultivation during the early 2000s this new corn revolution is changing the maize season. Not just corn revolution alone, there are other alternative crops too. Litchi, Makhana (fox nut, all these have been achieved without any government initiative, do you believe?

No minimum support price, nor procurement nor functional APMCs! Farmers in other states like Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh are pampered on the other hands! Bihar’s rural roads have. Improved during the last. Two decades, they say.But electricity and water may be available for homes and of course much remains to be done.

But there are some hard realities. Three phase power supply is still in short supply and farmers use much diesel for pumping the water to their farms. Of course Bihar desperately need more jobs in the rural areas. This is the Assembly elections pitch.

However there is the reality of more rural migration population, they must go back and they will Bihar’s late rural land profile is very dark. Bihar agriculture is very much subsistence farming and the poverty is very widespread.

With all tall talk during the elections no one has a sincere honest mind set to say that unless industry comes to Bihar there is no hope for more productive jobs. This is also the reality in other low-level subsistence farming states like even Bengal.

How to bring industry is a million dollar question. Mr.Nitish Kumar the senior most political leader. Didn’t utter a word on industrialisation as the future path! Nor Mr. Tajeswi Yadav.

Of course others were keen about more seats for their parties that are all almost orphans without any define programmes. Bihari migrant labour will be going out for some unimaginable time. It is neither a bad idea nor a negative feature. No class structure can survive without a labour class, working class, servants class, can it?

So, let us learn to recognise the inevitability of a new type of moderate feudalism in the rural India and the attendant her classes. In ancient Rome and Greece there were slave classes, then came other classes and social divisions.

Now, we have a new world order and a growing international migrant labour class and now a new educated migrant labour from India itself to the Western countries! We seem to be living in a new world upsurge of a large migration population. So, rural poverty will persist till we overcome our own mental prejudices.

Let us introduce all progressive reforms and create a new prosperous Bihar by introducing all the needed modernisation processes in the economic and socio-cultural spheres. States’ politics too should change, corruption and weakening of democratic institutions should be rectified in a more open and civilised politics.

From Parliament to the Panchayat Raj institutions!

Democracy has a long and hoary history. From Athens to the entire world, for over 2500 years on a tiny hillock, what today we call the ancient Agora, today a neglected part of Athens to the last corners of the world, democracy has resonated and turned mankind into a civilized society.

We have had the good fortune to walk across the remaining pieces of that spot. We were inspired by the very name and forms of government they practiced. Any civilized man or woman must think it their good fortune to have had such a personal experience.

Blessed are those who had tread that little piece of territory. Up on the hills rises the immortal Acropolis, that man-made gem of white marble Architecture that held mankind to an unsurpassed reach of beauty and human excellence.

Now? Now, democracy is on the lips of everyone, from the common man to the great thinkers. Is democracy now a common man’s belief or practice?

Alas! It is not so democracy is corrupted in a wide variety of ways. In the name of democracy, certain highest qualities of modern man, even the most educated and highly competent ones, shall we not say, even the most highly qualified to turn not into ethical or moral personalities! Just the opposite behaviour!

In the name of constitutional oaths, men don’t bat an eye to take other in total disregard for any high ethics. In the 2500s BC, the great Athenian General, Pericles, declared that Athens is a school for the world and Athenians are the practitioners of Liberty and Democracy. The two words first pronounced by man!

Alas!! Today men for the sake of power for which they didn’t work at all seek office and profit and pensions and that is how democratic practices, its many nuances and norms are trampled in the dust.

Democracy is a delicate governance system, without democracy there can’t be social and economic justice! We, Indians, have come from a very historic background that of the contemporary British history! India got freedom from Britain in 1947 because in Britain at the time a new progressive party, namely the British Labour Party won the elections. The rival conservative party lost power because the British people were tired of the world war and they wanted a change. That is how the Indian national Congress won freedom.

In our time at Oxford, in our own College, New College, a 14th century establishment there were many Labour Party leaders who came to power from the background of the Fabian Society which gave ideas, inputs to the Labour Party. Giant thinkers like Prof.Harold Laski inspired a generation, why, Laski inspired a generation of Asian and African students, some of them were with us at the Oxford colleges.

So, Pandit Nehru and some of his friends and colleagues were also part of this new awakening in India. The rest as they say, is history! India’s freedom struggle too was marked by several phases. Our own political history too much was affected by world history, from Soviet Revolution to other happenings and so what we today in India need to keep in mind is that political ideologies, even the current ones, from the Congress to the BJP and other minor or major formulations have to be seen and analysed and applied in the true historic context.

Today, we are driven by much a confused and contradictory political formulations. So, we too in India at the present are taken by fancy formulations. Many of the regional political outfits present their policies in a very superficial way and the situation has reached certain extreme nationalistic language.

For instance, at the end of the recently held Bihar Assembly elections, the BJP had raised slogans like Bharat Mata ki jai! What does this slogan mean? It is simple, very raw emotional pitch only?

Can we raise such slogans in an election context? We are sure this is not a positive educational and educational phrase, So too many other countries and peoples who go for extreme political slogans. This comment needs much detailed examination.

For example in the recent elections in New Zealand, the incumbent Prime Minister, Zacinda has done the most admirable, progressive thing, namely, she had inducted into her Cabinet representatives of the native indigenous people and also from the Opposition parties. How innovative!

We, a great democracy in the world, are still to reach that stage in our political evolution. It is really a revolutionary concept, to app the best brains and talents and the country concerned only would stand to benefit!

Democracy is a very powerful word. It has a hoary history. India, among other nations, has a great responsibility and a moral commitment to uphold democracy and democratic practices. Since only in India leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru came from, the former a great soul and latter a great sensitive democrat.
The very many ideals and institutions. They established and taught the people deserve our gratitude to work ourselves to some of their own ideals.

The Mahatma always spoke about the simple peasants of India, the rural people, the poor and the hungry. The latter with his own Western education and beliefs, Nehru was one of the great Fabian Socialists, Nehru was a personal friend of such thinkers like Laski, Kingsley Martin, the redoubtable editor of the Newstatesman, the Socialist weekly that educated the latter generation of Indians and Africans.

We were once the leaders of the Non-Aligned world. Today too we are the examples of good democrats. The world even today values us as example of tolerance, we accommodate Dalai Lama and such great souls. Now, there are practical political issues in the name of democracy, we have done not many positive things. First, the party system is being corrupted in the name of ideologies. Second, religion divides us. Secularism we struggle with to understand and absorb how can a country with so many religions, many ancient, can we choose one religion to uphold, others to struggle?

Third, social divisions. Caste is now our only hope to survive in politics, right?
How do we practice our Parliamentary system?

Without Opposition there can be a true democracy. We don’t practice a good parliamentary system, we avoid the Parliamentary debates, the question hour. Why we also select the candidates who don’t deserve to be there. The electoral system is in shambles. From democracy to authoritarianism seems like a quick walk and cross over!

Down to the States and then to the villages, there are a lot of things to do. We owe to our poor villagers, farmers, the landless. Many rights which we don’t deny but we don’t recognise!

We need it to distribute more powers to the panchayat raj institutions. There must be rigorous gram sabres and debates and financial power to the panchayats. We need to activate many new institutions like the Farm Producers Co-operatives. These are all the areas we have yet to penetrate. Now, there is darkness all around, so much corruption’s much non-functioning of institutions like RTI. Lokayukta, LokPal etc.
The subject calls for wider debate. There is fear, raids and much police brutality, violence against women etc.

It is for us to further enquire to make ourselves worthy of our great leaders, men and women who gave their lives and all to the worthy cause of the upliftment of the nation.

Any trade deal with USA should secure
India’s agri goal of food self sufficiency!

As big agricultural economies, be it India, China and the USA, we can’t manage world economy without trade. More so the agricultural trade. So, India has to have a trade negotiation with America whose agricultural economy too needs a trade deal. But India should not deviate from its core strengths and core goals. Our food self-sufficiency goal is as critical for us as it would affect millions of people, poor and the disadvantaged. So, let us resolve to keep these crucial goals in view when US President visits India.

Agriculture is so basic a sector, it affects the lives of millions of poor farmers and people that everyone ,that is, every citizen is concerned about what is happening in such an important sector. As we often hear, everyone says and also means it, that still with all our economic progress, India’s emergence as a third large economy, India now the largest exporter of rice in the world and there is much to celebrate about what Indian agriculture has achieved.

There is many sect oral problems and also the larger question of an over-all vision and perception of what is the place of agriculture in the larger scheme of things. As we often say in these columns that India’s economic strength is our agricultural sector only, India is also basically an agricultural economy; about 50 and odd percentage of people are still dependent on the agriculture and the rural sector.

So, we may talk of many other things, glamorous and otherwise, but we have to have a social and economic vision that has to make account for the many other traditional values, largely rural society with so many diversities and economic opportunities.

So, the question today is how far we have taken the people in drawing up a blue print for action on many fronts, from crops, major and minor to other facets of agriculture and the food sector. There is still much poverty and deprivation; there are still so many other pending implementation burdens for malnutrition, under nutrition of children and the extension of the PDS and other rations.

There is also the status of the distribution of food from schools to other sectors. Education and healthcare, why even unemployment and jobs that are tackled by the rural employment generation scheme and also the problems of direct payments to many sections.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a bold leader no doubt and his many bold announcements from the ambitious goal of doubling farmer’s income by 2022 to other schemes from crop insurance and other schemes are now pending proper implementation. The new agri minister Mr.Narendra Singh Tomar has now started to speak out and the media is also reporting what he says and it looks the various schemes like the flagship crop insurance schemes in which certain new corrections have been announced. This is the first time for a long time that some new announcements have been made.

More such announcements would give some confidence for farmers who are known for their conservative skepticism!

We live in the village and confess we share the ordinary villagers’ skepticism too.
So, as a media committed to solely for agriculture we should be understood properly and taken seriously as far as our skepticism is concerned.

Especially a minister like the agriculture minister must be seen travelling to the states and also making some surprise visits to villages and see how things are implemented. There are States where agriculture has a strong social base and where there are genuine concern for agriculture welfare and other States where there are different ideologies, say like Kerala where Communist ideology drives agriculture, with radical land reforms, in TN where there are so much political issues where agriculture is well developed but caught in some issues like oil explorations and with a largely driven political divides.

Other social issues are also there, as in TN again there is a very entrenched alcohol, TASMAC lobby of the ruling party that almost has destroyed social health of the poor.
There are States like Karnataka where there is a more balanced social economic development and there is also progress in the agriculture and horticulture sector. The Maharashtra rural landscape is well-known with a perennial problem of farmers suicides, in a state which is otherwise more industrialised with the India’s financial capital, Mumbai located and yet we are unable to stop this tragedy of farmers committing suicide, may be the only spot in the whole world.

The very slogan of doubling farmers’ incomes in the next two years seem to be only slogan given the current political impasse. We have to develop many facets of the Indian economy and society, why even the polity so that our over-all Constitutional scheme of things, the legislatures, judiciary and the media, why even our universities give a wide spectrum of freedom and free from fear and anxiety about the confidence in the over-all ideology of an open society. Even secularism and equality and a caring society must be the fulcrum of an open society and the outside world. We are living at a time in world history when newer issues like migration, why, large-scale migration, refugees and also freedom from persecution for peoples ‘religious beliefs. There are many religious persecutions going on in the world, in our own neighborhoods and the international opinion is such that India, among other nations is right now in the world, attention.

Simply because we are in one segment, agriculture is not to mean that we can’t reach out to new issues. We are not able to conclude the trade deal with the USA doesn’t mean that such a trade deal is not linked to our defense and trade issues. Every big country today is invariably tied to its own strength and vulnerabilities, right?

So, whatever be the trade and economic deals countries’ own egos and illusions comes into play. What we mean here is that our own strengths, be it agriculture or IT skills colour and create prejudices and we have to be mentally prepared to listen to experts and intellectuals.

So, let us realise our agriculture’s strengths. Mr.Donald Trump, we write on the eve of his arrival in India, wants Indians to believe their own country is a ‘developed economy’! Fine, we also believe let us act like a developed country people!

Sharad Pawar’s finest hour!
A leader of unmatched character and why, even moral fibre at a time of such a serious crisis situation!

Maharashtra developments, by any reckoning, is a watershed moment in the way the incumbent Central government demonstrated its new governing principles and strategies. The pre-dawn coup and the swift movements of exchanges of ideas and conspiracies and actions proved that this would remain a special chapter in the Modi governance methods. Politics is a ruthless game of power and it looks we in India have reached a stage in the practice of politics that when it comes to grabbing power we don’t care for any delicate negotiations but only swift actions and the players get mad instantaneously. That only can explain what role Ajit Pawar played.

May be the junior Pawar at least proved and he succeeded by getting his name deleted from the list of accused in the ED case and this would also remain one more stratagems in the new power games very likely to be picked up by those caught by ED summons and IT raids! But what the more gravitas side is the way the crisis emerged and how the challenges posed by the veterans, we needn’t name them, let them by god’s grace remain concealed! The very large issues and the fundamental principles of playing the democratic game is that politics is much more serious than what the current players have understood. Do we care for any serious principles, ethics, honour, dignity, integrity and honesty and ultimately truth?

These questions would nag the conscience of everyone in the country. Thank god, the world is now more integrated and India can’t escape from the critical scrutiny of the outside world. Already as the controversial NRC, CAB bills are being debated in the Rajya Sabha and already passed in the Lok Sabha, thanks to the brute majority in the LS.

The US State Federal Commission Panel on Religious Freedoms(USCIRF) had warned that it would impose sanctions on the Home Ministers and other leaders! Already also we see picture of the US Congress House Committee with Nancy Pelosi presiding over the impeachment against the incumbent President! Also on the same page is the Myanmar head of state, Aung San Sun Kyi, sitting at the UN International Court of Justice over her government’s record of genocide.

So, let us all know that the world today is changing fast. Friends are no more friends forever, nor enemies remain enemies. Luckily it is comforting to realise that the world is changing and changing for the good! Leaving aside other issues and controversies, the new BJP government in 2014 and again later in 2019,if we see things in a fair and objective manner, very radical changes took place in the Indian polity. But surprisingly, we started seeing some very fast and controversial actions etc.

The J&K step proved very controversial and as we write the senior leaders of the State are still under detention. How this event will play out is anybody’s guess. Also there are many other controversies. Also, the series of State elections where we saw that despite the BJP not getting majority seats, the BJP managed to form government. The last in the series of ‘runs’ is the Maharashtra drama which played out in an altogether contradictory manner.

Is this all governance about? People wondered! Why even the BJP cadre and the BJP allies were taken by surprise. Yes this is only a mild form of a new political adventurism that didn’t pay off. Finally!

There came about the Maharashtra leader, the most experienced of them all, a father figure, Sharad Pawar who at 79 proved himself as a matchless warrior who ditched the very BJP party at its cunning best! Sharad Pawar is undoubtedly the man of the hour, the man of destiny who save India and its hoary institutions. We needn’t go into the details of what happened once more.

Sharad Pawar is too experienced a leader who knew the very practical politics on the palm of his hand and he went about bringing together the three partners, NCP, Shiv Sena and the Congress.

The Shiv Sena is another phenomenon in Maharashtra politics. As the Dravidian parties in the South proved, they are all neither secular parties nor otherwise any doctrinaire outfits, they all arose out of some particular narrow, regional sentiments and they remain so till this day. As for Shiv Sena it somehow felt slighted and though didn’t have the numbers felt their pride is at stake and so they staked claim for ruling the State. Things, as they say fell in place at the right moment and the man who could play his cards close to his chest and make this happen was none other than Sharad Pawar.

Now, as for Sharad Pawar, Vadamalai Media knows him, from the 1980s during which period we used to travel to Mumbai often. I had the good fortune to meet him many times and other leaders (Vasanth Dada Patil, Shalinitai Patil, A.R.Antulay, S.B.Chavan and others). We got to know Pawar more closely as we were interested in agriculture, especially when he was the Leader of the Opposition. He was the leader of the PDP party when it replaced the great Vasanth Dada Patil.

Maratha people for the South Indians seem a very gentle race and very generous minded and all these qualities and the great Maratha history give the people a special flavour of valour and a historic role in national affairs. Once Pawar invited me to the party office and entertained me for lunch and in during lunch I got to know of the great champion of agriculture when he explained to me at some length about the agri development work he was doing in his home town of Baramati.

So, our relationship blossomed as we at Vadamalai were engaged in building up a media network for educating and enlightening the Indian farming sector through our various media ventures, running four magazines in three languages and other agri consultancy activities. It was also at that time Maharashtra agriculture too was pioneering many new innovative agri institutions building. The State’s Co-operative grapes farmers, other new crops like strawberry cultivation and the agri exports activities were pioneering ones and they deservingly attracted other states too.’ Pawar could easily engage and impress and convince anyone and this is his core strength of character and sustained energy! See at this age his boundless mental power to join such supposed disjoint political powers!

We have been in touch with each other off and on and we have also exchanged correspondence when our views differed. Now, coming to current political developments what is the larger picture? The future shape of Indian politics? The Congress party, to put it more sympathetically, is in shambles. Sonia Gandhi is faced with an albatross on her neck! First, she had shouldered once again the Congress organisation which is top heavy with all old and retired senior politicians perched in comfortable Lutyens’s bungalows. They are unlikely to vacate space for others in the near future.

The youth Congress under Rahul Gandhi came in and flopped. Who would the Congress really focus?

The party is non-existent in most states! The next few years may give some indication of its likely future. So, Sonia Gandhi has fall in line with Pawar’s play, so to say, at least to save her own honour! The Maharashtra Congress leaders have no other way but to join the Pawar brigade. As for Shiv Sena, Pawar is now the mentor and the party is lucky to have a mentor like him and the future of the three-party coalition, we are sure, could take on Modi-Shah duo, in our opinion, in an effective way.

In fact, Pawar is the real counterweight to the resource-rich and also strong ruling duo and would surely stand up to the counter manoeuvring in the days to come. There is a very cheap jibe that the coalition is an ideological contradiction- is simply nonsense. This is strictly not an ideological coalition but a strategic coalition to keep out a common ruthless enemy! Who knows in the next phase there may be more adventurism. To conclude, let people realise that the price of freedom and democracy is eternal vigilance!

An appeal to younger generation of politicians!

What are the lessons from the Maharashtra-Haryana by elections?
Many lessons!

One is the lacklustre show of the BJP party Two: the lacklustre outcome of the campaign. Yes, The Congress and the NCP have gained some lustier in denting the aggressive campaign of the top two stars of the BJP. The Congress couldn’t send out even the mother -son duo, Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi didn’t show much enthusiasm or time to go about election yatras or what else they could have done alternatively.

The very aggressive campaign and the theme, Nationalism, abrogation of Article 370 in J&K didn’t make an impact. The media commented that he voters were more concerned with the bread and butter issues.

This assessment seems to be true. In Maharashtra the NCP did make a sort of comeback. In Satara, the Shivaji Maharaj’s descendant went on to face defeat in the face of the war cry given by Sharad Pawar when he received the ED summons and the Maratha pride seems to have come to the fore and the Raja Bhonsle met with defeat.

So, the Maratha people have their own innate pride and legacy from their glorious history! Hats off to them! Yes, the younger Thackeray has come for the first time into electoral fray and very likely he might play a great role.
Let us wish him well. After all, age matters in politics and the Maratha people have also not forgotten their history. In Haryana, the Jats have also changed their tune this time. Congress won seats beyond their imagination and the fact that a hung Assembly is a reality that the BJP for the first time has to go out and solicit help from a young leader, the Devilal legacy, Dusyanth Chautala! He is surprisingly well schooled, an alumnus of Lawrence School ,Sanaar, an elite school, very refreshing for a new India in the making!

Only such well-established historic public schools, in our view ,is the only future hope for murky politics we have to endure today. We take this opportunity to say more on this aspect of the very illiterate type of politics in the name of democracy. Yes, we are the world’s biggest democracy, large population, strategic geo politics and what is worrying, the state of the Indian polity is not so enlightening, so much of poverty, illiteracy and poor health profiles, we have the world’ largest number of impoverish nutritious profile of the children and peoples.

So, democracy in India has meant also the highest corruption index, we also lately learnt to fudge statistics, also our electoral political standards are deplorable. So, we need youngsters like Chautala who is public school educated, public schools are historically expected to produce leaders of society and polity.
So, we send the explosive message that Indian democracy needs to instill great many values, corruption free and idealistic government and governance standards. We hope the younger Chautala would bring his good education and training to the service of the country’s very many woes.

So, we wish the Chautala scion to play a great role and not caught in the culture-less and a sort of undemocratic and unethical practices that have entered into the present day polity.

Also, people now would have learnt to compare the younger generation politicians in all political parties and luckily there are too many youngsters in so many other parties. So, young leaders in many parties, in particular, the Congress and Samajwadi party and much more interesting is the concept of dynasty.

Somehow dynasty politics has become a dirty word and there are heavy responsibilities for the so-called debate “Old vs young or “GenNext vs the Old Guard. We also take this opportunity that we always identify the young with some idealistic streak and this is natural.

So, we like to draw attention of the current on-going debate on Ideology and Nationalism. Young politicians in India must study the history of politics and the evolution of democracy, from Greece to our own times.

Ideology is a very key word. Ideology gives a rational account of what is politics based on principles. These principles go back to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

The British education is grounded on these philosophies. Unfortunately, Indian education is based on MaCaulay’s clerical English language education!
So, we say that the current generation of young politicians must study some basic principles of politics and see to it, the current fall in corruption, arbitrary power and a streak of fascism and much else have led to deterioration of values in Indian politics.

Let us hope, the younger generation of Indian political heirs keep in mind the heavy burden they would inherit from the present fallen standards of Indian politics. So, the current election results would also lend some sanity and a moderate public behavior of average Indian politicians!