Real politics and Indian politics

Hello Friends,

Have you viewed the happenings in Karnataka recently? A couple of months ago do you remember Jharkhand issue?One or two years ago what happened in Goa?

The topic 'real politics and Indian politics' itself appears crafty and diplomatic. Is Indian Politics not real. Is Real politics not Indian. I hope members will discuss this point as well.

Let us discuss the ideal politics and actual tactics adopted by real politicians.

Politics is the art of statecraft. Managing public affairs honestly by dedication is ideal politics. a politician must take keen interest in all affairs of nation and his region as well as in international affairs and provide leadership and coordinate efforts for better economic condition of people, harmonious and cordial relation between all sections of society. The politician must be democratic minded and honestly abide by his political party discipline and stay in same party despite election prospects. A politician is supposed to subscribe to certain ideology and thus there is no place for defection like rats that desert a sinking ship.

Indian politics was almost ideal and fair in the beginning under leadership of Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru. Later, we witnessed the phenomenon of large scale of defections for petty gains. This was called 'aya ram gaya ram' politics. Caste factor is another salient feature of Indian politics. The Indian politicians work on principle of 'divide and rule'. Religion, region and caste are being used to divide people. such divisions help politicians in creating vote banks. Under leadership of Pt Nehru, there was more unity among people. Currently, vote banks based on caste, region and religion help politicians to win elections without doing any constructive work for people. In recent period caste based parties like Samajvadi party (Yadav votes- U.P.), Rashtriya janata Dal (Yadav votes- Bihar, Bahujan Samaj Party (Dalit votes- U.P.) emerged. This trend harmed the national parties like congress and the left in many states. The BJP also emerged as a major party by fanning Ayodhya Temle/ Mosque issue and Hindu sentiments.
It is happy sign that people are gradually realizing the vote bank politics. In Bihar, people are for the first time giving more weightage to development and administrative issues than caste issues.
The Indian politics involves money and muscle power. In the past, politicians sought help of criminals and moneybags. Now the criminals and industrialist are directly participating in politics. Thus our politics is criminalized and there are powerful lobbies of Industrialists and business interests.
It is in interest of politicians to have more semi literate and illiterate voters. We may hope that with spread of more education and experience, our people will gain maturity and politics cleaned of vote bank politicians and criminals.

There is no response from other members to this discussion. May be they are not interested. But let us participate in all discussions even if we are not so interested in a topic. This enhances our general knowledge and language skills as well besides chance to earn points and cash.

One aspect that comes to my mind is that women sarpanch and Pradhan in many many villages are in fact proxy for their husbands and more powerful male members. The politics at village level or grass root level is very significant as ultimately all activities at national or state level are ultimately for our people who are mostly in villages. Although reservation for women has enabled them to get representation in local body, the actual power is retained by male members of their family. Many Pradhans live in Pardah. A new phrase 'Pradhan pati' has been coined to convey the status of the husband of Pradhan. Everyone visits the Pradhan Pati and not the actual Pradhan for any work. This fact needs be looked into. Similar conditions may also emerge at state and national level when 33% reservation for women is implemented. This will defeat the object of women empowerment.

The phraseology of the topic and the introductory reference to the murky happenings in Karnataka politics suggest that there was a presumption in favor of something postive in politics and its departure in the context of defection of BJP MLAs whose legitimacy is still before the Karnataks High Court and we have to wait.Interestingly politics was and is not a saintly business as the political history down the ages would indicate.The real-politic is essentially a game among the players whose backgrounds are as diverse as their interests and the ways and methods employed by these groups who give themselves various names as political outfits are the art and craft of it.Before delving into the history of Independent India's experiment with democracy,it would be appropriate to look at the background of the prevalent political situation which led to India's opting for parliamentary democracy.The founding fathers of our constitution had the foresight to see the practical wisdom of preferring democracy over any other system as a country as big and as diverse as India could not have been ruled by any other system.But a system could be as good as the men who are behind running it! The kind of distortions that have crept into the system and Karnataka drama is a manifestation of one the same owe to their roots in the intial days of our republic.

I agree with Chinmoy that we cannot expect something positive in Indian politics. What happens in Karnata is nothing new. The defection game has been played in many states. The legislators owe responsibility neither to people who elected them nor to party that gave them ticket to contest election.

The parliamentary democracy is best system and was rightly chosen by founders of Indian republic. But as rightly stated by chinmoy, it is the people who run a system. system is just a tool. It is the people who use the tool. There is crisis of character. everyone works for his own selfish interests and the collective interests of society, nation and people are given a decent burial. We have seen the moral standard of Indian politicians in recent commonwealth games.

What is the remedy? The ultimate authority is with people. As long as they allow themselves to be used as vote banks, there is no chance for any improvement. The caste, religion and other vote bank factors conceal the misdeeds of politicians. so, the first step should be to get ourselves rid of vote bank politics. Enlightened citizens who are not actively involved in politics can take a lead. Defection is another game played by politicians responsible for instability. In western democracy, a government survives even with razor thin majority. The enlightened people can keep track of turncoats and reject them. All this is easily said than done. But let us not lose hope and do the best to rid our political system pf the rank opportunist and bring some stability and morality to body politic.

Now it is time to have a hard look at the functioning of our democracy over the past few decades.The issue of universal franchise raised a fierce debate on its adoption.There were quite a few skeptics led by Rajagopalachari who were never in favor of granting the voting right to all the eligible adults as they argued giving them this powerful without educating them over its use would lead to diastrous consequences and looking at the scenario today they were not far off the mark!.They favored linking it to some kind education qualification but Nehru held his ground and the first elections based on universal adult franchise was held and it's interesting to note it was held at a time when the literacy rate was as low as 35%!Thus the cart was set before the horse! Whatever ills that afflict our system could be attributed to this unwise decision on the part of Nehru who brushed aside pragmatic suggestion of Rajaji to have seperate electoral college and gradual introduction of voting rights.As a result of which people started exercising voting rights through proxies and proxies of a different kind.Here there was no appointment of proxies.Some rentier interests emerged and money and muscle started showing their ugliest powers.Before I proceed further which I intend to do in my later posts,I request my readers just to think of the cardinal mistake and the consequences which it produced in the later years which promoted casteism,electoral corruption and all the monstrosities that one can think of!

Coming to the next point of demorcracy and Pandit Jawharlal Nehru,it's reasonably agreed that he was a liberal democrat and he tried to consolidate the democratic foundations by nourishing and nurturing the democratic institutions which came under various serious attack under his own daughter late Indira Gandhi who was a woman with a very complex personality.Let me discuss it later.Pandit Nehru realized the importance of th role of democracy in India in keeping the country together with its diverse core.Under him elections were held regularly but the participation of uninformed and illiterate voters produced interesting electoral results.Kerala produced the most upsetting results for him when the state elected its first Communist government of the country under late E.M.S Namboodripad.As the Congress Party was still riding on its success in bringing Independence for the country,the party developed a kind of delusion that it had a moral and legitimate right to rule this country.Not only at the centre,it expected all the states to follow suit by opting for this party at the hustings!The first rude shock came in the form of Kerala Communist government.And Nehru's response was most undemocratic as his government sacked the Namboodripad's government in manner which hardly did justice to Nehru's democratic credentials.

The Congress Party at that time was more of an umbrella organization giving a place to all shades of opinion ranging from left to right and Pandit Nehru tried to do some tight rope walk!Although his stand against caste-based was firm but in electoral calculations casteism was very much practised! He identified a few persons whom he considered to be representing their class interests.It was a dangerous gamble on his part.For instance he chose late Jagjivan Ram to be the Dalit face of Congress.Jagjivan Ram was known as the weather-beaten cabinet minister of the Independent India.Although he remained an important minister throughout his political the average lot of a Dalit hardly improved.This tokenism on the part of Congress in dealing with caste-based politics and the larger question of Dalit emancipation had a profound impact on the competitive Dalit politics in India which later saw a motley group of Dalit leaders in the political map of this country.I would continue posting my views on other points later.

Chinmoy has well described the formative years of Indian democracy. He has particularly pointed out the controversy on universal franchise versus elite franchise. Pt Nehru decided in favour of universal adult franchise by rejecting C. Raja Gopalachari's plea for giving voting rights only to the educated. I believe that in spite of illiteracy and ignorance of vast majority of people, it was wise to introduce universal franchise for all adults. People learn more by experience than by class room theoretical study. The limited franchise only to educated would bring aristocracy and not democracy. Secondly, as a balancing act, the upper House of parliament- Rajya Sabha would be through indirect elections by state assemblies. There was also provision for nomination of eminent persons from different walks of life to Rajya Sabha. The real crisis is lack of moral character. Most of the corrupt and unscrupulous elements destroying democratic norms are educated ones.

Chinmoy has also mentioned that initially Congress was an umbrella organization covering all shades of opinion. Our democracy was virtually one party system. It goes to the credit of communists to change one party system of congress to multi party system by winning Kerala assembly elections and forming first ever democratically elected communist government in the world. The first non congress government was undemocratically removed by Pt Nehru.
As India won independence mainly under congress leadership, it was natural that the congress would enjoy public support initially. It takes time to evolve healthy traditions. We have now traveled quite far after gaining independence. It is for intellectuals and non party citizens/ journalists as well as media to awaken the people to the need of voting on basis of performance and refused to be pawns in vote bank politics based on caste, region, religion and family/ personality cult.

It's very good to know Gulshan's views on universal franchise which he has obviously discussed from his own perspective.Whether Rajaji was right or wrong the subsequent events which unfolded clearly vindicated his stand.Let me make it clear that his views were more based on apprehension on turning India into a mobocracy than promoting aristocracy!Experience can be a good teacher provided the learner wants to learn.The question is if we have learned at all!A few pages of Vohra Committe's report on criminalization politics in India would make our stomachs churn!The goons and thugs who procured votes for the politicians are bold enough now to come into the open and are contesting elections and winning them to enter the floors of Parliament and Assemblies.The dwindling standards of parilamentary debates are an ample proof of the fact that the popular vote which is underpinned on the free will of the voters is simply not there in most of the cases.Where do see the evolution of healthy traditions over the years and decades!There is another aspect of Gulshan's reply which relates to education.To blame education for the misdeeds of the educated would be tantamount to turning the logic on its head!An uneducated and uncritical mind is barely in a postion to exercise this potent right! All the ills which are threatening Indian democracy into a 'phoney' stems from this fact!

Now let me come to the question of defection politics.Defection per se should not be confused with 'horse trading'.There are instances in the Western and other democracies where eminent politicians defected on conscientous grounds.And in some cases they were quite justified in doing so in raising their voice against the oppressive majority!

Chinmoy has pointed out that Rajaji wanted to prevent mobocracy and not promote aristocracy. with all respect to Rajaji, I may point out that Rajaji had promoted and supported a political party called 'Swatantra Party' that consisted of ex rulers. Thus he supported aristocracy. I mentioned that the upper house in parliament and some state assemblies and the provision of nomination were intended to balance the parliamentary system. Shrei chinmoy has not commented on this. i hope he will consider this aspect as well.

As regards defections, in most cases, these are not genuine. There have been defections from BJP to congress and vice versa. BJP is considered a communal organization whereas congress claims to be secular. I fail to understand how the leaders these parties change their ideology overnight and defect to the other side. It is the lack of adherence to principles and moral standards that is really responsible for horse trading.
I reiterate that intellectuals, writers, journalists and others who seek clean politics should come forward with a platform to educate and inspire people not to be victim of vote bank politics based on caste, region, religion and other narrow considerations.

@Gulshan

I cannot find any logical correlation between ex-rulers becoming members of his 'Swatantra Pary' and his so-called promotion of aristocracy! Nehru too had ex-ruler in his cabinet and several members of the erstwhile royal families but I fail to understand how did it translate to supporting either monarchy or aristocracy!As to your comments on the existence of Rajya Sabha and upper houses of the assemblies I don't concur with your views that these do any balancing in our system.In fact these have outlived their usefulness and many states have rightly done away with them.West Bengal assembly has no upper house for your information.Only politicans who have no mass base and to be rewarded for their loyalty to political leadership manage to win nominations and become members in it .In fact there is already a strong debate in Great Britain to abolish House of Lords!

As to your views on defection especially in Indian context I do agree that most of the cases which we call defections are in plain terms 'horse trading' of the worst kind.Defection as a concept stands at much higher plane.Even Sir William Gladstone and Winston Churchil were known to have crossed the floor.Let us agree that here the motive behind such acts assumes greater significance and importance.In India majority of such acts come under 'horse trading' as the party deserters fall prey to lure of money or other materialistic consideration!

The Rajya Sabha and upper houses in states were intended as balancing act so as to give representation to eminent persons from different walks of life who would not contest general elections. This provision also like others has been misused. This is another matter.


Inclusion of a few ex rulers by Nehru has no comparison with Swatantra Party that was a feudal and princely organization supported and patronized by Raja Gopalachari.

While there may be some genuine change of mind and one may defect to another party, most cases are of horse trading. Moreover, a member of parliament has been elected on a particular party ticket. This is sheer dishonesty to change party. In these cases, even if there is change of heart, a member must not be allowed to retain his seat after changing party. If the plea of genuine defection and tat too on mass scale is accepted, this will lead to mockery of multi party political system where the leaders and parties are circus players and voters simply jokers.

I wish to bring another aspect of Indian political system- division of authority between legislature, executive and judiciary. Press is considered as forth estate. These are supreme in their own area. It is expected that no wing should encroach upon another. The division of authority between these wings ensures smooth functioning of our system. But we often find encroachment of executive power by judiciary through 'judicial activism'. similarly, executive interferes with judiciary. Freedom of Press is also endangered often. I feel that the scheme of allotting funds for local area development through members of parliament and M.L.A.s- a scheme introduced by Late Shri Narsimha Rao, also goes against the scheme of distribution of authority between legislature and executive. Moreover, this has also resulted in corruption. The legislators time and attention are diverted from their real job i.e. legislation and monitoring public policies and issues.

However, ultimately, this is a matter of national character. Press and media, the fourth estate has a greater responsibility in building public opinion against vote bank politics and other black spots in our political system.

Gulshan,

You have not answered my main question which was how the presence of ex-rulers in his party could make Rajaji a proponent of aristocracy when the truth was that a minuscule number of ex-rulers followed him in his party and it was not the other way round! Rajaji was not their follower!In fact your frequent refrain in projecting Rajaji as such such almost makes it a repetition of a section of Congressmen's allegation in those days on similar lines which was grossly untrue and devoid of substance.A cursory glance at the line-up of these ex-rulers in these two parties would clearly establish the fact that the ex-rulers overwhelmingly outnumbered the ones in the Swatantra Party for obvious reasons.The Congress Party was one in power and better placed to serve the interest of royalty which in fact,it did by appointing a good number of them in various governmental positions.It would be equally unrealistic to expect them all to join a party which was the target of the Nehru government and his government tried all means to politically finish it by spreading canards like the one you mentioned.It's important to note that privy purse issue was not decided at that time and exrulers literally danced to the tune of Nehru and not Rajaji.Let me give you the names of some of the importantant functionaries of that party who both had character and integrity to serve the cause of a party whose leader Rajaji had an unblemished record of public service- Minoo Masani,K.M.Munshi,Sardar Patel's son Dahyabhai Patel,H.M.Patel,J.M.Prabhu just to name a few!

As to your contention that bi-cameralism was intended to serve the so-called purpose of balancing,may I say that it never served that and in majority of democracies in the world such a house is absent and in most of our states it is absent desirably!

The princes in the Swatantra party patronized by Rajaji had an object to govern the nation in their own right and style unlike those in congress who worked under Congress leadership that largely believed in the direction of socialism, democracy and secularism. The princes were also citizens of India and they were rightly expected to involve themselves in national mainstream. The congress under Nehru leadership did not give any leading and guiding role to princes.

Bicameralism was a balancing act although this might not have served the purpose well. This was to balance the domination of representatives in Lok Sabha who were elected by 'illiterate and uneducated masses' whom Rajaji would deny the voting right and thereby create aristocracy. Pt Nehru gave power to all people unconditionally.

Let us discuss another aspect of Indian political system. We are a large country with huge population and regional diversity. We could have either unitary system like Britain or a Federal system. In view of diversity, unitary system was not feasible. Federalism would be against national unity. Hence, our system is quasi federal. The constitution has divided powers between Union and states. There is Union list, state list and concurrent list. There is a happy balance of power between Union and states. It is necessary to review this arrangement from time to time and vest more powers with states consistent with national integrity and need for diversification.

As all state activities are primarily for people mostly living in villages, Panchayats need be given more power. If our people can run local bodies properly, we may expect to participate better role in national and state politics as well and rid the nation of vote bank politics.

@Gulshan

As the topic is real politics and Indian politics I would confine myself to the events leading to our adoption of democracy and its working over the past few decades and the possible solution to the problems created by malfuntioning of it.I think touching the constitutional provisons in regard to distribution of powers and et al would broaden the scope of discussion to divert our attention from the core subject.Against you allusion to Rajaji's Swatantra's party espousal of princely causes I have searched for material to find substance in it but I have not come across any.So I believe it is your subjective opinion and until and unless you produce substantive evidence I would treat as your subjective opinion to which you are rightly entitled and I have no further comments to make only to add that in Rajaji India had a leader whose views were respected by even Gandhiji and in his long political career he managed to keep it spotlessly clean.To Gandhiji he was a rationalist par excellence!
As for your opinion on bicameralism ,the Indian experience is that upper house is an unnecessary adjunct and a drain on public exchequer and I strongly believe the sooner it is given a decent burial the better!Although opinions may always vary!Most of the democracies have discarded it and almost 90% of our state assemblies too have been doing it for enough good reasons!

Now I would devote my next lines to how attempts on the part of Nehru government on building up a monolithic power structure through Congress and its ramifications on prevention of emergence multi-party dmeocracy in India.As I indicated that in the intial days of our democracy the Congress Party sought a kind of dividends on its investment in bringing freedom for the country.And adulation of Nehru grew dangerously with the exit of stalwarts like Sardar Patel and others from the scene and old leaders also started leaving being suffocated by this personality cult which later manifested itself in more uglier forms and still continuing.Nehru under his pesudo-socialist raj created an intermediate class consisting of self-serving politicians,businessmen who filled the coffers of the Conggress Party in return for license and other favors!Contractors had a field day cornerning most of the our 5-Year Plan money.Any criticism of Nehru government by the leaders whose contribution to the attainment of freedom was no less invited ridicule and business houses were discouraged to make any donation to opposition parties to the point that G.D.Birla once openly declared that Swatantra Party was not a good political party to do business with!In the later years of Nehru raj the flashes of impatience with democracy were also evident.I would deal with the political scenario emerging after Nehru's death and Indira Gandhi's emergence in the political horizon and her contribution to the debasement of Indian politics in my next post!

I agree with chinmoy that Rajaji was an outstanding personality and his views were respected. There is always divergence of opinion. This is normal in a democracy. I also feel that Bicameral system has failed. The intention was good but the provision has been misused by sending defeated leaders and unworthy to the upper houses. I have no objection to abolition of upper house but I hold that these were well intended.

It is also true that Congress enjoyed monopoly of power initially owing to involvement in freedom struggle. In fact, there were no opposition parties worth name. This was natural just after independence and could not be wished away. But it cannot be denied that Pt Nehru gave a proper direction to the nation. He is rightly called Architect of the nation. everyone has some drawbacks and possibly, he also suffered from some. Nobody is perfect- even Nehru. But his magnificent role in building nation, his role in foreign policy and implementation of five year plans cannot be ignored. He added glory to nation in international affairs by following policy of non alignment. The three leaders- Nehru, Nasser and Tito were very significant force in world.

The deterioration in Indian politics has been felt more after demise of Nehru. Division on basis of caste and region are now uglier. It is for enlightened citizens particularly media- the fourth estate to play active role in this regard.

I feel that this discussion is confined to only two individuals- Chinmoy and Gulshan. Group discussion is between a number of members- desirably five or more. I request some other members also to give their valuable views.

Poor participation in this GD is somewhat disheartening but the only bright aspect is that it has managed to have more than 150 hits!

chinmoymukherjee wrote:
[quote]Poor participation in this GD is somewhat disheartening but the only bright aspect is that it has managed to have more than 150 hits![/quote]

Apparently other members are enjoying the debate between two participants. The two members have already expressed most of their views. Hope others will also make some contribution in the last two days.

I was watching and enjoying the real debate between you two.Eventhough the GD was less with participation the hit count indicates that all members are reading them well.

The Panchayath Raj elections in Kerala had over one week ago.Almost all results also published.I noticed many strange alliance and contests in many wards.

In Kerala there is only two fronts.CPI(M) lead Left Democratic Front (LDF) and Congress(I) lead United Democratic Front (UDF).Since many expected persons didn't get candidature they jumped to other side and competed.Where their political views gone then?How will they justify their stand so far ?Is that the real politics ? Will it happen in other countries?

CPI(M) and Congress(I) are the direct hitting parties in many constituencies.Surprisingly they united in one of the Panchayaths in my district to defeat Indian Union Muslim League(IUML) candidates while in all near by panchayaths Congress(I) is hand in hand with IUML.If a state leader of either of these parties speak in a political meeting held in this panchayath and its nearby panchayat how will he justify this strange alliance? So that is Indian politics!!

Even children will feel shame on hearing the political news coming on these days.

What has happened in Kerala is relective of the state of affairs in the country.In India ideological considerations always figure nowhere on the part of most of the candidates in the choice of parties! In West Bengal where the Left has been in power for the last 34 years and is currently engaged in a very bitter and vilolent battle to survive there is witnessing large scale swiching of loyalties form CPM to Trinamul at the grassroot levels!