Election time and all political parties are busy once again releasing manifestos promising moon, sun and the Milky Way!! If we put all these promises together India certainly will be the heaven- why only on earth, but in the entire universe- and Sir Thomas Moore, would no more have to think of any fictional island- Utopia- to define the perfect socio- political - legal system. He simply would look east !
Since 1950 the Congress party has been promising ‘bijli’, ‘sadak’ and ‘paani’ to the ‘aam aadmi. Hoping for the realization of these fundamental needs, elections after elections Indians have been putting their faith on the Congress party. Sixty years later, 70per cent of our one billion populations are still living in six hundred thousand villages. 15 percent of these villagers do not have proper houses, 25 percent have no safe drinking water, 55 percent no electricity in their homes and 85 percent no sanitation facilities. Percentages and numbers may be for the statisticians but for the lay person-me- they have not been able to build a proper ‘Pedder Road’ in Mumbai, the so-called financial capital of India!!!
BJP, since 1984, before every election, has been telling people that they will make mandir if they are voted to power. Lord Ram (and Sita of course) blessed them to power in 1999 for a full term of 5 years!!! But Mrs. and Mr. Ram are a terribly disappointed lot today leading a nomadic life, moving from temple to temple without a proper dwelling at their rightful (?) place in Ayodhya. Can one blame the Rams for their disappointment? Five years, not enough to construct a ‘mandir’?? This is in an era when the innovations in construction technology is so dramatic that in China, I hear, a 100 storey building is completed in approximately same number of weeks!!!
Less said the better about the regional parties who in their manifestos have been promising color TV, fridge and foreign holidays to Bahamas to the hapless citizens who cannot afford even two square meals a day!!. …..Shows how apathetic and disconnected is our polity from the real issues of the country.
This poses a question if manifesto itself is irrelevant? Or is it going to remain a pre-poll twenty page booklet, release of which is a big social event to demonstrate who matters and how much both in the party and the fourth estate!! I for one do not think so. It is an important directional statement for any party to gauge its performance during the period of its governance. It is akin to the business plan of a publicly listed company. However the comparison ends there. Corporate often performs and Government doesn’t. Why?
A well managed company creates proper systems and processes to enable the implementation of the plan, lays down metrics and institute periodical audit to measure the efficacy of implementation. Despite, the corporate India too wasn’t any holier than thou and all that trustworthy till a few years back (some even today!!). Its performance was mostly cooked, camouflaged and investors were in complete darkness as far as what happened behind the 'corporate veil' until the 'investor activism' took control of corporate governance and the management was made more accountable. Meticulous dissection and constant quizzing and probing by the analysts forced corporate to accept the famous Abraham Lincoln quote that “you can fool some of the people………but you cannot fool all of the people all the time”. So bitterly, they started to reveal the reality and the holes. To avoid the embarrassment of the recurring investor/ analysts wrath they had no options but to take curative steps including changing/surrendering the management individually or collectively. Soon the system evolved to be more transparent and efficient and today most of our companies can compete in global arena. Consequence of a corporate 'spring cleaning'!!
Unfortunately, in Indian politics no such perestroika has happened!! There is no great public accountability yet and there is no organized investor (citizen) activism till the next election time and another set of manifestos have been prepared. Everything is so shrouded in secrecy. So parties could get away with anything…including murder.
It is time we created an apolitical citizen charter- a jury of sort- consisting of representatives of reputed NGOs, media representatives, prominent economists, thinkers and independent social activists who will be empowered constitutionally to publicly, systematically and periodically question each Government manager on the performance of the government and expose them when needed and eject them out of power before the proverbial ‘sh#t hits the roof’. Let us constitute a 'electronic media adalat'.
Else Ram and Sita will wait till eternity for a roof over their heads and all of us for our fundamental rights for roti, kapda aur makaan!!!
why do you worry about the politicians manifestos?? People of India do not need these people. we are all independent and self sufficient. we don't depend on the govt to pay us when we are laid off ? they don't provide education to our children. electricity is pvtised,and more such to happen . More companies in the city will provide an expansion plan in the vilages.better opportunity for the villagers to earn and become self sufficient.
ReplyDeletegood thoughts!
We are happy to complain about political parties and politicians just to absolve us of our responsibility.
ReplyDeleteAs people we throw out any one who has been committed to a cause. Jayalalitha taking terrorism head on was thrown out. Krishna who changed Bangalore was thrown out, Naidu who transformed Andhra was thrown out and for that matter Vajpayee who liberalised businesses was thrown out.
I think it is important for people to be "community conscious" and work on giving something back to the people and then political system can change.
I cannot agree more with you . The elections in India has been a farce for over deacade and half - has no real meaning. The public has been laughing silly at this circus but if they had any sense they would shun the some of the politicians -who are some of the wealthiest people in the country, even though several haven't even bothered to get a PAN card. Chief Minister of some of the states are the richest even when there is abysmal levels of literacy and development in their constituency and state . One look at the list of candidates seeking votes , you would find a disproportionately high number of candidates with criminal convictions or charges pending. I don’t think electing any of these politicians into power would help them perform towards finding solution to our pressing issues or work towards national salvation
ReplyDeleteOutlook Magazine recently reported that the government spent an estimated $1.2 billion on advertising its own virtues last year. This comes at a time when the crisis had broken out and the economy was slipping into a decline, and when our own budget deficit was rising rapidly . It’s a shame that when three-quarters of the population is still living in poverty, the government of the “common people “ was spending a billion dollars on a spam , instead of contributing to the general well being of the citizens !!
But, thinking hard I find that majority of the blame for this definition of insanity also rests with us. Half of the civilised and educated lot do not exercise their franchise .The other half do not vote for an unknown clean candidate, instead the attitude of the electorate has always been to choose one or the other useless politician of well known parties. If we can set right these two issues may be we will have better manifestos and better elected leaders !!