A Welcome Change
As we all know people with conscience like Kuldip Nayar, Justice Rajinder Sachchar, Surendra Mohan, Medha Patkar, Aruna Roy, Yogendra Yadav, Dr Sandeep Pandey et al have long been keeping themselves aloof from politics per se, despite the fact that they have always been in the thick of the affairs where each of their activities and thoughts have been affecting not only a great section of the society but have always yielded massive political ripples, making their impact deep into the political jungle.
Yet for various reasons, these people shun politics and let their arena of activities restricted to what is generally known as Social activities. But over the period, they must have realized that an substantial impact to be felt in all the nooks and corners of the society needs a direct and active participation in the political process itself. Just the way in Mao’s world power flowed through the barrel of gun, in most of the democratic countries power flows through the political processes. And Power is needed on two accounts- firstly to do things for the society and the people in the desired way in fullest measures and secondly to stop those unscrupulous and loathsome power-hungry creatures from creeping to these posts of power and authority who would be using it only for self-seeking purposes.
This is a welcome change of outlook and I must say, this dawn of realization by such enlightened persons is bound to have its visible impact on the tottering political structure. But each one of them, along with their friends and followers will have to realize and clearly understand that this cannot be a one-day process. It is a time-consuming process where continuous and deep involvement will be required. As they say, if wishes were horses, beggars would fly. This can be seen nowhere more aptly that in politics because it is concerned with the hearts and minds of individuals. And to wean the Indian populace away from the regular doses of opium-like indoctrinations seeped into caste, creed, religion and other such segregating tendencies would not be a simple job, as say lightening a candle or conducting a seminar or coming up with a Fact-finding report. It is much more complex, for the simple reason that human mind is the most complex of all the things we have around us.
But, one certainly feels happy that when all these people have joined hands and have come on a common platform to form the Lok Rajniti Manch, they will start making discernible impacts sooner or later. These people, with their devotion to the cause of human upliftment and to the betterment of the society are bound to bring the much-needed impetus in the area which today needs the highest concern of all the like-minded and right-thinking persons.
The only thing it needs is that the interest and/or commitment of these people do not die down with the end of these elections. There can be two primary reasons for this. Firstly, the candidates of the Manch might not be actually coming up with as many votes as per their expectations or in equal number as people are coming out in apparent support. The reason is simple. The Indian voter has got so much used to the fake hype and hoopla of the winning candidates, whom they always recognize only through their display of money and naked show of muscle-power, looking with tainted eyes that have factors like caste and religion having completely affected their vision that a “simple” and “plain” candidate like the ones chosen by the Lok Rajniti Manch might come up as being unimpressive. This is because the Media and the political parties have ensured that the candidate is evaluated through all the possible yard-sticks other than his/her real worth as a human being. A candidate is a selling commodity, who like a Bollywood film needs the tadka of oomph, glitz, glamour, caste, religious intonations and fake emotions. They don’t want to go into the real merits of the candidate nor into what his/her intentions and manifesto of work is. One is sure this will change, but will it not need some kind? Has anyone seen a Banyan tree grow up within a day or day?
The second and no less important is the fact that each one of the guiding lights of this endeavour are extremely busy persons in their own rights and always have their hands full with commitments. Thus there is always a possibility of this cause getting slipped from their to take a back-seat and to emerge only when the next General elections are due. Nothing would be more fatal for the cause.
Dr Nutan Thakur
IRDS, Lucknow
