Politicians of Today, Politicians of Yesterday !!

People argue that there has been a steep decline in the dignity of politics by the politicians and they are on completely different sides as compared to their predecessors who represented India during and just after the Indian Independence. In my view, its a bogus argument. Demoralisation or declination of an institution or a discipline does not occur overnight. In my view, the decline of the dignity of politicians, if not the politics, had been a major contention of doubt by "Pitahmas" of politics of every generation. Be it the representatives of Socialist party of 1922 in the ministries of later period or the Congress Party after the Government of India Act 1935, every time there was a sign of reluctance shown by the senior members in participation of elections and ministries crafted by the Britishers because they knew well that most of the humans, including those who are sage, often submits his/her principles to the virtue of "power". And unfortunately, it came out to be true. One of the prime reasons for the Congress to withdraw from the ministries was the increasing level of corruption among its ruling members. After the independence, in 1948 itself there was Jeep Scandal Case which was termed as the first major scandal case in independent India's history. Also, during the making of Constitution, people involved in the different Constitution making committees showed their genius character which they had imbibed, but the members who had been participating in the debate some times exposed their conservative views when it came to issues like National Language or the marriage at will or religious laws particularly the Sharia Laws. The members who had been making noise regarding the Sharia Laws were the previous members of Muslim League. In my view, the present so called "secular" leaders and the communal ones are no way less than any Muslim League members as they are ready to put wedges between the social fabric so that it could continue to strengthen their political base. 

Is there any Difference?

The history is repeating itself because the causes are the same and their is no change, perhaps, in the quality of factors which lead to this. Not to speak of the uneducated or illiterate people, even the educated class continues to behave as if they hold a fake certificate. The entire idea of democracy could be successful only if the people respect the meaning of individual's behavourial quality and not of individual's dynastic quality. Still today this practice prevails in the so called "Institutes of National Importance" like the NITs, IITs etc. where regionalism or the party representation has a lot to do with the college politics. And today with the availability of Social Media platforms, any leader escapes the media questions and answers those on his/her own terms by a tweet or a post. The only difference which makes the behaviour of politicians today and yesterday different is their approach towards media. The "Pitahmas"  used to be media friendly but the politicians today brand any media agency as an agent of the opposite party. In my opinion this is the only difference. The aggression among the politicians have become rampant and they don't want anybody to differ from their opinion. If anybody does, then he is a Pakistani, or an agent, or a Hindu terrorist. 

This aggression is because of two things : 

first, they are finding it very difficult to adjust with the changing generation; too much of media presence which even takes a dig when they play hide and seek while watching porn in the respective assemblies; presence of women in the nation and in every field which is shaking their feet and taking off their grounds. Such is the danger that they even make sexist remarks out of frustration in order to demean its importance. Second is the changing equation of the people itself. In the paragraph above, I have written about the bigot nature of people who till now used to vote on the basis of origin of the corresponding leader, but what could be witnessed now, and which is a good sign, that even in the state election of Bihar, "relative development" is going to be an issue and from a caste based politics it might change to party based politics. which though may not be good but certainly can be branded as an improvement in the present circumstances. Previously when Nitish Kumar's party came, it came on the agenda of development only. That election was a departure of Biharis from caste based politics. But the darker side is this that RJD loosed election not because of this departure but the critical role played by Ram Vilash Pasvan in wooing the Muslim votes away from him. Lalu had his share still less the Muslim votes. In other words that election may not be a complete departure but it was indeed a beginning and it won. 

Conclusion

People are still wandering and they will continue to wander and this wandering will strengthen the politicians to further deteriorate the standard of politics, one example is the recent stalemate of the Parliament which is not only stalling processes but in my terms, its about taking the country on back foot. The onus is on the people to distinguish between what they had contended for and what do they achieved as a result. The movement does not need a leader but individual leader who can guide themselves and not copy any one else.

   

Why Indian version of Secularism is the Best

The very basic definition of secularism is very simple to understand (though even more tough to implement in one's own life),i.e., unbiased orientation to any religion or some consider that secularism means any doctrine that rejects religion or religious considerations. But as we all know, legal processes have their own version in every aspect. There are two versions of secularism considered widely, one is the Indian Secularism and the other is Western Secularism. As per Indian Secularism, the state can interfere in religious sanctions, rules or anything else which it considers uncomfortable with respect to rights conferred on its citizens or residents by it which have evolved out of hundreds of debates, years of struggle for equal right towards its freedom from a foreign government or its peaceful era during a Mughal Empire which turned disastrous during Aurangzeb. Whereas the Western Secularism does not interfere with the definition of secularism at all. It has imbibed it as a principle definition, its definition strictly means that state has nothing to do with religious considerations.

The point is this that the two definitions are good on their own where Indian secularism, with respect to state, is not a hundred percent definition but the definition of Western Secularism could be said to be hundred percent in its character. But the point is this that India and West have one thing in common, they adhere to the Human Rights (HR) and HR should not be violated on any grounds. Now the point is this, that as per HR, Indian Parliament and Courts can direct anyone to put its religious sanction on back foot and must follow the state's decision  whereas with regard to West it becomes difficult. Due to this sometimes Western nations find it very difficult to accommodate its people from other nations to adjust in its environment whereas in India, its very clear, messing with state on the name of religion is not good for health though political sector may show sympathy (often).

This clear perception, in case of India, drives the third generation to normally a no confusion state but in case of West, it often goes out of order. This has resulted into participation by the third generation into terrorist organistaion such as IS etc. from the Western countries but from India, despite having larger share of population, there is very little participation.

**The Third Generation means the second successor of a migrant. So suppose a person moves to another country then his grandson/grand daughter belongs to third generation

Part of the problem also lies with the western society which generally does not digest easily any new comer and instead of considering her/him part of the family, considers her/him as a "resource sharer". One of the reason which may sound valid to those who are exposed to such situation is this that the westerners are finding it very difficult to cope up to the competition which they have never witnessed. And the version of their definition further reinforces that conclusion as they discriminate people on the basis of culture they pursue, and since state can absolutely not interfere with that culture (which is good but turns out to be bad), they brand those other people as "migrants". This results in this that despite living in the corresponding countries for may be more than half a century, these migrants though may not be officially a migrant any more, but psychologically they remain so. European countries are very different from USA, in my opinion the Europeans are still very conservative and orthodox kind of people. Even USA did not see such a huge participation in terrorist related organisation like ISIS by its citizen as the Europeans did. Things in America turned out bad only after the 9/11 attack.

Conclusion

Leave aside the communal organisations like RSS or All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen or Indian Christian Front, the Constitution of India and the Supreme Court of India could be regarded the best on their platforms as compared to any other in the world. We allow people not only to upkeep their religion (unlike French Court which does allow Christian nuns to wear veils but does not allow Muslim women to wear Burqa ) provided it does not violate any basic feature of our Constitution but we also do not allow any body to say anything derogatory against any religion like "Charlie Hebdo" in the name sake of so called "Freedom Of Speech". 

Thanks UPA for your 10 years.....

Jacques Yves once said, " The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its nets of wonder forever." Let me put a different perspective of it," The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its nets forever." The difference between these two lines is just the sentiment, the former is positive and the later could serve the purpose of both, negative and positive. A wise person will say, it will be often negative. Prabhakaran Paleri, the former Director General of Coast Guards said, one who masters the ocean, masters everything. He also suggests different methods of safeguarding its sea. The best he suggests is the inclusion of neighbours or friendly neighbours. It does not matter how strong one is, and how weak its neighbour are, but a friendly term between neighbours should be utmost priority and it should always be preferred to a very strong but very distant relative. Mutual relationship becomes too much wider when this relationship involves two regions or two countries. The greatest of the greatest empires like Mughal Empire, Mauryan Empire etc. had been built by getting into establishing marital relationship with the un-tamable neighbour, who despite were weak but strategically too important too fight with. Their cooperation was desired rather than a hardly 1-2 months of fight. The ruler who understood this, became "The Great".

The UPA Saga

Unfortunately, the above events were not in the analysis of the UPA 1 or 2. The leadership had the time to visit US 8 times in 10 years but not once to visit "small" neighbours particularly those who were at the sea. Every time some pre-occupation, economical or political, stopped them doing so. They remained looking at sea, thinking and staring at it. Even those which had been visited earlier remained neglected due to the pre-occupation. Name the countries and we find only denials in terms of our commitments towards them :
Nepal was not visited once; Bangladesh remained at backfoot (he visited it only once); No Sri Lanka; poor handling of sensitivity in Maldives; Afghan President moves closer to those who were never on Afghani agenda and our country did nothing; Myanmar set ups it camps on our soil; What to say about Thailand, Vietnam etc. Of all the countries which Mr. Manmohan Singh visited, most of the time he visited to attend some summit, its hard to say that he had any specific bilateral agenda on his mind when dealing with these countries.
To add to our misery, China was working very craftily and hawkishly, while we were busy in persuading the West which was declining; we utterly neglected Asia which was rising. And what did we do with our pro-West policy is that we witnessed the lowest ebb ever with America in the end because of a lady who was not so decent (the Khobragode incident). After all this preferential treatment, an ebb!!! So, in other words, we did hardly anything with regard to foreign policy. The worst was this, that in all this we also loosed to some extent the Russians who found us too close with the West and with the rising China, Russians started looking at them. We failed to secure our seas while we were getting roped in by "String of Pearls". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_of_Pearls_(Indian_Ocean))

Our "Iron Fist Policy", which was supposed to be a counter of the Chinese string, was pushed even to further backfoot when Iran detained our oil ship.Though its true that many social initiatives like Adhar Card etc. were taken by the government but the fact of the matter is that Central Govt. is not all about distributing rations, states can handle that if directed properly, the very purpose of making a country strong from "National Security" point of view lies solely with the Central Govt. Since we badly loosed our Sea during that period, I have not an inch of doubt while saying this that we failed in it. The complaints registered by our neighbours could not be neglected and their closening ties with China cannot be declared as selfish. If we cannot ensure them that we do stand with them, how the hell they will not start removing their dependencies from us. Every countries foreign policy enshrines only one aspect : Its security with respect to its economy and defence (in particular). Every time we cannot get away through by sending the notes of "Panchsheel". If we have to achieve something then we have to transform our dialogues into action. Those actions include making our relationship with the neighbours strong in terms of both aspects. When they will see us wandering and submitting to the powers they do not want to do so, how would they submit our confidence on us??