Independent Candidates are like coincidences. You cannot ignore them. You cannot read too much into them either. In the Indian elections this time around, there are a number of pleasant coincidences, I mean, independent candidates.
While Capt Gopinath and Meera Sanyal, both come from very impressive and successful corporate and banking backgrounds, I found Meera Sanyal much more confident, a pointer to the fact that South Mumbai has a clear politically conscious and politically neutral electoral constituency, relative to South Bangalore.
While South Bangalore had the main candidate in Ananth Kumar, whose campaigns by email were, a breath of fresh air for me, the main candidate of South Mumbai is undoubtedly Milind Deorah. Milind's campaign was largely positive, except for the irritability shown towards Meera Sanyal, which in long and short is: how can one come to politics with sabbatical leave and go back to banking profession in case of non election? This is not the way political profession is pursued.
I, for one, strongly disagree with Milind Deorah. This goes against the very philosophy of what educated, sucessful and socially committed individuals can do for the nation. In case the proposals placed before public by Meera Sanyal are accepted by the voters, she is going to quit her regular job and go to Parliament with no assurance she can get back to her work, in case she is not reelected in the next election. That is sufficient investment of oneself for the social cause.
In case her proposals are not approved by the voters and their mandate to her is not to go to Parliament, how can that mandate become one for not going back to work?
Assuming what Milind proposes is the right thing, no professional can ever think of bringing new arguments and proposals before voters. How does that improve the choices for the voters? And with the repeated mandates what have the political parties really achieved - which is what an independent candidate wants to question and bring about change in the way we look at political power.
It is not at all important whether independent candidates get elected. They do amplify voices that go unheard in the cacophony of psychopants of party leadership. They bring new arguments and they bring in new focus on their constituency. They are needed to oxygenize Indian polity and they can point to changes as may be badly needed in our politics, ahead of others. They do not have to worship anyone and for that reason withhold any view.
The presence of Independent candidates like Meera Sanyal makes Indian elections and political processes more acceptable. They are most needed pleasant coincidences: you may not read much into them but they are catalysts we can ill afford to ignore them.
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With political system so much stained with money and opportunistic alliances becoming the order of the day, I do not know, whether Meera Sanyals. Gopinaths can create any impact on the political scene. It is a bit cynical to think on these lines, when we are about to get first results in about six hours' time. You would watch parties coming together for the sake of looting the nation. All the pre-poll promises and principles will be given a go-by. Excepting Cong and BJP, any party can join any other alliance.
ReplyDeleteWhy do we need so many parties? Why can't we curtail them. It is no virtue to have a multi-paty democracy (whose noble idea is that different parties represent beliefs and aspirations of different people and regions, so essential for a thriving democracy), when these parties and their MPs/MLAs are enaggaed in creaing more and more wealth for themselves.
Why can't we have a system of just three or four. (I am not having American system alone in mind). Nowadays, a party gets created with a leader whose whose soe ambition is be a CM or PM.
In a such scenraio, do we need agovernment with political parties in it. With a few politicians having real view of national and international affairs, we can a have national government (with independents and other people of integrirty, even if they belong to a political party) to un the nation. We can have another parallel political governemnt (kept away from policy-making) and limited to seasoned poiticials (thugs) to loot whatever they can. Once they get their money, they remain peaceful.
Murty
Hi Murty, I thank you for the comment. I was away in India for casting my vote. I thought having persuaded so many to cast their votes as a matter of duty as a citizen of the country, I should practise what I preached. And the geography I live in was an advantage. Reflecting on the multi party political order into which India is deeply entrenched, I am looking at certain advantages the change in Indian polity have brought in. Let me picture them: when only one of two or three parties can rule the country, India will ever have a PM from UP or what used to be called the cow belt. With many parties competing through fronts, the PM can virtually be from any part of the country. States like Tamil Nadu had carried on themselves with serious doubts about the idea of India harboured by certain political forces, which is no longer the case now. In the earlier era of unipolar political order of Nehru's and Indira's (part of her time) times, there was nothing beyond being a CM, a good CM could aspire for. Now the media and analysts do weigh regional leaders with the possibility of their taking over the leadership of the organization either at central or regional levels. In a bipolar order, one could win at the cost of other and more or less that is the end of the story. Today, every party needs to work in collaboration with another or a couple or more of them. While the multi party system suffers from unethical alliances and misuse of power by certain elements, it certainly makes the governance and polity, more broad based and more inclusive one. Just look at what happened out of Congress, it achieved much better under Narasimha Rao and later Dr Manmohan Singh, both according to me, are products of multi polar political order in India.
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