THE CHARADE OF CAMPAIGNING AGAIN

The plight of the politicians, especially, the leading ones who are in the fray for notching the top posts in the government post-elections, whichever way the pendulum swings, the utter lack of conviction in their pronouncements and promises, their spiritless articulations full of comic relief for the audience replete as they are with low-quality theatricals, and, above all, their shameless self-exposition devoid of substance for hollowness of character cannot be hid behind stupid stage performances however artfully managed in a decadent world of declining culture, fills one with abhorrence when one in contrast recalls the sacrifices of the countless heroes who fell for the freedom of the motherland only for these future predators to prey upon the liberated people’s descendants. Not that corrupt politicians were in scarcity before since the days of Independence but that they had some sort of civic decorum, a modicum of culture clinging to them like a natural garb and a fair bit of education and character as well in a large proportion of them who aspired for representation of the people’s cause. Now it is the assemblage of a host of unprincipled people that goes to form the body of a political party with an ignorant leader quite often at the helm of affairs. When some such assume office born of popular mandate, one is constitutionally bound to be respectful to such authority in deference to popular sovereignty but one inwardly feels a revulsion to live under the tyranny of unscrupulous manipulators of men masquerading as representatives of the people in a democracy.

Character is a forgotten element in the Indian polity today. It is the vilest tamas (darkness/inertia) that pervades the political scene and semi-literate leaders rule the roost in the legislative bodies across the land with a curious blend of comedy and cockiness and plain irrational irreverence to the general well-being of the masses. Predatory these politicians are whose primary aim is to plunder the wealth of the people in dubious alliance with the barbarous business barons who are reducing the land of Annapurna (Goddess who is the giver of food) to a famished land where children eat grass bread as drought parches the farmer’s precious possession driving many to the desperation of self-destruction. Farmer suicides have now become so common that they no longer evoke much of a response from people or politician. The Bundelkhand children have been accepted by most as grass-eaters for we hear no hue and cry over this terrible tragedy that has befallen the people there. Latur suffers from such an acute water shortage that life itself has got paralysed there even as the Indian Premier League in Maharashtra continues to command the requisitioning of 50,000 litres of water per cricket match. And all this at the behest of mass leaders whose paeans of praise I have sung above.

The average citizen suffers in India from the conjoint tyranny of the State and the capital. This unholy nexus between the two is draining the resources of the country to fill up the coffers of a few billionaire businessmen who stash up their ill-begotten wealth in Swiss banks to the ruination of the nation. The politician provides the space for such exploitation while the economist creates the tool for such scientific suction. The common man suffers anyway. His is the cross of society to bear and he is eventually the crucified one. Thus, through ages he has been suffering patiently for his turn to come when he will also partake of the rightful share of the fruit of his labour and not be robbed of the entire amount by corrupt capitalists aided by perverse politicians. But mass inertia is not easily overcome and historical imperatives alone create opportunities when such socio-economic transformation takes place in a rapid revolutionary change. Global conditions create national victories and the march of man is either accelerated by congenial conditions or thwarted by cramping ones to the delight or the despair of the socialist movement.

Enlightenment there is none as the nation struggles along with half-baked individuals devoid of scruples, character or culture leading the way in much the same way as the Upanishad describes the blind leading the blind. Yet, the Upanishads are there as the surest guide to the nation, nay, to all of humanity. But then, who cares for the guidance of the sages when each politician has become the self-appointed saviour of the people with grandiloquent terms gleaned from the vocabulary to lend credence to their dubious claims? Our motherland, today, is under the resolution of two opposite forces, the thousand year inertia of foreign subjugation and the modern resurgence ushered in by the stalwarts of the Indian Renaissance. The diverse elements of this ancient land are awaking to their freedom with conflicting claims as a nation is being synthesized out of this pandemonium. Raucous politicians are having their field–day as the nation is being bled to its re-birth. But their day is done and, before long, the generations of the future will seize control of the reins of the nation and set to order the house of their mother. Till then, let us endure, even enjoy if we can, or, if not, abhor what seems to be the penchant of these street-actors and field-entertainers of the new-wave declining democracy, the histrionics and theatricals of buffoons alternately bragging and begging for votes so that they may persist in all sincerity in the tyranny of the masses while making good the promises they have made to their vicious dastardly selves.