India goes to vote in a month from now. Well, usually I am not so gung ho about the current crop of politicians that we are forced to select from or elect for that matter. But it helps to be in the company of learned people. So here goes the story.As usual I was being ostensibly condescending ( like the so called well informed 'urban' youth of today) about the state of Indian politics and how voting this year would be another failed attempt at reviving a slain dream. With limited knowledge as my only armour I set out to list the shortcomings of the two pillars of of Indian politics.
So BJP with its hindutva rhetoric and rath yatras never appealed to me. And with VHP ( sole defendants of Hindu Culture) and other moral policing parties as their allies they're out of the running for me. Congress with the holy trinity of Women power, Experience and Youth ( Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi ) is good for pre election smooth talk. But the ground reality is 4 years of power and they haven't delivered. Terror is quite literally at our doorstep, Economic reforms are at a standstill and our neighbours, both Pakistan and China now think of us as a spineless nation mirroring the image projected by the incumbent Govenment.
So these are the two behemoths. Along with them come the allies which actually pull the strings. The Amar Singhs who have taken Politics to new lows. The Prakash Karats who have the ideology, but left (punn intended) to them we would actually be going backwards. The Mayawatis who still play caste politics and win votes. "This is the dismal state of Indian politics", I said and ended my diatribe.
"These are all facts" said the more experienced of the two of us. "But facts and figures often obscure the big picture. Barack Obama, a Black became the US President 45 years after Martin Luther King made his famous 'I have a dream' speech. That is the magic of democracy. A democracy makes the unthinkable possible. 70% of India is rural. The efficacy of our politicians cannot be gauged by how soon Mumbai can be converted to Shanghai but how soon our villages can be empowered. The very fact that Mayawati can come up from dalit beginnings to now become an epitome of hope in UP signifies a change in ideology. BJP is soon realising its hackneyed 'hindutva' formula appeals to not more than a handful of goons and is fast fomulating alternate strategies to reach out to the larger hoi polloi. Congress has bunch of young guns who with some experience might actually start making a difference. So as long as 'We the People' know what we want as a nation, these venal, power thirsty public servants can only oblige. The wheels are in motion and India will continue to progress with the occassional snag from the backward forces. That, my friend, is a democracy and our biggest strength. " And thus he rested his case and gave me my reason to vote.
So even though China beats us to GDP and Pakistan to terrorist outfits ,a democratic, multi-ethnic, secular India is an idea that belongs to the future. Wake up and smell the coffee, you might just be a part of history in the making.
