Of late, we have been witnessing a number of things going on in our country which compel us to think where we are leading our nation to and what after all we have got as the idea of India after 65 years of Independence.
We are witnessing on TV screens how the proceedings of parliament are disrupted, how the people are fleeing from fear from Assam, how the people are demanding the resignation of the PM for the coal scam, how the people from Bihar are branded as infiltrators by the Shiv Sena and so on.
Is it a sign of our progress and prosperity or a sign of deterioration in almost every walk of life? Perhaps we would like to say we need not take it too seriously because our nation is too big and such things are quite possible but this is not the answer.
Again why do we feel that there are signs of paralysis in running the administration which has become a mockery of the constitution? To quote a Times of India editorial, “with the parliament paralysed due to the BJP’s obstreperous conduct - resulting in important bills to rejuvenate the economy placed on the backburner - regional chauvinism on the rise and UPA tied up in knots due to the unending spate of scams, the prime minister would do well to the imperative task of sound governance rather than allow his spin masters to pick a quarrel with the media.”
By scrutinising the remarks mentioned above we could easily prove the causes of decline and fall of our country which compels us to look within ourselves and diagnose the evils corroding the destiny of our nation. We might say the whole and sole defect lies in the political parties whether it be of the centre or the states mainly – the regional parties growing like mushrooms in our country. Is it the same India that we inherited laying stress on our sovereignty which is the be-all and end-all of our constitution? Unfortunately our sovereignty is in danger because we seem to have hurt it so much that it has gone beyond our repair.
Who will not wonder if one comes to hear Raj Thackery hounding Bihari migrants or Uddhav Thackery calling for the creation of a state within a state, i.e. Maharashtra, where the Bihari migrants would not be allowed to enter without permits, ignoring the threat to the idea of India which is a sovereign democratic republic and a confederation of states?
Actually speaking, we have to make a choice between co-existence and no-existence at all, or we have to keep ourselves ready to fall. Perhaps we want to fall, not to rise, and this is why we are creating scenes after scenes to devour India. The idea of India is at a threatening point so to say and we are bound to perish without the vision we need at this juncture.
The Congress party remains preoccupied with vote bank politics for the lust of power hardly allows it to work honestly and sincerely and protect the nation from the danger confronting it.
The question arises whether to choose governance worth the name or the government based mainly on vote bank politics. It’s a question of “to be or not be” faced by Hamlet, the tragic hero of Shakespeare’s play.
The question arises why our thoughts and ideas are going against the very ethos of our constitution which is based on the principle of equality and fraternity and why in spite of knowing this we are behaving undemocratically and appear to be cutting the same branch we are sitting upon. Have we become too self-willed to tarnish the image of our democracy whenever or wherever we go? There are questions after questions galore without giving a correct answer to it. Have we become too argumentative to restrain ourselves from discussing our political issues which seems to have gone beyond our comprehension resulting in sheer madness? We have been passing through changes after changes after Independence. But we are unnecessarily misusing the very concept of freedom of speech and expression.
Perhaps during his third visit to India in 1945, EM Forster, the British novelist, drew our attention to numerous changes taking place and wrote “the big change that I noticed was the increased interest in politics.” You cannot understand the modern Indians unless you realise that politics occupy them passionately and constantly, that artistic problems and even social problems - yes, and even economic problems are subsidiary. Their attitude is ‘first we must find the correct political solution, and then we can deal with other matters.’ I think the attitude is unsound and used to say so; still, there it is, and they hold it much more vehemently than they did quarter of a century ago. When I spoke about the necessity of form in literature and the importance of the individual vision, their attention wandered although they listened politely. Literature in their view should expound or inspire a political creed.”
It was in 1945 that Forster had visited India again and what he found in his third visit was much more surprising to him than the experience he had had in the previous two visits in 1912 and 1921. What Forster writes about his experiences is the keen interest in politics above all, taken by our countrymen when India was still to reach the threshold of Independence. He wants to say that because politics occupied them passionately and constantly, seldom allowed them to think about other things like social, artistic and economic problems which do matter equally in the making of a nation of securing independence to a country which had passed through almost two centuries of slavery.
What Forster observed during this visit is relevant to the present India, passing through a crisis of faith in almost every sphere of life. Perhaps Forster wants to pinpoint here the then attitude of the countrymen fighting for Independence which was unsound and unhealthy because it lacked the vision it needed at that time. It’s true that India has got Independence, but it is yet to get out of the morass of narrow groups of thoughts and ideas of mutual jealousy and envy which are prevailing even after independence. As a matter of fact, what we need at this juncture of our moral, political, social and intellectual crisis is the correct and meaningful comprehension of the word ‘politics’ which connotes in the present set-up or the existing machinery of the government, the stratagem to rule or govern a nation by whatever means we can, foul or fair. Politics today is more concerned with the art of winning votes by whatever means we can than with any principle or ideology bereft of which it loses its real meaning and sense. Gandhiji stressed the need of the right means to achieve the right goal but unfortunately in the world of today nothing is unfair in the arena of politics, if it serves our avowed aims to achieve our goal, meaning thereby the ends justify the means. Perhaps this was why Forster said in his memoir of his last visit to India that India struggling for Independence lacked this very approach to the problems it dealt with before it gained Independence.
What he saw in the year 1945 is more or less the same even today and until and unless we discover the reasons of our lagging behind, we cannot lead this country to its prosperity and progress. India is beset with many problems. Divisive tendencies are increasing day by day. We are aliens in our own country and the idea of India as a composite nation is yet to take its deep route. We are wont to fight on silly issues which do not matter in the national interest at all. But driven by political expediency, we are ready to embitter our relations with other states which are part and parcel of our own country.
While discussing the political trends of today’s India, we are forced to ask ourselves what we after all want - a united India or a disintegrated India. Even after a gap of 65 years, we have not been able to form our character in keeping with the prevailing ethos of our country based on the theory of equality and fraternity. We suffer a lot from parochial politics which continues even today after the partition of our country.
Communalism, the bane of our democratic principle, has always been at the root of our divisive politics and even after partition this spectre goes on haunting us time and again. Communalism is a great hindrance to the national amity. The mandir-masjid controversy in Ayodhya hardly seems to come to an end. The idea of India is under attack from the socially divisive politics of Shiv Sena and the Congress.
With our distorted vision we are out to divide our country by quota based promotions in government jobs. It is worthwhile for us to quote Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, the German author, ”Divide and Rule the politician cries, united and lead is the watchword of the wise.” We do not need politicians as such. We need the statesman like vision to get rid of the divisive tendencies to preserve the spirit of real India living in unity in diversity.
