By:Vishakha Rai
Date:2018-04-14
We all know that politics is weird and for an outsider it’s a complete mystery. In this blog I would like to discuss the politics of India, exclusively the elections, from the eyeglasses of money. Here I would like to discuss the practical reality.
We all know that winning an election is never easy, it is a big challenge for popular leaders and almost an impossible dream for an ordinary man, but still such is the glamour of politics or say the addiction of politics that there would hardly be a person who would not dream of contesting an election and winning it. This statement has a logic to support it’s claim, we know that majority of adult population now a day cast their vote, This clearly means that they are involved in politics but only as much as their right allows them. When one is investing time to elect others why wouldn’t his deepest desires also want to be elected by others?
This is the reason there is a provision for contesting election independently, many politicians consider independent participation in election as irrelevant, they argue that politics is about society and what is the relevance of someone, who is outside the society, in politics? Well the reason they think so is because their mind is occupied by socialist though so much that they are not able to understand that politics is for society but is for individual as well. In fact politics is for democracy. In India we are so much occupied by the thought of socialism because we live in a country which is defined as socialist in our constitution. But one must again note that politics is not only for constitution also. It is for democracy. It is for people. Just because lawyers are verbally more active in politics doesn’t mean that it is only about constitution and socialism. Being a good orator is a part of their profession and this skill cannot dictate the democracy or the people.
And above that, independent doesn’t mean individual, or someone not actively participating in society. It simply mean not dependent on other’s. Or self dependent.
Now let us see how money works in this game. I have discussed a lot in previous blogs that money is the value which has some use. The bank note or the bank balance is actually just an accountancy of lending. A bank note is just a document of lending values. This clearly means that people earn the document of lending or the cash or the bank note when they do some favor to others. Suppose a merchant sell food, then a hungry person may buy that food from the merchant for the exchange of cash, this clearly means that he lend the food for the cash. The cash has the promise written on it that the equivalent value will be returned to the merchant in future. Often people value this promise more than any other stuff. This is the reason they save it. They spend it only if necessary, they also invest it so that its value may rise. In a word they want to make people or the system more indebted to them. During election we can say that they try to buy vote through spending this promise. It is just like saying to people that I did so much favor to you and hence I earned so much cash or bank balance. Now I am asking for the return in form of votes, in form of your support.
Many time candidates do social service, social service is often the free service. But since nothing is free, through social service also you actually do favor. In a way you give them values for free. For example, a politician distributing food, cloth or medicines to poor without taking any cash. Though cash is just a promise but since it is limited, and difficult to earn so it is valuable. Those who cannot earn it are termed as poor. But does the politician earn anything when he does so? Yes, here also he earns brand. He is looked as a messiah or robin hood. This identity may help him in winning election. These kind of politicians are referred as communists, and the one discussed before, I mean those who earn cash or bank balance and spend it to get vote are termed as capitalists.
Democracy has a goal of nourishing all types political thought. We can say communism as leftist thought and capitalism as the right one. Democracy never considers any of them as good or bad. It is just interested in flipping the coin. Its purpose is to do justice and it has a theory that justice is a dynamic phenomenon. Time and destiny does the justice and our duty is to seek for it and keep experimenting.
Now let us discuss about independent politician, we can see that both, whether it’s a messiah type politics or the communist thought, or it’s a capitalist politics, is based on give and take principle. In messiah type communist politics politicians give value and earn identity. In capitalist politics politician give value and earn legal promise in form of cash and bank balance, and both of them use it to get support in form of vote during elections. So we cannot say that either is absolutely honest, if there is some mistake in accounts then both can be blamed as corrupt. And this is what actually happens, left keep blaming right and right keep blaming left. Communists blame that capitalists win election based on money power and capitalists blame than communists win election by bribing the voter through values and favors done only during election.
This clearly means both the thoughts are occupied by selfishness up to some extent. Now though an Independent candidate also may be a leftist or a capitalist, but it will be wrong to call it independent. We often say that independent candidates don’t have any political ideology at all. But is that true? Just because an independent candidate didn’t cast his favor on the voter doesn’t mean that he has no political ideology. In fact if we look at the rules regarding the election then we can see that law prohibits any action that affect voter. Which try to tempt the voter. Though this law is said to be active only during election, but isn’t it true that the law is for everyone and for all events. Why only during election? If tempting voter is unethical then it should be unethical for every event. We live in an independent country, we are not slaves neither we meant to be. Then why our decision should be affected through any mean, let it be through some value or promise. Above all our choice should not be affected at all. So in a since we can say that both the left and right politics is aimed to destroy our independence by making us dependent. So through this logic isn’t it true that independent politics is the most honest one. Supporters of left or right politics often claim that an independent politician don’t tend to do anything. He just thinks of his own. This is where they are wrong. Of course independent politics has a purpose and it is to make people independent. So, does that mean we are not independent? Well quite of, the freedom struggle gave us independence but we probably lost it to this left and right politics. Independence means not depending on others. Job or livelihood is a subject of independent politics and isn’t job a very big political topic today everywhere?
Independence also has to do with courage and security. So isn’t the courage or security one of the most fundamental needs of the humanity? In my opinion independent politics is the politics which we need. We don’t need left or right politics. We indeed need independent politics. We probably don’t need social servants, we also don’t need merchants to be our leader, we in fact need a teacher, who can teach us how to live and earn a living, as our leader.We need a leader who can teach us independence. Of course such politician would not be like a messiah, neither like a business tycoon, he might look like an ordinary man. Who knows how to achieve independence and can also teach us. This leader is inside all of us. And this leadership thought in fact makes us a leader. This leader would be the true leader of democracy, in fact we can say that an independent candidate is the one which supports neither communism(left) or capitalism(right). He is democratic, he supports democracy. Can anyone say that democracy is not real or it only thinks about itself?
