Indians and Politics

This may be a very contentious issue to be tinkered with but what’s the point in trying to tame a meek goat when it would be much more fun to fight with a raging bull. So let me try to control this bull with some logical points which may not go down so easily with everyone, and for the rest take these words with a pinch of salt as is generally done with Tequila shots for reasons know to everyone.

The linkage and affection of politics and Indians is almost as old as that of earth and sun. As no one can comment on “Who came first, chicken or egg?” nothing conclusive can be said about this issue also. The recorded history shows Rama being sent to exile by the political Keykayi, this may be the first instance of politics ever played but who knows what happened before that. The affection of Indians with politics can be attributed to many reasons some of which I would enumerate here.

1) 1) Inherent tendencies to think: Right from our childhood we see people fighting and politicizing against each other, day in and day out. An innocent child learns politics from his mother and grandmother politicizing against each other, the father and his boss politicizing against each other. He grows up in such an incubative environment that it is difficult for him to resist his newly developed instincts from trying on people around him on the first chance he gets to use.

2) 2) Extreme amount of free time: Plenty of people don’t have much to do in their day to day lives. Result, they start thinking laterally, on issues which don’t affect them, issues which are irrelevant for them. Twisting and bending each fact becomes a source of enjoyment in their otherwise boring and wretched lives. The fun to do something wrong to an unsuspecting person is something which they strive for. Rumor mongering is a favorite pass time of good for nothing people who can otherwise do nothing constructive in their eternal free time.

3) 3) The tendency to have an opinion on everything: How many of us don’t think that they can be a better prime minister than Manmohan Singh or a better cricketer than Sachin? Almost all of us believe that whatever is happening is wrong and could have been better if they were allowed to pour in their invaluable contribution towards everything. This is not only true for bigger things like these but also for much smaller and inconsequential things like student body functioning or even the working of a non-profit volunteer club. So awesome people try to become more awesome by criticizing the lesser awesome incumbent members of each organization.

4) 4) The tussle of mediocrity and meritocracy: Again a live wire to touch, but people who are mediocre and more importantly themselves believe that they are mediocre try to fight merit by the only possible way which is the political way. Equitable distribution is their slogan since distribution on merit is something which would leave them starving and naked on the street. Result, targeted political attacks on people who don’t even need to be political, their merit would take them places they want to reach, places which these people can only day dream of.

The truth of these statements is reflected in the amount of tussle for every student body election in every university, be it at graduate level or post-graduate level. These tussles sometimes become very poisonous as seen every year in DU elections with violence marring the democratic process. The love of politics and power is so ingrained in each one of us, that we make sure to live up to them even outside India. A simple look at other universities outside India would show the manpower we have in their student bodies. This may be good or bad, that is an issue we are not debating on. The issue is the preference this thing takes over primary academic activities. Some people might argue that had it not been the case we wouldn’t have had so many politicians, after all almost all of them started their political career from DU only. And who knows, it may have been better for our country.

Nobody could escape the ever growing sphere of influence of politics and politicians. If lord Rama couldn’t escape the politics played by his own mother, who are you and me to even think of escaping it. I have poured in my opinions about this issue in front of you, after all you see; even I have an opinion about things. Think twice before liking them or hating them, for this is a total non-political effort in putting in my opinions.