we the people

Vacuum, scientifically defined is a space where nothingness exists. A paradoxical term to define nothing of something. But there is nothing paradoxical about the power struggle going  at the vacuum of centre.

The moral vacuum at the centre of our nation is strangely conductive to sound waves and a lot of name calling has been heard passing through it lately.

A decade or two earlier, a protagonist of Indian politics had been called rather pre-emptively a “ gungi gudia” or a dumb doll. That the doll later turned out to be the most powerful Indian Empress is another issue.

The labels and stickers should be given only after the career of the politician is over rather than at any earlier time. Rahul Gandhi has been often seen as too immature for politics and Narendra Modi has been referred to as a ‘chai wallah’ and a dictator. Both of them are only starting in their careers as candidates for prime ministership and we might be proven entirely wrong about our assumptions and therefore I won’t therefore venture out to call anyone a ‘wimpy boy’, or ‘mr. t’ ( from rocky 3 fame).

There were others too, who had taken up obsequious titles and later had to back down from their stance. “The Iron Man” apart from being an entertaining flick is also the name that a septuagenarian of Indian politics took up. The only part of him that was made of iron was the walking stick that he had to use to move around. That Indian superheroes in arena of politics often fall flat, is a sobering reminder of the fact that fiction is different from reality.

The Silent Man is perhaps the only prominent superhero who has been able to fully utilize his superpower to thwart every attempt of his enemies to put him down. Shri Tusshar Kapoor had been the progenitor of ‘silent’ class of superheroes, so we must pay due credit to him for Silent Man’s success.

A lot of other characters have propped up in the Indian scene to further develop the character line up. Kejriwal is foremost amongst the lineup of emerging superheroes. If we were to give a sobriquet to him, the competition would be between “ The Exposer” or “The Cleaner”. But given the propensity of giving fancy names to our heroes, it would have to be something else. ( Fauladi Jhadu?)

The people of our nation have since time immemorial harboured the keen desire to have a ‘saviour’, who would by waving his magical wand lift the masses out of their desperate conditions. The bollywood movie ‘Naik’ would be a very accurate description of what the people want. An honest man rising out of the masses and taking over the mantle of saving the country all on himself.

With a rather unimaginative name,  the AAP party seeks to project itself as being the only party concerned with the welfare of the common man. Their movement to weed out corruption however is not new in the Indian scene. BJP too had in its heyday been ‘the saviour’. The movement by the venerable JP had been directed against the “the tyrannies of authority”. Today, no one would vouch for their saintliness. Indistinguishable they lie with the rest, wallowing in muds of Indian polity.

Western countries, to which we often look up for setting our own moral compass, haven’t evolved their strong institutes overnight. The Americans once had powerful nexus between the immigrants and their politicians, the French had their corrupt aristocracy, the British barons had to defeat their king to get their bill of rights or Magna Carta. In short, a strong grassroots movement had resulted in masses becoming aware of their rights, duties and had to fight to get them. No self respecting despot would have handed over the power to the people.

The gift of democracy that the people got in 1947 wasn’t attained in the same step by step manner. Neither were people ready to handle the responsibilities that suddenly came with freedom. Such institutes take decades, if not centuries to perfect.  They cannot be thrust upon a nation in the same manner that a seed cannot be expected to sprout fruits the very day it’s planted. A lot of nurturing and a lot of inputs are required for both to grow healthily.

In the coming months, elections would run rife once again in our landscape. Arvind Kejriwal for all his politician bashings, expose’s and the array of degrees and certificates that he has, is going into a pig sty. And by going into politics he has to realise that the politicians are uncannily similar to the pigs in at least one way, they both enjoy a dirty fight and you cannot win from a politician in a dirty fight. Neither can you defeat a pig, especially if it enjoys the mud.

For all the euphoria that Anna campaign had generated, the transformation of a nation takes the intense will of its own people. An educated, politically aware and morally strong populace would select an ethical leader. Would we?

Anna/Kejriwal efforts to transform India might not bring result the next summer, but what is sure to happen is that more and more candidates are going to prop up against the morally defunct parliamentary wall to sprinkle their own colors on parliamentary walls. Parliamentary walls are already a grotesque mix of different yellows, a legacy of some of the earlier leaders who too sought to leave their respective marks.

Most of the times, election is reduced to a long drawn tv show where the erudite scholars of field come on the idiot box and the disinterested audience grunts and huffs and puffs and then switches off the tv to sleep. Why should anyone care about politics? It’s all dirty and I am too high in caste ladder to do the cleaning.

opinion on opinions

Opinions on opinion polls

Inspite of all the brouhaha over the opinions that opinion polls have generated, I decided to go ahead and conduct a poll of my own. This one was on the validity of opinion polls.

The poll on polls generated some poles of opinions. Ok, enough with the wordplay. The result of my pop

 ( polls on polls) came out with a result. According to this result 99.95% people interviewed disliked opinion polls and considered it to be the biggest threat on democracy.

Obviously some errors had crept into the poll. For one, I had conducted this poll on a single person, my roommate and had cleverly worked up till the question. This is how I conducted my poll.

Interviewer: given the massive corruption in ad agencies in the past few years do you think that we should depend on the results of opinion polls

Respondent: ahmm..  I guess not.

Interviewer: With the ownership of majority of media houses in hands of a few business firms, do you think that the news channels are often biased

Respondent: I guess so…

Interviewer: The growing closeness between media houses and political bosses has fractured ethical journalism. What do you think?

Respondent: I guess you are right… gosh I never thought of it from this angle

Interviewer: do you think opinion polls are trustworthy and necessary in a democracy

Respondent: ofcourse not!!

So here, we see that there were some fundamental inaccuracies that I hadn’t disclosed earlier. First of all the sample size was limited to only one person. I had twisted my words and arranged the questions so as to suit my purpose, thus effectively eliminating any neutral opinions in the purpose. There was no check on how, where or in what situations I had conducted my grand poll.

Thus, all these inaccuracies were brushed aside when I merely published my result and made no effort to present the audience with the context. Perhaps if I had published this very poll in a reputed magazine with a nicely illustrated graphic showing the result, majority of people would have taken the results at their face value. Their own beliefs could further have been affected had I shown that even Sachin Tendulkar had taken part in the polls.

It’s a fundamental fact that most of the people don’t always have independent opinions on each and every topic and more often than not follow the bandwagon or the example of a person whom they consider to be respected. But that doesn’t mean that all the polls conducted are unfair. To ban them outright would be a refutation to the scientific methods established to accurately assess the public opinion.

Given the uneven distribution of wealth and power in our society, more often than not it’s the richest who are able to voice their opinions. The weaker sections are more concerned about their daily needs rather than being able to push across their views. Thus sometimes these polls are the only way in which the majority can put their opinions, concerns and problems in the larger public domain.

Thus, political parties would often be misled on the general mood of the country if they don’t have the facility of an accurate opinion poll. Truly there would be some deviations from the reality and there would also be some attempts of sabotaging these, but instead of giving in we might as well try to  monitor these or perhaps poll on the polls.

Whatever be the result of the latest controversy, the voice of democracy needs to come through the din of political squabbles. Perhaps if people poll on opinion polls, then the ministers would be forced to reconsider.