I had to participate
in Panchayat Election 2015 of U.P. State of India as a candidate for Membership
of Block Development Committee (BDC), usually known as Kshetra Panchayat from
my native village Khandoi in district Bulandshahr of the State. A person
belonging to my village, but not living here normally, wanted to be elected by
the people of the village unanimously for BDC without going to people for their
votes. On his visits to the village, he used to provide belly-fill alcoholic
liquor to drunkards of the village. In return, the drunkards declared their
support to him in this misadventure and forced another candidate to surrender. As
nobody had courage to confront the person and his drunkard supporters, I had to
rise up and declared my candidature for the Membership of BDC to force an
election. At this, that candidate left the field but engineered three more
candidates for the position to oppose me.
Though people of the
village are convinced of my honesty, uprightness, capability, etc needed for
the position, but masses want much more than these. They wish to elect a person
who would support them in fulfilling their right as well as wrong desires. I
don't have those skills and temperament for getting mass-support for getting
elected by the masses, hence I was alone when I declared my candidature. Later,
few more persons joined me and supported me in getting votes of people, but
each one with his own personal agenda. The result was obvious. I was defeated
in the election by a large margin by another candidate who supports people even
in their immoral actions.
But the effort didn't
go in vain. I established through this election that an election could be
fought on purely
ideological lines without bribing voters in any way which I stuck to
throughout the election process.
Second leg of the said
Panchayat Elections is for the post of Village Chief (Pradhan) which is
currently in process. The post is reserved for the most down-trodden sections
of Indian people, called Scheduled Castes (SC). These castes have very few educated
people and are often deficient in material resources. Therefore, capability of
the person so elected is not a consideration but the idea is to provide a share
of political power to the down-trodden classes of the society. Theoretically,
the concept looks lucrative but suffers from many limitations of practical
value.
Reservation Policy
Firstly, the
reservation policy provides political authority to incapable persons providing
massive opportunity to administrators to become autocratic, corrupt and
inefficient. This is the worst cause for backwardness of India even after 68
years of India getting independence. This calls for not providing any
reservation for political authority (posts in Governments including Panchayats)
of the Nation As far as uplifting of
downtrodden classes is concerned, it can be served well through reservations in
government employment opportunities only. For this, impairment of Governance
and Administration of the Nation through reservations is proving
counter-productive.
Secondly, reserved
class people elected to political positions are often driven by their mean
desires of getting rich quickly, hence such people are more corrupt than those
of other classes further causing impairment to governance and administration of
the Nation.
Thirdly, people of
superior classes of the society often dominate over people of down-trodden
people elected political positions making the former more autocratic and
corrupt. Case of reservations for women for political positions provides a
shameless view of how constitutionally elected functionaries of the Nation work
through their veils and master-minded by their husbands and other relations.
Present Status
From the above case
study, it is clear that since Intellectuals of India can't support illegitimate
demands of masses, they never get massive support if they enter electoral
politics. Hence, political authority of the Nation remains with mediocre
populist politicians who often get involved in wrong activities for serving
their vested interests which are anti-people and anti-Nation. With these
politicians remaining unbridled, they have created an administrative set up in
the country of the same type. With this happening in India since independence,
it has been leading to formation of an Aristocratic political and Administrative
hierarchy in the country usurping all the public resources of the Nation and
exploiting helpless people of the country.
Intellectual Control on Politicians
Intellectuals can't
determine who would capture political power in the country at any time. It
depends on circumstantial factors and political manipulations of people by
politicians contesting political elections. But this never means that
Intellectuals have no role to play in Indian politics. They can certainly
determine through their activism how politicians in power would behave. This
would have a soothing impact on administrators too, who themselves are part and
parcel of intellectual force of the Nation.
For purifying
political scenario of the Nation, Intellectuals must not only keep their own
eyes and ears open but also be eyes and ears of the Administration of the
Nation for bringing erring politicians to book and putting illegitimate
activities of politicians and administrators on record. Once such things are
put on record, sooner or later the records have their impact on how the Nation
is governed.
Constitutional Amendments Needed
Truly speaking, present
India is not being governed democratically for the simple reason of victorious
candidates in an election are not ensured of having support of more than 50
percent people of their electors. A simple maximum number of votes needed for a
candidate for winning an election is against spirit of Democracy. No matured
Democracy of the World has been working on this basis. This has been the reason
for casteism and regionalism playing dominant roles in politics of the country.
This has been a serious flaw in the Constitution of India needing immediate
attention and activism of Intellectuals of the Nation. The subject can't be
left to politicians who have been keeping in power for this flaw of the
Constitution.
Second amendment in
the Constitution needed is abolition of all sorts of reservations in the
Nation. During the last 68 years, the reservations provided their best whatever
has been possible. Continuation of these serves vested interests of nasty
politicians and mars efficiency in governance of the Nation.
