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Politics is beautiful
business, get interested
One
of the most ubiquitous statements one reads in the media all the
time is that politics is dirty business. Let us start by taking on
this supposition by its horns. Politics is what decides what will be
on your breakfast table, what kind of schools your children will go
to, how your teenage kids will travel to shores far away and whether
someone can block that beautiful view of a rising sun from your
bedroom window by coming up with a six-storey mall right in front of
your sweet little home. Can such a vocation be dirty? What could be
a more pious duty than to follow one's conscience and participate in
this game called politics?
Who
tells you that politics is a dirty game? Try and recall when was the
last time you heard this line. One can put good money on the chance
that it was a politician.
Chances also are that this is the politician whose son may be
looking for a break in politics, whose wife will be wishing to be an
MP, or whose brother may be vying for an Assembly ticket.
We
are passing through times when the crux of politics is hovering
around de-politicising every political notion. The politics over the
Special Economic Zones, instead of igniting a debate over
development models, gets reduced to how much the farmers should be
paid for the land acquired (read snatched). You want your children
to acquire great education and get six-digit salaries and stay away
from politics. Well, unfortunately, that choice does not exist. At
least, their children will not have that choice if today you
do not get interested in politics.
We
all know how in the United States people’s feelings on the question
of Iraq are being swayed by the Republicans because of Americans’
near total de-politicisation, the same American citizens who for no
fault of theirs live under constant threat of terrorism. If only
they were interested in politics, the history of the US-Arab
relations would have been different.
Today, Punjab is going through election mode. The air is thick with
sloganeering. Everyone in Punjab these days claims to be a sure-shot
winner, and everyone and his uncle claims he will do the best for
Punjab if you vote him to power in the February elections.
As
people prepare to decide the fate of the politician, any politician,
our fervent request to you is: please get interested in politics.
You must, because you are interested in your children’s welfare,
because you do care whether the view of a beautiful sunrise from
your bedroom window is blocked or not.
If
you get interested in politics, it becomes difficult for political
parties to make wrong choices of candidates. And politicians would
not be so blasé as to actually issue public statements saying they
gave tickets on the basis of winning ability, rather than
ideologically honest politics.
Ideology has fallen out of fashion. Akali MLAs have quit the party
and joined the Congress from the same seats from where the
Congressman has quit the party and joined the Akali Dal. Both have
been granted ticket by their new parent parties and face each other,
just as they had done in the last elections.
And
in Kharar, poor Bir Devinder is not even being accused by his
opponent of corruption, or lack of winnability, or non-performance.
But still he does not get the ticket. And the man who has got the
Congress ticket, Balbir Singh Sidhu, is telling Bir Devinder not to
quit the party and reconcile. A particularly impolite journalist
finally asked Sidhu why he hadn’t reconciled when he was denied the
ticket last time. Sidhu didn’t have an answer, but he isn’t worried.
If we all get interested in politics, he would have been worried.
That’s the difference. Those who don’t care lose all control. To
gain control, you will have to get interested. “I care” is always
better than “Who cares?”
24 January 2007
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