India Beyond Stampede Of Stupidities by Santosh Jha (read along books .TXT) 📖

needs more and detailed explanations and analyses but I am not going into that to avoid the focus being shifted from the core issue. The idea, which this essay is trying to bring forth, is the realism that India and its trouble are not as simple as political populism makes out to be. Also, it is stupidity to enter into a blame game for the multiplicity of troubles India faces. It has to be accepted that India is a big country and its troubles have historical as well as socio-cultural elements and factors. The troubles are not purely political and even this political problem cannot be solved by the overdose of populism, which all political party, activists as well media are resorting to.

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The Missing Idealism

There is a popular idea in political philosophy, about which it is important to talk here. There always was debate over the utility and role of state over people in a society. After loads of discussion over the centuries, an idea was coined which said, ‘the state is a necessary evil, which is essential for the short-run and it shall vanish when people shall become self-regulated’.

It is relevant to remind that Mahatma Gandhi had also emphasized on the need of self-regulation of citizens, which shall be possible by taking democracy to grassroots level. The experiment of Panchayati Raj system was a model to instill the idea of localized self-governance and self-regulation of societies but we have not seen its success. The larger blame for it goes to the label of common man. The broad idea is – politics and governments are friends of people when they are aware and disciplined. A self-regulated society shall automatically weed out every social, cultural and political ill.

In India, just the reverse has happened over the years. From early seventies, when political influence of dominating Congress party waned, all governments started to succumb to larger doses of populism. As the governments at Union and states embraced suicidal populism, administration and policing started to become soft and pliable. The authoritative state institutions, which in time should have evolved towards larger and better acceptance and assimilation among the masses, were made subservient to populist policies and personal political gains. The populist streak calamitously ensured that everyone, be it politicians, the power brokers, the entrenched classes and even common man, created bypasses and diversions into the system’s highway of linear functioning.

This ensured that subsequent governments and administration became weak and pocket institutions of the few. The current trouble of India, be it corruption or non-performing mediocrity, stems from constant weakening of state institutions. No doubt, India needs big changes in the way politics works here, or state machinery at all levels operate. All aware citizens of India, especially the youth know this simple fact that the major Indian trouble is a deep-seated non-performing and paralyzed system of governance and administration. It is only natural that they want someone, at the top of government, a prime minister who is proactive and aggressive in intent, who could not be made to succumb to either populism or systemic sense of calamitous practicality of political survival.

The tragedy is, India’s problems are not this simple as anyone, a prime minister or some minister could solve in some months or years. Delivery of goods by the political system would need an overhaul and inputs not only in political-administrative system, but also in the socio-cultural system. This is a long haul and not only politicians, but millions of those involved in administration would also be needed to respond positively to changes. This is tough.

The activists are very right in their talks and intent about big attitudinal and structural changes in Indian political and administrative culture but they fail to entertain the reality that a system, concretized over 50 years shall not respond positively overnight. Attitudinal and cultural changes in mindsets cannot be brought about in days or months. The fact remains that we all are dealing with our own people. The millions of men and women in political and administrative system are not external enemies. They are very much Indians and our own people. They cannot be treated with disdain and violence like enemies. Patience and perseverance alone shall pay as things shall definitely change but in the long run. The greed and thrill of populist short-term gains shall derail the current energy of change.

The current stampede of stupidities may not be as bad as it seems. It at least has energies, which threaten to break the status quo and gloom of procrastination. Beyond this contemporary stampede of stupidities, India can think of having a better and streamlined channelization of these energies if the participants and protagonists of change emphasize on the crucial and cardinal need of self-regulation and self-discipline as number one requirement for any meaningful and positive change in Indian system of politics and governance. Reactionary and instant-solution mindset has never won things and it shall never.

Indian history is full of precedents where many reactionary energies of change failed to make any significant impact. Often, such reactionary initiatives not only lose their energies soon, rather they lend empowerment to those elements of opportunists, who use the energy to further weaken the nation.

In the years to come, if India has to survive as a successful nation, the common man label has to improve drastically. Average Indian has to be more aware, empowered and self-regulated as globally, states and its institution are on the abdication mode. The continued march of liberalization and open market economy norms are gradually making larger areas of governance and administration going to private hands. Today, the common man complains of corruption and administrative non-performance of government machinery if he or she does not get enough electricity supply. Few years down the line, government shall come out of the power production and it shall be fully in private sector. The power tariff shall not be subsidized and as government shall no more be a player, there shall be no accusation of political-administrative corruption. However, the power shall become costly and it shall then be on every individual to practice self-regulation, if he or she has to make his power budget within limits of his pocket. Finally, the struggle shall shift to markets, from politics. The battle shall remain with common people.

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A Possible Alternative Model

There are broad issues in India, which need to be handled with political consensus, without susceptibility to populism. It is evident from experiences that any political party, even if it wins elections with big majority, does not dare to take such measure and decisions for welfare of nation, which go against populist demands.

Nobody wants to lose the next elections. That is why, it is important that these issues are taken care of either in a non-political set up, or someone rises above populism and dares to do them, with his own personal initiative.

The larger trouble with India is socio-cultural and for their solutions, the nation needs a renaissance, which politics and economics cannot bring about. This issue of cultural renaissance is a huge issue and needs to be handled separately. No doubt, this renaissance shall have an innovative mix of scientific objectivity and neo-spiritual subjectivism. However, the details of it need separate treatment. Here, in this essay, we focus only on politics and governance issues.

The trouble with politics and governance in India is two faced. First, there is already a broad consensus among the true policy makers and intellectuals of India about a national agenda of a modernist and empowered India. However, this agenda is always sacrificed at the altar of populist politics of political parties. Secondly, there is never an acceptance of what structural and functional changes the current system needs for enhancing the efficacy of implementation of this agenda. It is evident from the functioning of Indian political system and political parties so far that the national agenda and systemic changes cannot be brought about by the contemporary political system. India shall need an innovative solution of its current problem.

It is not a bad idea to have a ten-year moratorium on political governance at the Union level. Parties may continue to contest state elections and form governments in states on current format. However, at the Center, India can have a national government, without political affiliations. For ten years, an elected president of India, without party affiliation may be allowed to select a team of expert from the fields of science, economics, academics, jurisprudence and administration to formulate good and desirable policies on the core areas. The states shall be made responsible for implementation of the policies. The legalities of this innovation can be set up.

Following core issues, relating to India’s overall wellness can be assigned to this national government for ten years:

A definitive and strong population policy, which is largely deterrent in nature as compliance to it shall be ensured by withdrawing government facilities, tax benefits and subsidies. In some cases, there may be some fines.

Decision on quantum and procedures of reforms in the following sectors:

Electoral

Police, bureaucracy and media

Economy and markets

Taxation regime

Zero tolerance policy on culture of societal and community violence.

Major improvement and investment in education and health sector infrastructures. These two sectors have virtually made life hell for average citizen. Investments in infrastructures cannot be compromised.

Major improvement in justice dispensation system.

It is a dream that a prime minister of India, in near future, shall rise above political compulsions, guided by his higher consciousness, and be generous and proactive to take initiative towards building consensus on the above-mentioned core issues. It is a dream that someone on top of political echelon shall have the courage of conviction and moral will, to go beyond political compulsions. He shall take up talks and consultations with all parties and involve all in the process to work out a consensus for these core issues so that India in coming decades becomes a country of strength and empowerment.

This is something, every rational mind sees beyond the stampede of stupidities in all times of history. There has to be hope and dreams beyond this stampede of stupidities, otherwise, the energies, which cyclically travel a dialectic path, shall have no utility.

All stampedes leave behind a trail for future sanity. It is a hope that someone, somewhere in political horizon shall track the trail of sanity and lead India to wisdom and wellness. If not, no nation can stand the weight and impact of series of stampedes of stupidities. It is a no-option situation.

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Call Of New Millennium – You Must Rise…

There is a long history of humanity, which tells us categorically how humanity has passed through unimaginably tough and disastrous times and situations. Every one of us living and surviving, must always remember very humbly the 4 million year long trail of tragedies, pains, disasters and struggle, which billions of our forefathers had to undergo, before it could come to what we are enjoying and taking for granted in 21st century. The humanity could survive and progress because it always kept the collective Quantum of Compassion high enough to limit the calamitous causalities of all entropic elements. This collective quantum of compassion was high enough because it essentially is the design of human consciousness, unless vitiated by an ill-intentioned social-political-religious culture. It seems; average individual, in its own personal capacity, held compassion as core element of human life-living. This compassion; expressed in Collective Will to ensure the optimal sustainability of Survival instincts, was innate and entrenched in collective unconscious for millions of years.

The biggest repository of compassion probably was the ‘family system’, which could survive and prosper only because of this single major resource of mutual compassion. If humans evolved as social being, it was because millions of years of evolution had witnessed its utility-fruition and therefore entrenched in the very body-brain mechanism of humanity. The collective and its compassion-cover preceded humanity since millions of years in mammalian animal world. Compassion, in its elemental holism is the most powerful Causality of cosmic Reality. Humans are only the happy