Be Political

RASHTRA BHAW

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Our country has seen numerous changes while transforming into India from Bharat Varsh. Earlier Bharat was a nation of humanity, morals, ethics, values and ‘Niti’ (I didn’t find any parallel word in English for ‘Niti’ representing such broader meaning and sense as the word ‘Niti’ depicts.) Our system and concepts were based on heights of moral values, personal ethics were much more important and primary than social ethics. ‘sanyam’ i.e ‘self-regulation, ‘niyam’ i.e mode of conduct and a definite way of life and ‘tyag’ i.e sacrifice were taught before the alphabets and words. We were taught- “अक्षीणो वित्ततः क्षीणो वृत्ततस्तु हतो हतः” means nothing gets spoiled if money spoils but everything spoils if character spoils. That’s why India, in its history, never seen the beheading of Father by his own son or mutiny by brother against his own brother only for the stake of thrown. Although Bharat was not capitalist but it was the Golden Bird, the land of wealth beyond dreams! It had never been communist but it gave birth to maximum number of religions and streams. We never felt an essence of sticking to modern socialism but the whole world listened to the sounds of “मनुर्भव” (be human) and “आत्मवत् सर्वभूतेषु” (think other’s life like your own) from our gurukuls and books. But the things started to change since 712AD when the first strong attack on India was carried out by Muhammad Bin Quasim and the adversities continued to rise till the new ray of hope achieved on Aug 15, 1947. Unfortunately the ray of hope couldn’t survive, the looted golden bird continued to be destroyed, poverty and social inequity continued to move towards peak, and probably it’s still on the same journey! India topped the world after South Africa in the income imbalance index, the ditch between the poor and millionaires has doubled! The question is how it happened if development is possible only by the way of western economic policies and social-political system which we are following? The answer is only these imported policies are responsible for these travesties. The only difference between India and western world is that their play grounds are deployed from their own countries to poor under-developed countries thus the prosperity is increasing in one world and poverty is consistently touching new heights on other lands while India is playing this dangerous development game on its own ground so obviously both up and down would occur parallel. The cancer of corruption is working as oxygen for this crisis but the question is who is ultimately responsible for it. It’s common mindset of people that these are politicians completely responsible for it. But for me this is politics instead politicians. For politics I mean from its original meaning, a system including each citizen of country. Aristotle defined the democracy, the today’s political system, as the government of the people, government by the people and government for the people so the people should be directly responsible for their problems but unfortunately in India people don’t feel that they are part of politics, more over they are government. This is not only with the low educated or rural population; the well-educated and high profile people are more inert towards politics. I got shocked during my graduation when I heard one of my friends from an educated family telling ‘hand’ as electoral symbol of Mayavati! Most of so called educated people consider politics out of their job. Voting is nothing, for them, other than wastage of time. They have also invented a series of arguments to defend their views, the most popular one is “all politicians and political parties are corrupt”, but interestingly they don’t want to go for ‘why’ although it’s not a difficult question like ‘hen or egg’!
Initially politics in Bharat was ‘Rajniti’, and ‘Niti’ was directly connected with basic life of common man by the way of ‘Dharm’. Dharm, in India, has never been like religion or majhab rather it is a way of life with a sufficient scope of changing with time and circumstances, it’s a wide and free way of thinking. Niti and Dharm are intimately related to each other probably synonym of each other sometimes. Shri Krishna states in Gita “नीतिरस्मि जिगीषताम” means I am Niti among those who want to get victory in life, want to succeed in life. Today Rajniti has been replaced by the politics if not literally but practically. Now it’s a way for your own interests or a field to be criticized due to your own selfish excuses. The concept of “सं गच्छध्वं सं बदध्वं सं वो मन्सान्सि जानताम्” has shrunk to self, if your life is going on conveniently then giving time to things like politics is nothing else other than stupidity! This is the way of life of so called literate and developed people. They learn the burger-pizza culture, pub culture and even vulgarity from west but consciousness and dedication towards the issues of national interests are still not lessons to be learnt! In countries like America the elections are fought and decided on internal and external issues and policies of the government while in India the majority of population don’t know who is external affair minister of India! There should be nothing to tell about how many people know very well government’s foreign policy and deals like nuclear treaty with America even after a big drama on it! We are unable to understand that our dark sleep is directly harming us, the riches are also not secure until the poverty exists in any home of this country. The sentences like ‘politics is a zone of goons’, ‘I am not interested in politics’ or ‘I am miles away from politics’ should not be status symbols. Being political at least at voter level is our fundamental duty, if not legally but morally conferred on us with the citizenship of this country. Only by being voter we are part of this system, if we are not voting we have no moral claim over the fundamental rights and privileges provided by the constitution. One can be a true voter only when he is aware of social-national circumstances and political scenario. Giving a vote perfectly is like putting a brick of your part in building the nation. Thus being political is our fundamental duty. Politics is not a job of specific group of people or a subject of interest rather it’s a collective responsibility of all the citizens of a country. It’s a system, it’s skeleton of the country under the control of which all organs work properly. A nation can survive for few months without education, few days without health facility and probably few hours without Army but not for few minutes as a nation without a political structure. May be we couldn’t find a perfect choice for voting but we should be able to choose better out of all. This will force the system to reform itself according to our good choices. The real ‘Bharat Nirman’ is possible only when the common man of this country will become actively political. So don’t be a politician if you don’t like but be political, it’s a duty conferred on you by your country and by your eternal culture. “JAI HIND”
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Vasudev Tripathi