I had to get rid of inertia,
hesitation and lack of familiarity with social media before blogging. But, as
they say, it is better late than never.
The youth of the present generation
are bright and aware of the world a lot more than I was at their age. Equally,
we have failed to communicate with them and answer their questions
satisfactorily. They acquire information from the social media as much as from
Text Books. They find politics, not so noble a word and politicians as corrupt
and manipulative. When we were in schools and colleges, the country was
fortunate to have some great and inspiring political leaders, who had fought
for India’s freedom from British rule. Our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal
Nehru had spent more than 10 years in Jail. That these leaders had sacrificed
for the greater good of the Indian people and were patriots could hardly be
doubted. As young men and women we were inspired by the spirit of public
service and sacrifice that these leaders represented and truly believed that
the problems of poverty, hunger and unemployment can be solved.
My generation of politicians had not
fought against British rule. We had not gone to prisons. We had made no visible
sacrifices. So, we were perceived as beneficiaries of power and office rather
than servants of the people.
The economy had not delivered as
promised and there were glaring cases of abuse of power. So, what was required
was major economic and governance reform. But, no alternative economic or
governance policy was articulated. Instead, political parties went to people
blaming those in power with single-minded devotion. Besides, political parties
resorted to identity politics around caste, religion and region, which they
offered as a solution to economic and governance problems. Once this approach
to politics was taken people had to choose from various groups of politicians.
But, the problems continued whilst divisive politics produced social fragmentation
and group violence. Basically we drifted away from policy and programs to
vilifying opponents and personality-oriented politics. I watched the
Presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mit Romney on 4 October. Here was
two political leaders arguing on two possible ways of dealing with problems
faced by the American people and the voters are asked to make a choice. But,
what if the debate had been reduced to each candidate abusing the other? People
will still make a choice, but hardly would the choice be rational or well
informed since it will be made on the basis of negative campaign and abuses.
Let the Indian political leaders and parties spell out their policies and
programs clearly. Let these policies be debated and let people make an informed
choice. The Indian youth and the larger public should reject
‘personality-oriented’ politics and politicians and question the leaders, big
or small, on specific policies each is advocating. Let the politicians be asked
to answer:
How do they propose to create jobs?
How do they prevent abuse of power
and rampant corruption?
What is their proposal for improving
fiscal management like a balanced budget, proposals for revenue collection,
keeping deficit under control, attracting investment etc.?
Let there be a debate on performance.
If a politician, big or small, is
unable or unwilling to answer such questions he or she should be rejected. The
focus should be on performance, performance and performance.
I will present my
views on different aspects of Governance and issues as they affect Odisha on
this blog and hope to be educated by your views, criticisms and suggestions and
hope that blogging will be a rewarding experience. The social media not
merely narrows down distance, it also brings in equality. Everyone and anyone
can blog, can accept or reject views. These are ways of a modern democracy.
6 comments:
It is a pleasure to see you blogging. I met you at pondicherry ashram just before you had taken over as PCC president. I wish you all the best! Thanks.
Welcome Niranjan Patanaik. I think For the first time a PCC chief have a blog spot. I wish all the success of blog, where odia viewers know the mind set of congress and its development strategy. In this IT era u get good reader through this blog..
Hey there! I know this is somewhat off topic but I was wondering which blog platform are you using for this website?
I'm getting sick and tired of Wordpress because I've
had problems with hackers and I'm looking at alternatives for another platform. I would be fantastic if you could point me in the direction of a good platform.
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Howdy! Quick question that's totally off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My site looks weird when viewing from my iphone4. I'm
trying to find a theme or plugin that might be able to fix this problem.
If you have any recommendations, please share. Thanks!
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