Elections- an
apolitical view.
Four states and one union territory are going for elections
in April and May.
Space constraints do not allow me to go into the specifics
and micro details of all these territories. I also feel that will be reducing politics
to geopolitical dimension alone.
Besides media is flooded with overload of information, data,
facts, fabricated figures, charts, debates, analysis etc. So, I would not like
to reproduce them either.
I keep
reminding about this wonderful quote by Steve Maraboli , “Get out of your own
way… stop the paralysis by analysis… decide what you want, create a simple
plan, and get moving!”
On reflection I noticed that there is too much politicizing
and sensationalizing everything why not write about a very political topic,
namely about elections without mentioning about any territory, any politician
or any political party.
This is not out of non committal cautiousness and escapism
but driven by another urge to avoid controversies while writing about politics and
also go beyond all the negativism that is much publicized by media and public
about politics in general.
All politicians are neither bad nor inefficient. Let us not generalize
the entire political class with some aberrations and negative elements.
Barbara Marciniak said, “Everything changes when you start
to emit your own frequency rather than absorbing the frequencies around you,
when you start imprinting your intent on the universe rather than receiving an
imprint from existence.”
What is of great importance in these elections, for that
matter all elections.
The focus decides our frames of reference and scale of
observation, and they in turn, influence our perception. [1]
Elections involve primarily the people and ensuring their overall
welfare and happiness starting from economic development, availability
of basic necessities to social well being leading to happy living.
Elections offer a great opportunity to the people to elect a
person in each constituency who they feel can deliver at least some of the
above mentioned aspects.
Some politicians have a natural street smartness, alertness,
clarity of understanding, decision making smartness as well as knack of
administration; all that they need is position and power to unleash their smartness
and update themselves with emerging ideas and technological advancements which
most of the present day politicians do.
There is no need for a politician to know all the nuances
and nitty-gritty of all issues that he is going to deal with.
There is no need for politicians to be experts at
intellectualizing issues and to be necessarily great orators and give verbal
justifications for all their decisions and actions.
They need not bother about adverse media portrayals as
politicians can use their own channels of communication either through
individual TV channels or through their own team of supporters in social media
networks.
I feel smart politicians are there in all political parties
which is the great positive of politics.
I want to stress this because very often it has become a
populist trend to criticize the whole political class as villains and keep
questioning and scrutinizing all their activities and subject them to severe
criticism as if all other professionals are honest, simple and paragons of
virtue.
Allegations, blame games, one-upmanship, scheming,
strategizing to score points to win are part of the poly tricks of politics.
Fortunately in the recent past, say two years, there have
been healthy political trends and
discourses, of course, with distortions every now and then by vested interest
groups leading to aberrations in political arena.
However, overall, all said and done, there are certain
obvious changes in the means adopted to attract the voters and the projections
done through manifestos.
Now if we observe the new trends, every state and union territory
and every CM is vying with one another to woe the investors, all states conduct
investor summits. When in the past 67 years have we seen such competitive
atmosphere on economic development agenda by CMs of various political parties?
Actually the political scripts have changed from promises,
projections, provocative speeches, publicity stunts to concrete proposals and performance
charts on mainly economic development oriented activities like providing
infrastructure in education, health care, transport, technology, sanitation,
poverty alleviation, environmental protection, electricity and water
distribution etc besides generating
employment, creating business friendly atmosphere and so on and these are the
real perceivable changes and must be called as ‘perception’.
In short political discourse has started including
proper ‘governance’ as part of government functioning.
There is an excellent word [kirinina-New Guinea] called ‘MOKITA’
meaning ‘Truth everybody knows but nobody speaks’
Not the main stream media proclaimed ‘perception’ which is
imbued with trite observations, trendy jargons, statistical spins also a
mixture of all these euphemistically called as political analysis; selectively
sensationalizing and subverting any action or word uttered by some by appropriating
and assigning labels and then subjecting them to media projections and
profiling and euphemistically calling them as ‘perceptions’ and go on to debate
on ‘perception deficit’ why not ‘perception excess’? Then, people will know
what media means by ‘perception’.
Some political leaders of all hues and parties are soaked in
superficiality, showmanship, sycophancy and pander to pseudo and parochial
populist schemes.
They are churned out of some such socio-cultural bias or
ideological and organizational compulsions. Such people always resort to
executing wrong priorities under pressure and execute them without the
necessary diplomacy, delicacy and hypocrisy of a seasoned religious leader.
So nothing comes forth from them except filth and froth.
The populace which hoists them into power and position, laps up
the bubbles of this froth. It is vicious circle where certain imagined identity
is ideologically acquired and most people are vulnerable victims to this
unconscious vicious circle. Once they are into it they suffer from identity
crisis. This is how politics and political ideologies exercise command and
control over many.
I am tempted to copy “Friend to Groucho
Marx: “Life is
hard…” Grouch Marx to
Friend: “Compared to what?”
and replace it as “Politicians are bad? Compared to whom?”
Wish all the
best to all the voters to select the best person who can deliver the best for
the constituency and through that to the nation.
Election time people must be aware of and avoid these usual
traps. While exploring the facts desist getting
distracted by these tactics:- Mutilating the facts, Analyzing them with
preconceived notions or prejudices, Generalizing the particular and particularizing
the general, Approaching facts with unloving criticism or uncritical love, Evaluating
facts with our pet isms or philosophies, Resorting to statistical
justifications, Unleashing unworkable utopia, Mask them with logical
fallacies, Mute them in pleasant jargons, and Give historical justifications, Comprehend
with confirmation bias or pre conceived conclusions, Trying to over simplify
the complicated and over complicate the simple factors/aspects.
[1] On frames of observation and scale of
reference.
“With the aid
of several instruments science creates more phantasmagoria: "on our scale
of human observation, as pointed out before, the edge of a razor-blade is a
continuous line. On the microscopic scale, it is a broken but solid line. On
the chemic scale we have atoms of iron and carbon. On the sub-atomic scale we
have electrons in perpetual motion which travel at the rate of several thousand
miles per second. All these phenomena are in reality the manifestations of the
same basic phenomenon, the motions of the electrons. The only difference which
exists between them is the scale of observation" [Human Destiny, Lecomte
du Nuoy]
