{"id":220204,"date":"2023-07-12T00:36:22","date_gmt":"2023-07-11T19:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/?p=220204"},"modified":"2023-07-12T00:36:22","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T19:06:22","slug":"whats-the-big-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/2023\/07\/12\/whats-the-big-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s the big deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Political Morality<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By Poonam I Kaushish<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cIdealism is good in politics, but if you are kicked out, who cares!\u201d asserted Maharashtra Dy Chief Minister Fadnavis, adding, \u201cI can\u2019t promise that I do ethical politics 100%.\u201d Finally, it\u2019s official. Politics in India has nothing to do with morality, accountability and healthy conventions. Taint is the flavour of the new political season. Wherein power and taint go saath-saath.\u00a0 A sense of de ja vu overwhelms.<\/p>\n

The defection by Sharad Pawar\u2019s NCP MLA\u2019s led by nephew Ajit Pawar to Shinde\u2019s Shiv Sena-BJP Sarkar lasr week in Maharashtra exposes that available and willing leaders sell themselves to the highest bidder depending on the price. All, with clinical precision devoid of pretensions: of \u2018meeting of minds\u2019, ideology, principles or personal fondness. And BJP extolled for smart political management: money for allurement and use of State machinery for intimidation.<\/p>\n

Jog your memory, hadn\u2019t Prime Minister Modi called NCP \u201cNational Corrupt Party,\u201d with Enforcement Directorate breathing down Pawar Jr\u2019s and his Ministerial colleagues neck recently? Thundered he, \u201cNa mein khata hoon na khane doonga! I will bell the big fat cat of corruption.\u201d Really?<\/p>\n

What changed overnight that corrupt NCP leaders have emerged as surf\u2019s safedi ki chamkan compared to their chor brethren who are unfit to rule, leave alone provide good and honest governance? Greed for Power. Whereby they are portrayed, as winners who can commit no sin, will go to any extent to prove (sic) their honesty and stands cleansed of all guilt and criminality.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not Pawar alone any leader or rival group who till yesterday was a chor and ghooskora but switched to BJP is washed in its \u201cclean\u201d laundromat and comes out smelling of fresh roses, feigning ignorance and playing dumb, blind and deaf about their corrupt misdemeanors. Taint, what are you talking about?\u00a0 What\u2019s the big deal about it? Remember, an honest man is one who hasn\u2019t been caught!<\/p>\n

Worse, with various types of chameleons leaders one doesn\u2019t know who is sleeping with whom and who is jumping from one bed to another, as friends and enemies are all rolled into one. Patronage, opportunism and a share of the power pie is the glue that keeps all together. Indeed, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.<\/p>\n

Confided a Minister, \u201cHum sab ek hi thaali ke chate-bate hain aur is maryada ke hamam mein nagain hai!\u00a0 Bihar\u2019s Nitish Kumar till August last was singing paeans of Modi till he switched sides and formed the Government with friend-turned-foe-turned friend Laloo\u2019s RJD. A repeat of July 2017 when he quit Laloo\u2019s Mahagathbandhan to play footsie with BJP.<\/p>\n

2020 stands testimony to brazen horse-trading with Congress\u2019s Jyotiraditya Scindia along-with 22 loyalist MLAs joining BJP resulting in Kamal Nath\u2019s Government downfall and coronation of\u00a0 Shivraj Chauhan\u2019s as Chief Minister. Ditto in Karnataka 2019 when 15 Congress-JD(S) MLAs switched to BJP, kicked out Kumaraswamy\u2019s Government and installed Yedurappa\u2019s Sarkar. Notwithstanding, fundamentally violating the democratic principle: Voters\u2019 rights to choose their Governments via the ballot box.<\/p>\n

Succinctly, these paper tigers who sell their political soul to the highest bidder in this political nautanki are dubbed smart. Whereby, every Party and its leaders have perfected the art of beguiling its hum zulfs and dushmans with aplomb, saddling us with opportunists and liars. Exposing the disdain with which our netagan holds democracy and voters.<\/p>\n

Thereby, exposing politics of the worst kind, cultivating low morality and high greed \u2014 and need of the hour. A power-play when personality-oriented malicious vilification seems to have became the hallmark of democracy. Sans shared ideology and mutual objectives. This pithily is aaj ki rajneeti.<\/p>\n

Whereby politics has everything to do with acceptability, little with credibility and public life is all compromises, not principles dripping morality sermons but not practicing it. Wring your hands all you want, but that does not take away from the fact that morality, honesty and integrity are words non-existent in the political vocabulary.<\/p>\n

A fine distinction is drawn between a \u201cpolitically-motivated\u201d charge and an actual a conviction. Such is the intoxicating nasha of power that all conveniently choose to shrug it off. Dismissed at best as an aberration and at worst a squeaky knee with which one can live with. In this you-scratch-my-back-I\u2019ll-scratch-yours culture, our polity in their collective conscience willingly abets.<\/p>\n

In a milieu where graft and sleaze is India\u2019s creepy-crawly Osama bin Laden which permeates the very core of daily Government functioning ensnaring the country in its vicious tentacles, the temptation to make money is always great, indeed irresistible. In the political brothel of corruption, one may not begrudge our netagan from making money, ostensibly for Party funds or feathering his own nest. That is the prevailing culture.<\/p>\n

As long as a leader is part of the Establishment, all wink at his misdemeanors. Alas, so caught up in the verbose of one-upmanship are all that none stops to think and ponder the implications of their actions. The tragedy of it all is that in this winner take-all-fight governance and people go for a toss. Satta batoan aur tamasha dekho! What matters is only the end game: Gaddi.<\/p>\n

Questionably, does the electorate want honest politicians and a clean Government? Are there no honest and capable netas?Doesn\u2019t seem so as a \u201cclean politician\u201d sounds like an oxymoron, a breed that no longer exists. Most distressing is that it doesn\u2019t strike any chord anywhere.<\/p>\n

Alas, in a chor-chor-mauser-bhai political milieu of you-scratch-my-back- I-yours, our leaders have left it to the \u201ccall of conscience\u201d of individual leaders. Happily, all follow the principle of \u201cpolitics of direct sale\u201d. Appalling, none have time for the gasping and groaning aam aadmi who reels under the onslaught of spiralling prices of vegetables, pulses and food-grain and sky-rocketing inflation.<\/p>\n

Moreover, we demand moral responsibility only when we are short-changed in material goods but choose not to question leaders moral legitimacy when they normalise violence against citizens. Think. No politician has ever stepped down over killings of its citizens in targeted mass violence.<\/p>\n

In this market model of democracy it is a misnomer to believe that netas are governed by ideology. Instead, there is a tendency to capture the imagination of the people by creating a spectacle alongside money which makes the clogged, polluted and corrupt political mare go around.<\/p>\n

Importantly, India is today at the moral crossroads. Gone are the days of Gandhi, Nehru and Patel. The moot point is: Will immorality and taint be allowed to become the bedrock of our Parliamentary democracy? Basically, is it good for democracy to have such people as ministers? When those who are supposed to lead become saboteurs, it is time to call a spade a spade.<\/p>\n

Thus, in this game of lies, deceit and deception, BJP, Congress and regional outfits reflect the emerging truth of today\u2019s India. Power is all. Arguably, one can say this is what democracy is\u00a0\u00a0 about. In this immoral political desert and barren discourse, no longer can we merely shrug our shoulders and dismiss it as political kalyug.<\/p>\n

The challenge lies in overhauling our system of governance whereby voters have to make tough calls. The \u2018Conduct of Politics\u2019 necessitates reliability, integrity, credibility, conviction and courage. There should be no scope for any lingering doubt or suspicion that politics is the last refuge of a scoundrel. As nothing costs a nation more than cheap politicians!\u00a0 \u2014\u00a0 INFA<\/p>\n

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Political Morality By Poonam I Kaushish \u201cIdealism is good in politics, but if you are kicked out, who cares!\u201d asserted Maharashtra Dy Chief Minister Fadnavis, adding, \u201cI can\u2019t promise that I do ethical politics 100%.\u201d Finally, it\u2019s official. Politics in India has nothing to do with morality, accountability and healthy conventions. Taint is the flavour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-220204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-features"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}