The More Things Change....

Daddy said "son you have come of age"

lets go out and put you on the stage
for you are the rightful heir
nobody but you can fill that chair

The chair I toiled years for

the chair I shed my tears for
let it not go all to nought
we have to add to the wealth we've got

For one day you will be a father too

your son will want to follow you
into the chair that served you so well
screw the people; give them hell!

The biggest myth we Indians live with; is that we live in a democracy. That we have an option, an opportunity to chose our leaders. That we live in a setup which provides a fair chance for the people of this country to participate, to have say in how and by who we are governed.

The recent state level elections may have; on paper; brought in a sea-change by way of emphatically throwing out incumbents or reversing past trends, but the situation at the macro-level remains the same. While the media and various pundits have gone overboard in their optimism on account of a young MLA being chosen as the chief minister of UP, it is not something to be celebrated. It is a cause of concern and obliges us; the people; to introspect and reflect about the situation. Akhilesh Yadav might have covered many miles on his bicycle to gather votes, but he is the manifestation of what ails our 'democracy'. The son of an ex-chief minister/wrestler/farmer, what have you, with no prior experience in governance is not exactly the ray of hope the state needs.

There is no doubt that Yadav Jr. has come to power on a very efficiently run campaign. There is no doubt that he was able to galvanize his party organization more effectively than the others. The problem lies in the fact that he alone was given that opportunity within the party, that he was allowed to do what others could have done too. Some may argue that the other options won’t have been as effective. Sadly we will never find out. That is the whole point of dynasty politics. Never give anybody outside the family a chance to prove themselves. Because then they would have earned the right to lead, and that would nothing short of committing suicide for most our political leaders.

It does not matter what qualifications Yadav Jr. has, or whether he has any experience in governance, his lineage coupled with a strong anti-incumbency factor ensures his accession to the throne. The story is not very different across many states of the country. Punjab, which managed to buck the trend this time around, is very much in control of one family. Bahus, sons, in-laws etc. form a big part of the government and the legislature. I fail to see any victory in either of these elections.

Our media, which has accepted dynasty politics as the norm, prefers to highlight the nitty-gritty of such political exercises, rather than look very worryingly at the larger; long term picture. UP today, amongst many other states, continues to lag behind primarily because democracy has failed in these regions. Alternating between two sets of parties/families every other election just does not qualify as a functioning democracy. The farce that our democracy is needs to be exposed. For some of you who might treat this as another rant need to just look at the constituents of the UP assembly. Of more than 200 MLAs elected on the Samajwadi Party ticket, more than half have criminal records. Within hours of the party winning the elections, these louts went about doing what they know best. Flexing muscles. So the SP cadre kidnapped a few journalists, burnt an opposition member's factory, shot at some people who apparently didn’t vote for them and slapped around a cop for towing a MLA's car. Honestly, all this talk of 'change', new beginnings etc. is just a lot of bull.

One can’t expect political parties be serious about democracy, when they refuse to practice it within their own setups. Mulayam Singh Yadav recently got the very people opposed to a change of guard to propose his son's name for the CM’s post. Are we to believe this was done spontaneously, as an act of faith and goodwill? These men and women who have been sidelined will be given a pound of flesh for their sacrifices. Where is the change here, just a new set of people plundering the nation's resources for another five years?

Though fresh blood is always welcome in politics, especially the educated kind, when it is from the same gene pool however, we need to sit up and pay closer attention. Let us not get carried away with the so called generational shift, not just yet. There would be a genuine cause for celebration when hard working candidates come to the fore, on the basis of their experience and qualifications. A non-competitive field is bound to produce incompetent administrators. We have a long way to go before we can fulfil the promise of giving the people of this country a genuine working democracy. A government of the people, by the people, for the people.