In a democracy, it is the responsibility of the voters to ensure that politics remains rooted in principles and politicians are allowed to act only according to the Constitution with no deviations allowed, writes former IAS officer V.S.Pandey
We will be celebrating our 79th Independence Day soon. It is one of the proudest moments in every Indian’s life and we must relish it to the fullest and remember all those who worked tirelessly for years and decades to throw out the occupiers from our mother land. That monumental achievement should never obscure the challenges our nation faces even today after more than seven decades off self-rule. Today is the time to introspect whether we succeeded in fulfilling the great vision envisaged in our Constitution presented to us on a platter by our visionary fore fathers or not. We need answers to the questions glaring at us for years, but none is there to answer that why we have more than 40 crore poor people struggling to meet their daily basic requirements. Why we failed to secure for our citizens social and economic justice and equal status and opportunity to all as enshrined in our constitution?
These challenges are by no means insurmountable. Many countries on this planet have been able to provide a decent, respectable and honest living conditions to their citizens. But our failure on this account is glaring to say the least. It is most shameful that high net worth people are leaving our country in hoards if reports appearing in media, every now and then, are to be believed. It is not business as usual if successful people start deserting their country. But who is listening? It seems these alarming developments are falling on deaf ears. We need to introspect why our education system has remained rotten for decades and why no one belonging to any color and ideology in power ever bothered to correct this most critical condition for building a strong nation. Not only that, we remain bracketed with corrupt nations category even today and have failed miserably to provide clean, honest and efficient delivery and governance system to our people. Barring sloganeering, our political class has remained mired neck deep in the cesspool of corruption while preaching moral lessons to citizenry. The chasm between words and deeds is ever broadening in those who are at the helm today or were yesterday.
The politics of division on caste and communal basis alongside the shadows of black money on our political horizon had to have its ill effects on our country. But citizenry of any country has to take responsibility to enforce corrective steps to take the country on its course to greatness. We just cannot sit idle and say what can we do. In a democracy, it is the responsibility of the voters to ensure that politics remains rooted in principles and politicians are allowed to act only according to the constitution with no deviations allowed.
Dr B.R.Ambedkar, the architect of our constitution wrote that democracy requires existence of a moral order in the society. He contemplated that politics cannot be devoid of ethics. The Government may pass the laws and implement them but unless there is morality in the society law can not achieve any success. “A politician”, he said, “does not merely trade in politics, but he also represents a particular faith covering both the method as well as the metaphysics of politics”.He further said that, “Politics has become a kind of sewage system intolerably unsavory and in sanitary. To become a politician is like going to work in the drain”. Therefore he had no faith in value-free politics. Once he reportedly said that, “politics has become a game of scoundrel but for me it is a mission”.
Henry David Thoreau, the famous thinker and naturalist in his essay “Civil Disobedience “ dwelt upon the responsibility of individuals in any society. He wrote “what is the price-current of an honest man and patriot today? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for other to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give up only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man. But it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than with the temporary guardian of it.”
(Vijay Shankar Pandey is former Secretary Government of India)
