Dr H C Pande
With the general elections having been announced,the political haute-couture designer fraternity is having a field day,and,their order-books are over flowing.The Beautician,the Ghost-writer,and,the Ideology Bar-tender,are having whale of a time time.How to make a hyena look like a lamb or make the bleating of a sheep sound like a lion’s roar or mix a cocktail pleasing abstainer and imbiber alike,require crookedness of the highest order,which fortunately for the political class,and,unfortunately for the country,is available in plenty.
Democracy is often defined as the will of the masses.A skeptic has remarked that the word masses includes asses and as such it is easy to drive them,any which way, effortlessly.This general behavior of the electorate is capitalized on by the politician.In India The general election is no ‘dharmayudha’.Copies of the elaborate code of conduct,and the whole set of rules set forth by the Election Commission only decorate the bookshelves of the political parties,and,on the ground there are no rules to be followed,no ethics to be observed but just a dirty fight,fight with no holds barred.
“The skill of the politician,to quote Bertrand Russell,consists in knowing what passions can be most easily aroused,and how to prevent them,when aroused,from being harmful to himself and his associates…moreover,since politicians are divided into rival groups,they aim at similarly dividing the nation,unless they have the good fortune to unite it in war against some other nation.”
It is a no brainer that in the election year emotion would be masqueraded as reason.Worse still,the emotive outbursts would not be countered with reason but with harsher outbursts.Only persons of character and unimpeachable integrity can successfully cross the currents and counter-currents in this swelling ocean of emotions.Elections are at hand ,let people make the right choice.
