India - A Failed Democarcy

India is the biggest democracy is the world. But, unfortunately, that is not the sole recognition it gets as a democracy. It is also a failed democracy.
There is no doubt that democracy is the best of available forms of governance, well, for most countries, and sadly, India doesn't belong to that category. There are two essential requisites to make a successful democratic system:
1. The political leaders of the country must be willing to provide their services for the development of the country and welfare of its people; after all, the public is supposed to choose best for them out of all the political leaders
2. The public itself should be well informed and educated. Here I am not saying that everyone should be an intellectual, but a minimum standard of awareness is essential so that people are not swindled by the politicians
And we all know the applicability of both the conditions in Indian context. Most of the politicians here are illiterate, selfish, and greedy rogues who don't flinch once even if they have to kill thousands of innocent people to get their thing done. The second condition, sadly, fails miserably too. A major portion of Indian population still lives below poverty line, people who find it hard to get two square meals a day and who would worry about what is happening to the nation, or what is good or bad for the nation when the first and foremost thing weighing on your mind is how to feed you wife, your starving children, and lastly, yourself. The problem gets compounded when you also account for number of illiterate people and this is a very serious issue. How can you expect someone to make a well informed decision, a decision about who is the most suitable person to run the country, when that person doesn't have the tools to gauge what is good and what is bad for the economy, prosperity, international presence, military strength, and future of the country.
In India, politicians can get away by making any statement and they can guise a perfectly economic or financial situation as a religious or communal one, solely because of the ignorance of people here.
The fact the the literate class of India, who can make an informed decision and vote accordingly, don't want to be bothered with electoral process and stuff. It is too much of hassle for them so they choose not to vote. They think that by debating what is good and bad for the country, how politicians are ruining the country, over coffee table and beers, they pay their due to this country.
It is no rocket science to figure out now that democracy as a model of governance is not suitable for India. What India needs is some form of monarchy till the time her citizens are rich enough to stop worrying about two square meals a day; are confident enough to make the right choice; are above the biases of religion, caste, community, region; are informed enough to know what is happening in the world and how it affects India, are educated enough to know which policies are good and which are bad; and most importantly, are ready to stand as one nation. I hope that such a time is not far.

Mayawati

Though I have never been a fan of Behenji, her recent stances on couple of issues have just left me wondering about the quality of Indian Political Leaders. The fact that she is in such a powerful position in a big state in India makes things even worse.

The first time I noticed, rather was alarmed by, her opportunism was when she withdrew support from the UPA government, apparently for no reason. Well, the reasons might have not been apparent but there was one big reason why she did that and the reason was that the UPA was fed up with her and her support was becoming a big liability for the UPA. Specially when so many money laundering scams related to her came into light. The best way, obviously, was to let her go on her own.

Well, that was just the beginning. As soon as she was out, she started spitting venom at UPA. Her first attack was on the nuclear deal. Though it is a norm in India that if you are in the opposition, you have to oppose everything that the current government is doing, even if it is for the good. So she decided not be different from the precedent set Indian politicians but the angle she attached to it was mind boggling. Putting the treaty as anti-Muslim was something that a person of normal intelligence could not comprehend. I tried hard to understand how this could be true, but all I could get was that this can't be true and the only reason to attach this angle was to lure the ignorant and ill-informed Muslims to her party; a vote bank that has been hers but has started slipping recently. But to come up with such a cheap color to paint something healthy with goes on the show that she will not stop short of anything when it comes to seizing power, if she can condemn a step for development of India, good for common man, and wouldn't think twice before opposing it with remarks that can set communal fire any moment in this communally charged up country, then, it leaves no doubt in my mind that she can go and sell this country if the need be.

The next amusing thing was her voting with BJP against the government during vote of confidence. BJP, the part she has called sanpnath (snake king) time and again. But when it came to political mileage, she never twitched before hugging this sanpnath!!

And then, unbelievably, she talks of corruption!! With her pockets overflowing with bribes and numerous ongoing inquiries on money laundering against her, she must be really shameless at calling someone else corrupt.

Now, the recent development is that she claims that no one can stop her from being the PM. Now, this has gone too far. Not that I was much interested in her political ambitions much, but when it comes to becoming the face of my country, obviously I keep my eyes open. I try to imagine she as being the face of modern, developing, young and exuberant India, but the thing is, ti simply doesn't match!! She is not the leader we need!! No way!! She says that she will remove poverty when she is the PM, well, how much poverty has she removed from UP, the state she has ruled for more than a decade? She even rejected development plans put forth by Anil Ambani, again, for reason that defy common intelligence. She talks about cutting down prices and ensure high growth, well, all I have to say in this regard is that there would be very limited people who would trust her economic wisdom on this one.

What India today needs is young and dedicated politicians, people who have long term vision, people with understanding of global issues, international politics, economics, finance, people who knwo what development is, people who can think of India as India and Indians as Indians and not UP/Maharashtra or Hindu/Muslim.

There are such people now. The number is not big as of now but the beginning has happened and I am confident that soon there will be more, we will have dynamic leaders like Clinton, Blair, Sarkozy and then, Behenji, the most appropriate thing for you to would be go back to the village you hail from.