Hopeful! Everyone can be hopeful, no one must die hopelessEconomy is a political arrangement of power. It is not about money. Money is a tool to exercise the power one holds.
Politics is a continuous struggle of reshuffling the power arrangement among various power fringes. These fringes are class, caste, community, ethnicity, skin colour, gender, age, and family identities. Macroscopically, this struggle is homogeneous, everyone is fighting with everyone else. Microscopically however, one can observe patterns. The patter is a binary, a war between “Handful powerful elites” and “Million weak, poor and discarded bands of people”. Whoever is ruling, has actually achieved a temporary state of equilibrium. This equilibrium is the sum of positive and negative powers like religion, wealth, societies, people unions, customs, cultures, and ethnicities etc. This equilibrium can be managed and sustained through various funnels like autocracy, theocracy, plutocracy, and democracy. Each one of these funnels has their merits and demerits. Each one of them give larger control to the “Few powerful elites” and a little control, or rather, no control to the “Millions of weak and poor”. Out of all these funnels, democracy is one thing that provides a reasonably hopeful sense of power-balance between “blue-bloods and poor”.
In a democracy, a lot of ideas collide to formulate a negotiated settlement between people and state. Parliaments packed with representatives of every class, caste and societies trail the idea. These representatives are chosen by the people. Those who are voted to the maximum accedes to the power and aforesaid equilibrium sustains for few years until next election commences.
Before democracy, it used to be sectarian leaders hailing from the different set of communities, tribes, group of people, professional unions, military super-powers etc. who used to assemble at one place to collectively agree upon accepting anyone among them as their leader i.e. a king. This was called autocracy; a king may sound autocratic but used to be absolutely a prodigy of these sectarian leaders. During this pre-democratic era, commoners (i.e. Millions of weak people) used to have absolutely no representation in the parliament. However, even in a democracy, this representation is insufficient but so far it is the most.
As Nehru said, “democracy is not perfect but so far one of the best." It directly and indirectly ensures everyone’s participation in the governance. This is why, for as long as anything better than democracy is not evolving, I believe democracy be preserved.
Contrary to an established delusion, democracy is not limited to election or referendum. It is not just that we have to vote and wait until re-elections are called. Had democracy been just this, it would have been reduced to merely majoritarians rule over minorities and apartheids. Democracy means ensuring equal representation of every sect, class, caste, community, religion, gender, ethnicity, belief and ideology in the house where policies are being framed.
Thus, my political struggle is to ensure that everyone without any biases gets the opportunity to represent whoever they're willing to represent if one is chosen by those people. The parliament of representatives must be held accountable for everyone's safety and justice. Everyone should feel safe in the territory in command of the parliament. A territory where justice is ensured along with freedom. My worldview is that whoever is capable of understanding this power-struggle must participate in liberating the power from the hands of few elites to empower the poor. At the center of my world view is politics. My political endurance doesn't side with poor to delegitimise rich. It is not skewed towards apartheids to blame elites for everything. My vision is that everyone irrespective of their history must be allowed to participate in ensuring the progress of mankind. Anyone if practices his/her powers for narrow objectives must be quarantined from the mainstream power struggle.
Having said so, doesn't solve the problem. It must have actions and directions. Direction of progress of mankind and actions of keeping everyone included in this progress. Inclusion of everyone in the progress of mankind is justice. In any progressive society, the present structure of power will always be contested in order to create more inclusive power structure. This is called disruption! If we are making a new constitution than old constitution must be abolished. If we are making a new policy then every other policy that contradicts must be nullified. As Ambedkar said "If I will not let the future generation amend the constitution, then this country will only belong to the dead people." Disruption is natural… but which one is good and which one is evil? What must I chose and which one must I deny? Knowing these answers will define how good politician one can become. To help discovering these answers, one should recall the old Sanskrit couplet.
विद्यां ददाति विनयं विनयाद् याति पात्रताम् ।
पात्रत्वात् धनमाप्नोति धनात् धर्मं ततः सुखम् ॥
My personal goal as a politician is to attain as much knowledge I could so that I can develop an acumen of wise. This wisdom will enable me in decision making. Wisdom will hone my decision skills, it help me set free from prejudices and practice my ethical beliefs. It will keep me intact with the fabrics of mankind.
This is easier said than done… Wisdom is one thing which is always under the scanner! You have done a million thing right but the moment you do one thing wrong you’re done. So, let me explain my beliefs based on real-life challenges our society is facing. I will continue to add on this list as and when my fellow human being asks my view upon something. I will update my views as soon as I achieved better understanding of it. I am not a dead man, I am alive and thus I can change...
1. Ideology
Quite more than often, I am tagged as a communist. If a person is kind, he assumes I am a socialist. In any way, I am against right-wing, particularly theocracy. I deny each and every religious supremacy of the world.
I believe, Socialism induces corruption and capitalism increases greed. This is why in both the systems… the bottom of the pyramid remains poor and discarded. Hence, I believe in the Nehru’s idea of Socialism & Capitalism Mixed system.
Moreover, it is no longer the question of ideology. The real question is how to multiply the ability of an individual by developing co-habitable society.
So, I am not against capitalism but more inclined towards socialism. I do not follow any religion but do not interfere in people’s religious outlook. So, my belief is “a Secular Social Democratic Republic State” is the best suitable geopolitical territory, I wish to live in. Thankfully, India is one such geopolitical state.
2. Religion
I do not know whether God exists or not and I did not meet even a single person till date who would have helped me find any god. Since no one is sure about the existence of God, a lot of people have assumed god exists. Their assumptions are based on infatuations and in a similar way, I have assumed that there is no god. I wish someday I will be proved wrong. I will be happy to be proved wrong because I want to meet God if he/she/it exists.
However, I have a lot of friends who love to debate with me about the concept of religion. I inadvertently disagree with any religion whatsoever simply because every single religion is jealous of every other religion.
I am fond of religious textbooks. Except for the reverence of God, they teach good ethics, morality, and duties of a person. However, every single religion strongly believes that women are less than men. Thus, this particular belief of inequality helps me conclude that religion is against humanity.
3. Nationalism
States were formed out of empires and empires were formed out of civilizations. When civilizations were transiting to empires, religion played a great role in guarding the ethnic identities. Gradually, this mixture of religion, ethnicity, empire, and geo-cultural practices formed an artificial emotional identity which is called a nation. Nationalism is a lot like religion, it trains people of one nation to discriminate with the people of other nationalities.
Hence, I believe nationalism is a temporary and artificial state of emotion which separates one person from other living in different borders and generates a fictitious sense of brotherhood among the people living within the same national boundaries which exists only in the book and not in real practices.
4. Casteism
A gradual practice of social subsections based upon competitive performances like hunting, combating, farming, herding, and production etc. has automatically evolved practice of inheriting professions from predecessors. This helped social subsections in mastering their respective professions. However, gradual urbanization and increasing population density pressured the societies for a close knitted lifestyle. A lifestyle that needed external assistance for substandard services like cleaning sewerage or tanning leathers. These were the jobs no one ever wanted to take up. So, society devised methods to decide who will do these substandard jobs. One of most cruel among lots of cruel ways to enforce substandard jobs to a specific set of people was to declare that it in their fate due to the curse of sins committed in a previous birth. A persistent all absorbing lie established in such gravity that it literally has caused genomic degradation of those specific people. This is how casteism took shape. Casteism is a problem originated from the Hindu belief system. However, profession-based discrimination is visible in every religions and section across the world.
5. Reservation
Resources are limited and demand is very high. Obtaining resources demands unending struggle, this is why everyone wants to keep reserve resources to safeguard their future. We reserve water, food, fuel, and other resources because we know that tomorrow may not be as lucky as was today.
The quest of keeping reserve had intensified the concept of accumulating wealth. Accumulation of wealth is directly related to the genomic supremacy of castes as defined above. The socio-psychosis depletion of genomic abilities of low caste people has pushed Dalits/Untouchables to inhumane circumstances. A level which cannot be compared with poverty. It is far below poverty because poverty can be the temporary economic status of a person but caste is a permanent stigma, mental fatigue and inability thereby.
Hence reservation for the people who have lived below the animal level for thousands of years generations after generation is the must. An argument against the reservation is emerging that few Dalits are taking the advantage of caste-based reservation since last three-four generations and thus they should give up their reservation. I disagree with this opinion because even if a family benefited from reservation has emerged from a socio-economic crisis but has not recovered from the stigma of being treated as a person belonging to a low status. The said family has yet not emerged from the gnomically wrecked personality level. * I will continue to add subjects to this article based upon questions and queries of the readers. Thank you!
