Caught In This World Wide Net

Nick Kenrick photo

By

Ananya S Guha

Whoever said politics is the last resort of scoundrels may or may not be right. It depends on how we tackle the scoundrels. Mahatma Gandhi was no scoundrel, nor were Patel, Ambedhkar and Nehru. Among many other names I have not mentioned I will leave it to your fecund imagination. Someone said Nehru should have been a writer and Dr S. Radhakrishnan fitted perfectly into Plato’s philosopher king. However, politics is construed by many to be a dirty game. But the ones who don’t want to meddle into it let others wallow in this filthy game. Watch the fun! an adage. No matter how we try we are not able to cleanse politics out of the rubble. Even awarding the Nobel Prize to world leaders does not seem to clear doubts.

Why is it that politics is such a dirty word, and why is it also, people run for the rat race to be legislators, or head a nation? Why is it also that men and women heading a state build power blocs, divisiveness into the world? Nuclear energy has become the source of flexing muscles, hidden as it is under euphemistic expressions like non-proliferation deal and so on. That is the macro situation of the world or countries.

Let us look at the micro. A political situation can exist anywhere: in houses, in offices, in institutions and educational institutions. It is common to hear of sentences like ”There is too much politics in this university.” Then, why blame it on the poor politician? At least he professes to be one. The human mind is endowed intrinsically with guile and machinations. This he can use to divide people in his work ethos or the institution in which he works. That is the insecurity syndrome, jealousy or a feeling of threat posed by someone else, real or imagined.

Now let us look at the larger picture. A political power in the country which has come to absolute power by people’s verdict is now jittery when a truncated, wishy washy opposition is making allegations. The wraith of that opposition party is doing it, because it has lost all blood and bones. But it has been taken seriously, so much so that today, politics in our country has just become a war of words, everyone from the two groups is chipping in to make rhetoric sound like language. The actual issue is lost in the midst of such obstreperous rambling. It was fun, but it is no longer as major issues seem to have taken a back seat. The opposition party should rather concentrate on looking at the wreckage it has created and do some rebuilding. No it harps on individual lashing and our government matches this with as much fatuity it can. So there is excellent nonsensical repartee.

That is the internal scenario now. In the midst of this a twelve year old girl dies almost unnoticed of starvation in Jharkhand. This too in the much touted 21st century when fake Babas get so much media attention. But no, a poor girl from a poverty ridden family has little words of sympathy. Anyway she is dead.

Death in India manifests in slow but subtle ways. Death of people who are cow dealers for business, death nay suicides of farmers, death of opinion makers who would deign to say no, death of a monument of history, the Taj Mahal, death of someone for alleged food habit, death of history, you name it. So one death of a poor girl, does it matter? An emphatic no.

What we need to do is to show our murky faces on television and shout at each other. This is the best match practice we can get before a veritable war takes place? Don’t you know Pakistan and China are already into a war mode? And our biggest supporter is saying: ”Come on, chum don’t worry.” And their wings (pun intended!) the IMF and the WHO are equally consolable. This economic phase is a passing one because of some measures taken. Don’t worry, you’ll bounce back.

So let there be starvation. It helps after all. Some food is saved. And we sure will bounce back. Death is ubiquitous. We still have not been able to save the marginalized farmer. The richer ones prosper and apart from having monetary opulence, they have perhaps political opulence, read clout. Politics is the measure of success, whether coming to power, getting a job, pleasing the ingratiated bosses, selecting people who you know will kow tow to your whims. This happens in colleges and universities too by the way, on the basis of inbreeding, caste, religion, ethnicity. That is why diversity is so willingly and craftily exploited.

So why blame poor politicians? They are only caught in this world wide net (wwn)!

Ananya S Guha

Ananya S Guha was born and brought up in Shillong, North East India. He has seven collections of poetry and his poems have been published worldwide. They have also been featured in several anthologies. He is also a columnist, critic and editor. He now is a Regional Director at the Indira Gandhi National Open University and holds a doctoral degree on the novels of William Golding.