Middle India - The Educated Urban Middle Class, accused of usurping more than it's fair share of the shining India & cynical towards politics, has largely been ignored by the political class. Politicians scornfully ridicule Middle India for it’s self-centric obsession & scant regard for the democratic institutions.
The failure of Middle India focused "India Shining" campaign of NDA in 2004 & effectiveness of NREGA & farm loan waivers to bring UPA back to the power in 2009 has given credence to this political belief that courting rural & poor India will yield political dividends where as Middle India can be left to fend for itself & suffer the bad governance.
Given this indifference by Middle India, which has the ability & intelligence to question, political class & bureaucracy were running amok. Corruption reached unimaginable proportions.
While ambivalent to politics, this loot by politicians & bureaucrats made middle India restless. Unfortunately, having no leverage with the political class, this resentment of Middle India remained limited to TV debates & drawing room discussions.
Along came Anna, the man with no baggage & clean image. The same middle India, which had been written off by the politicians, came out in hundreds of thousands to the utter shock & disbelief of the political class. They have no clue as to how to handle this new beast. With general elections 3 years away, unless UPA does further bungling, they are hoping that storm will blow over & they will carry on with their business of politics as usual.
Hopefully this time it will be different. This agitation has brought people from different walks of life on a common platform. With mass media, Face Book & Twitter, Middle India has learned to communicate & organize itself, which it lacked earlier.
New leaders are emerging from this movement who will TRULY represent their electorate & not be held hostage to party affiliations & whips. They will be of independent thinking who will listen to their conscience & will stand by their electorate.
Current 200+ urban Lok Sabha seats will increase in number with rapid urbanization & Middle India will become relevant again, politically.
As Mahatma Gandhi Said - "Initially they will ignore you, then they will laugh at you, then they will fight with you & finally you will win". To Middle India - It is our time & it is our battle to win. Let's march ahead.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Thursday, February 19, 2009
We Must Engage with the Political Class to Remain Relevant
Educated Civil Society no longer matters to politicians and policy makers.
Outpouring of public anger post 26/11 in the form of rallies, marches and candle light vigils highlighted the frustration and helplessness of educated middle class. Unfortunately such protests are neither sustainable nor do they provide long term solutions to problems and issues facing our nation.
Failure of governance and lack of development are the two most important issues which our elected representatives and bureaucrats need to focus on. But if people who understand and are concerned about these issues do not engage with the political class, they will continue with the vote bank politics of caste, religion, favours and appeasement.
We have chosen parliamentary democracy system of government and are proud of being the largest democracy. Over past 60 years we have evolved as a robust democracy, which many nations of the world can only hope for. We just need to peep into our neighbourhood to realize as to how fortunate we are to have enjoyed a credible and popular democracy from our birth as an independent nation, except for a brief period of emergency during 1970s.
Democracies depend upon citizen’s participation, to make an informed and collective choice every few years to choose their leaders and the governments which they hope and believe will serve them with honesty and sincerity.
An educated and well informed citizen making the right choice is the basic tenet of a robust democracy. Unfortunately, given the much maligned image of our political class, educated civil society has chosen to stay away from exercising this fundamental right. While we criticize them, we don’t want to be even remotely engaged with the politics or political leaders.
This is the reason why political class ignores the educated civil society and focuses on rural, urban poor and marginalized sections of the society. Politicians entice these sections with favours, appeasement, money and muscle power. They become the vote banks, based on caste, religion, region and language.
This has resulted in a chicken & egg situation. Since we don’t like the current day politicians, we do not engage in the political process. But since we don’t engage in the political process we don’t get politicians of our choice. This vicious circle needs to be broken.
It is obvious that politicians would care only for those who vote for them. Disengaging has only done us harm by producing criminals and thugs as politicians. Time has come for us to engage with political class and make our VOTE count.
Let’s start not just engaging but aligning. If we align with a party or a candidate and assure them of our vote, they will be happy and willing to look into our concerns and issues.
We often hear that educated people are so few that their vote won’t matter. This is a myth.
Post delimitation, 2009 Lok Sabha will have 120 urban constituencies (out of a total of 543), which decide their winner by a margin of just few thousand votes. So a determined and informed educated middle class, voting as a block based on issues of governance and development, will become the swing vote bank, which will be courted by every party. So lets not underestimate the power of SWING VOTE of determined educated civil society.
More on SWING VOTE in the Next Article.
Outpouring of public anger post 26/11 in the form of rallies, marches and candle light vigils highlighted the frustration and helplessness of educated middle class. Unfortunately such protests are neither sustainable nor do they provide long term solutions to problems and issues facing our nation.
Failure of governance and lack of development are the two most important issues which our elected representatives and bureaucrats need to focus on. But if people who understand and are concerned about these issues do not engage with the political class, they will continue with the vote bank politics of caste, religion, favours and appeasement.
We have chosen parliamentary democracy system of government and are proud of being the largest democracy. Over past 60 years we have evolved as a robust democracy, which many nations of the world can only hope for. We just need to peep into our neighbourhood to realize as to how fortunate we are to have enjoyed a credible and popular democracy from our birth as an independent nation, except for a brief period of emergency during 1970s.
Democracies depend upon citizen’s participation, to make an informed and collective choice every few years to choose their leaders and the governments which they hope and believe will serve them with honesty and sincerity.
An educated and well informed citizen making the right choice is the basic tenet of a robust democracy. Unfortunately, given the much maligned image of our political class, educated civil society has chosen to stay away from exercising this fundamental right. While we criticize them, we don’t want to be even remotely engaged with the politics or political leaders.
This is the reason why political class ignores the educated civil society and focuses on rural, urban poor and marginalized sections of the society. Politicians entice these sections with favours, appeasement, money and muscle power. They become the vote banks, based on caste, religion, region and language.
This has resulted in a chicken & egg situation. Since we don’t like the current day politicians, we do not engage in the political process. But since we don’t engage in the political process we don’t get politicians of our choice. This vicious circle needs to be broken.
It is obvious that politicians would care only for those who vote for them. Disengaging has only done us harm by producing criminals and thugs as politicians. Time has come for us to engage with political class and make our VOTE count.
Let’s start not just engaging but aligning. If we align with a party or a candidate and assure them of our vote, they will be happy and willing to look into our concerns and issues.
We often hear that educated people are so few that their vote won’t matter. This is a myth.
Post delimitation, 2009 Lok Sabha will have 120 urban constituencies (out of a total of 543), which decide their winner by a margin of just few thousand votes. So a determined and informed educated middle class, voting as a block based on issues of governance and development, will become the swing vote bank, which will be courted by every party. So lets not underestimate the power of SWING VOTE of determined educated civil society.
More on SWING VOTE in the Next Article.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
It is not a funny BLOG :)
Hi there,
If you happen to be here by accident, you may not find this blog too funny and exciting but if you are here by choice, you will truly enjoy it.
Here, we talk of issues which affect our nation, societies and world at large. It's a tall order to discuss matter of such importance in a casual setting of a blog but hey, all complex problems usually have simple solutions. So why not give it a try.
Hope to see you around more often.
Please do join us, if you are TRYING to CHANGE INDIA
Or visit my other BLOG - Are we ready to Change India ?
If you happen to be here by accident, you may not find this blog too funny and exciting but if you are here by choice, you will truly enjoy it.
Here, we talk of issues which affect our nation, societies and world at large. It's a tall order to discuss matter of such importance in a casual setting of a blog but hey, all complex problems usually have simple solutions. So why not give it a try.
Hope to see you around more often.
Please do join us, if you are TRYING to CHANGE INDIA
Or visit my other BLOG - Are we ready to Change India ?
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