A ray of hope

I never voted in my life and I never intended to do so either. Like most of the people of my generation, I never cared enough about the current affairs, elections and politicians. I am very much into my own life and my problems and I have very little interest in what happens in assembly and parliament. The reason why me and many of us are so indifferent towards politics in general has probably got to do with our own natures but another major factor for this attitude, in my opinion, lies with the politics itself. The way our leaders talk and fight and way they make no sense at all has probably convinced all of us that no matter which political party gets the power, there will be no difference.

Last year, I closely followed the final phase of elections in United states between Mc Cain and Obama. By the time the election date came closer, I became a fan of Obama and I sincerely wished to have a right to vote in this country, which I never felt in my own country. Till then, I used to think that the indifference in me towards the current affairs in my country had to do with me and entirely me. But then I realised that, in addition to my nature, a nation's politicial system, it's media, and the way the players respect the public and more importantly themselves plays an important role in creating interest in its people. I also felt saddened by the fact that I could never come to like any one in my country like the way I felt about Obama.

And then, I came to know about Loksatta. Though, I heard about JP Narayan and watched some of his speeches, I did not know about the party itself. I can sense that this man is pure and whatever he is saying, he is saying it from the bottom of his heart. This, I have never seen in either in CBN or YSR and I can never ever expect that from Chiranjeevi. More than being pure and honest, the important thing for a politician is to be strong, clear in his thoughts, resonable and not emotional. This last aspect is clearly missing in all of the current politicians. Reason always takes the backseat and emotion, which is a dangerous thing, unfortunately is pulling the crowds.

I believe people always get the government that they deserve. We always complain about the politicians whenever we see something grossly wrong happening in the society. We conveniently forget our role in putting those people there. But most of the times, we have no option and we need to choose the lesser evil among the options available. Now, we do have an option, not just a normal option but glaringly different and clearly the best among all of the politicians. Something tells me that we will just ignore it and go back to choosing one of the other three and then start complaining again. This is not right.

I can understand when an uneducated or uninformed person votes for either CBN or YSR for favoring his caste/family etc and others voting for Chiranjeevi, who take him literally to his filmy roles. But, when an educated/working class person fails to even recognize a party like Loksatta, that is not pardonable. 

The best things that I liked in Jay prakash narayan's speeches:

• He is the first AP politician that I ever heard who acknowledged the fact that government is neither a ruling authority nor a servant to the public. It is a collection of representatives of the people.
• He did not promise any freebies like color tv's or 2 Rs rice. I always thought 2 Rs rice was a very very mean policy. Recently, I watched a video of NTR announcing the 2 Rs rice scheme to the public. There are two ways to interpret it. If you are die hard fan of NTR, you will probably be overwhelmed by his kindness. But on the other hand, he is not supposed to be KING who rules and provides gifts/freebies to his submissive public. We forget that it is his job to make sure that there does not arise a situation where people cannot spend more than 2 Rs for rice. We don't need to be grateful for such an act. I haven't seen any one remotely making that argument and acknowledge the fact that instead of giving freebies the job of the govt is to improve the life styles of people so that they don't need to be dependent on such schemes.
• The idea of having hundreds of towns and cities in our state was the most radical and probably the best I have ever heard. Today, any body who is into IT or any other high paying job has to leave his town or city and head back to hyderabad, the only city in our entire state for such opportunities. That is a shame. In any other developed country, you will hundreds of cities where you can work in almost any industry you aspire to.
• No donations from a political candidate whatsoever. Donations come from the public who are interested in his policies.
• Less talk on what others did not do and more on what his party will do.