Fixing the Indian Bus
By: Amit Bhushan Date:17th Mar. 2018
The trigger to this article is an article in an English daily. The article quite badly tries to implore with its readers that ‘somebody would attempt to fix the bus’, and that political change may not be the right answer. The fact is that the Netas never had a ‘message reading system’ but assumed that the messaging delivery is right. It is the political change or its threat that helps in appreciation and some acknowledgement of the message received including to extract some miniscule correctives and even these are attempted to be diluted in favour of the selected few. Take the case of now almost forgotten Right to Information. Barely a few in the commercial news media made some ceremonial comments on the attempts to its dilution and there has been no political reaction to this since the celebrated ones are also part of the government in some state and busy defending their own turf. While on one hand we may be having another redux of movement for Lokpal, there is a steady ‘base erosion’ away from the public glare. Given such an experience, people are better advised to continue to focus on ‘change’ and the Netas can continue to focus on what would probably help them save their jobs.
There have been important ‘gains’ recorded in the polity on this account i.e. ‘Game’ or ‘vocal call to change’. That people close to political Netas including some Netas have at least started to recognize the ‘issues & problems’. Presently they seem to be doing so in order to defend themselves, but it is hoped that sooner they would realize that ‘driving the bus, through this change process’ is also 'the'r calling’ and that there is no escape from this in politics. The ‘Game’ in democracy is surely ‘of the people, played for the people and by the people’ and that keeps the cult growing. This is because the Netas along with select businesses and the commercial news media would continue to attempt to hijack the agenda and ‘be on the driver’s seat’ to drive their version of change. So, ‘Game’ helps to elaborate the people’s version of change and often this becomes clearer only in the last year with meek beggary being resorted to implore voters about acknowledgement of the real issues. Such attempts are ludicrous since the Netas during their experience in the government always knew about the leaks, where they are and how they occur. So the argument that a systemic issue being detected now and lately doesn’t make a cut, as its just being realized that not acknowledging this would be even more severe from an electoral perspective.
The current Netas in government are a great believer that ‘sincerity sells’, since some of them realized that it would be impossible to achieve even a fraction on the manifesto. The beautiful article does capture the ‘Game agenda’ somewhat with a decent coverage of issues. It may however be noted that it fails to mention that the political agenda followed by the Netas in the Center as well as in the States has been quite different and that none really has anything to talk about on the list of issues, as of yet. It further fails to mention that even now nearly every opportunity is being attempted to deviate public opinion from the addenda rather any attempt to make any ‘fix’ for these ‘systemic issues’ for all that ‘sincerity’ hyperbole. Let’s see if we receive periodic update on the progress underneath the items mentioned and able to verify the same. ’Game’ has already forecasted about the Coalition government and the ‘third flush’ ( http://www.managementparadise.com/article/9755/realigning-amongst-secular-political-groups ) ensuing in 2024 though between 2019 and 2024, there itself may be a possibility of ‘a couple of changes’. ‘Sincerity’ towards ‘Game’ agenda would ensure longevity, but otherwise the pressures would keep going up. Let the ‘Game’ evolve…..