The Small Parties-Questions on Revival
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 18th Aug. 2014
Some of the smaller parties seem to be making attempts on their way to rev up support amongst masses. Some of the leaders are questioning violence, but seem to be failing to provide policy alternatives which can be powerful enough to pull masses back. Though the depicted seriousness is doubtful but the parties need to rethink about their ability to gather crowds but not convert these into votes. One of the reason is near total lack of ground connect. For publics fed up with things like adulteration in milk and milk products, tons of lectures on secularism or analysis of proposed laws or policies of other parties and other 'fancy ideas' will not be of any use unless suitable ground action is depicted for concerns of people. These problems are in addition to the state government's apathy for stabilizing power situation or ration supply, which remains erratic. Support for tough situations like floods, landslides or other calamities is in any case remains under funded and lack organized service delivery structure so fraught with leakages. The services by government in education, irrigation or logistics is better not discussed since this will rather convert the article into a long list of woes, however it must be pointed that some states who embarked on e-governance for government services delivery did manage to depict service improvements to masses and often reaping 'votes' on this count (subject of course to public scrutiny about getting a reduced incidence of corruption).
Also, such parties have mainly thrived on freebie culture best depicted by erstwhile Andhra, where parties could announce freebie with declarations that the bill shall be handed over to central government. Thus, the need to raise revenue for progress through state's investment to support human development parameters or develop local industrial base wasn't ever envisaged and neither was a need to evolve a thoughtful policy framework or its implementation. Political sloganeering, dialogue and debates were seen as excellent tools for survival by politicians. The current debate on politics is about changing this prevalent political culture and raising the level of discussions on issues pertaining to actual governance with focus on delivery to masses. There are certain small party ruled states which have shown improvement in governance, however price have been paid by such parties for going to public with different issues or being unable to punch holes in development plank (based on sound reasoning) of the parties, that they sought to oppose. Infighting, cultism, internal corruption and too much (external) competition for same ideological space are other arenas which did the undoing.
Some of such states in North have made progress in some fields like higher education where competition from local institutes have led to a situation where such institutes in other states in south or west are on verge of closure although the states keep getting negative scores on immigration to other states, although need to further improve standards remain high. Similarly improvement in security environment, inter and intra city travel etc. has led to more investment in housing sector and better local job availability in some of the states which may include better environment for Small scale enterprises as well. However, there is increasing need to regulate waterway travel & transportation and development of infra and policies for which nothing much has been done except announcing some populist policies for those people whose livelihood has traditionally been dependent on Rivers. The state would have been better off by concentrating on development of water scooter or river 'carriage/hovercraft' development industry and this would have raised public awareness on cleanliness of rivers.
The smaller parties will need to find a suitable media including a suitable language media that reaches and caters to the audience to whom they want to reach out to. This media should also have ability to raise concerns of the people in effective manner to work as a medium of communication between the powers that be as well as ordinary public. Focus on intellectual audience with national advertising in the hope that this brings positive support from intellectuals may fizzle out since intellectuals will want much more information than advertorials can carry and web may actually be a better tool. The adverts may only serve to raise some curiosity though. However issues remain on continuance of such parties and this may tend to get more pronounced if the leaders are seen failing to deliver even though public have voted for them knowing fully well about their lack of elbow room at center which means actually a huge local administrative capability issues with national parties and their leaders in the state. We also have issues where the national parties instead of showing connect with public concerns have focused on other issues, also failing to show their handle on matters of local administration.
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 18th Aug. 2014
Some of the smaller parties seem to be making attempts on their way to rev up support amongst masses. Some of the leaders are questioning violence, but seem to be failing to provide policy alternatives which can be powerful enough to pull masses back. Though the depicted seriousness is doubtful but the parties need to rethink about their ability to gather crowds but not convert these into votes. One of the reason is near total lack of ground connect. For publics fed up with things like adulteration in milk and milk products, tons of lectures on secularism or analysis of proposed laws or policies of other parties and other 'fancy ideas' will not be of any use unless suitable ground action is depicted for concerns of people. These problems are in addition to the state government's apathy for stabilizing power situation or ration supply, which remains erratic. Support for tough situations like floods, landslides or other calamities is in any case remains under funded and lack organized service delivery structure so fraught with leakages. The services by government in education, irrigation or logistics is better not discussed since this will rather convert the article into a long list of woes, however it must be pointed that some states who embarked on e-governance for government services delivery did manage to depict service improvements to masses and often reaping 'votes' on this count (subject of course to public scrutiny about getting a reduced incidence of corruption).
Also, such parties have mainly thrived on freebie culture best depicted by erstwhile Andhra, where parties could announce freebie with declarations that the bill shall be handed over to central government. Thus, the need to raise revenue for progress through state's investment to support human development parameters or develop local industrial base wasn't ever envisaged and neither was a need to evolve a thoughtful policy framework or its implementation. Political sloganeering, dialogue and debates were seen as excellent tools for survival by politicians. The current debate on politics is about changing this prevalent political culture and raising the level of discussions on issues pertaining to actual governance with focus on delivery to masses. There are certain small party ruled states which have shown improvement in governance, however price have been paid by such parties for going to public with different issues or being unable to punch holes in development plank (based on sound reasoning) of the parties, that they sought to oppose. Infighting, cultism, internal corruption and too much (external) competition for same ideological space are other arenas which did the undoing.
Some of such states in North have made progress in some fields like higher education where competition from local institutes have led to a situation where such institutes in other states in south or west are on verge of closure although the states keep getting negative scores on immigration to other states, although need to further improve standards remain high. Similarly improvement in security environment, inter and intra city travel etc. has led to more investment in housing sector and better local job availability in some of the states which may include better environment for Small scale enterprises as well. However, there is increasing need to regulate waterway travel & transportation and development of infra and policies for which nothing much has been done except announcing some populist policies for those people whose livelihood has traditionally been dependent on Rivers. The state would have been better off by concentrating on development of water scooter or river 'carriage/hovercraft' development industry and this would have raised public awareness on cleanliness of rivers.
The smaller parties will need to find a suitable media including a suitable language media that reaches and caters to the audience to whom they want to reach out to. This media should also have ability to raise concerns of the people in effective manner to work as a medium of communication between the powers that be as well as ordinary public. Focus on intellectual audience with national advertising in the hope that this brings positive support from intellectuals may fizzle out since intellectuals will want much more information than advertorials can carry and web may actually be a better tool. The adverts may only serve to raise some curiosity though. However issues remain on continuance of such parties and this may tend to get more pronounced if the leaders are seen failing to deliver even though public have voted for them knowing fully well about their lack of elbow room at center which means actually a huge local administrative capability issues with national parties and their leaders in the state. We also have issues where the national parties instead of showing connect with public concerns have focused on other issues, also failing to show their handle on matters of local administration.