Political parties and personalities taking over the government today...

The constitution of India a document people of India gave to themselves to decide the future of India and manner in which the stakeholders should be behaving has done well during last six decades by inching towards the progress. The progress so made now also have credit takers as well as those who demonize the development also give credit to political class. The 'government' so defined constituted the four estates, executive, legislative and judiciary. In addition 'media' as forth estate constitute what government was supposed to be in democracy. Some may also cite 'people' community or mob as a part of the fourth estate. But during these last 60 years India's democracy is now fully taken over the political class by claiming government as their own, the government's are now titles as 'congress government' 'Janta Government' or BJP Government, and more brazenly as Manmohan's Government, Modi's Government, Mulayams Governments, Vasundhara's Government etc. It so feels now that we are returning backing to feudal system of governance. The lordships have divided the country among themselves and trying to get control of more territories by claiming victory over the opposition territory. The political class conveniently run the government (as they claim), and asks the people to go to long sleep and slumber till before the next election.

Such is the desire of the political class, that they create the political lobbies in the other estates like in executive, judiciary and media. They are often used to target the opposition, and often purchased by using ill gotten monies from the political slung matches. The furious fight is for the people to believe that they are enemies but as true to their class they do not mind to come together for their own self, or political benefits. The same opposition parties becomes a part of the common minimum program to run the ill mandated governance. The fate of nation though not really being planned by either of the political parties they use the other estates for their own political benefit. The system so builds takes care of the orientation of common citizens towards the political debates and the interest of them takes back seat. It takes few more people to join the political bandwagon to claim government of their own. Democracy in such conditions often fails to address the needs to people (who are not aligned to the ruling parties). The societies across are polarized between the political camps often prevails to feed their political masters and class.

 The dance of democracy from the political claimant's continues till the upcoming election 2014 in India, the political rivalries on the street also tends to friendly affairs among the seasoned politicians. The country divided into the political views ultimately has to follow the constitution, its hard to believe how one can clean the system unless its changed often. 'Swaraj' or 'Self rule' by the people was the essence of the Indian democracy but political class or emerging political class stops short of addressing the people or they themselves have accepted the political masters. Let the parties divide the nations, societies and communities by polarizing the political lines and keep people divided to run their democratic governments. Whether the political class have taken over the governments? we need to be more cautious in understanding the manner in which India's democracy would mature.  

Development Plan: Realtors and politicians guiding the cities

Long time ago there was agenda for the public participation in the preparation of the development plans for the cities. The town planners instead of preparing the table plans were instructed to take the inputs from the people and stake holders to prepare the development plans. It cannot be just the coloured land use plan, but it was supposed to take the inputs regarding the vision of people and stakeholders, aspirations of youth and urban middle class. Providing amenities, green spaces, transportation facilities etc, were the intentions the town plans were prepared. Recently the very agenda of the people and governments are hijacked by the Realtor's and politicians by making changes suitable to their own agenda's. The plans are made in hurry with cosy involvement of the consultants, government planners and babus sitting in state secratraits. The plans so prepared are now carefully looked for protecting the interests of the politicians and their real estate friends. The cities are now catering to upcoming market areas and investment destinations as desired by the construction industry, the people and their aspirations are not being focus of the development plans.

The land parcels whether its in hand of the government or the builders are taken care in the new development plans. The high stake in the land markets often drive the investors in careful control of the development plans. The make or break story of the development plans are often now tied up with the stake of the high and mighty. The fianancial stake of political parties in addressing the needs of the builders and contractors are eating into the development funds. Large investment is not for the improvement of the existing living environment or redevelopment of the deliapilated areas but to fund the upcoming market areas suitable for the realtor's. The quick fix lies into the addressing the needs of the land market forgetting the huge gap in urban infrastructure.

The urban infrastructure which are required in the towns and cities across the countries are often neglected on the one hand and huge investment are made in fly overs, river fronts, roads which services the new areas. The city needs more focus on the people who live in poor conditions, the few urban projects which high lights vision of the present population.

When Development is tagged to political parties...

Its good that development as a topic of discussion  takes a central stage in political discourses. But the most important thing which can be noted that the governments in its nomenclature is also termed out to be X parties government. When in democracy we adopted by naming a central and state govt. by parties. The political parties have a limited role to play in decision making exercise, which are supposed to be outcome of extensive research on the policy research, its impact and monitoring. 'Development' which till recently world over is thought about a serious exercise which does not mean going by party line (which often is not an outcome of well researched agenda) but by analysis of the data given through national or state level surveys. During the discourse we are into the position of easily projecting an development ideologies which stands on the political ideology and of course which totally differs from the theoretical bases. The schemes which can be objectively targeted at the development needs of the people emerges to be treating to the political needs of the parties.

The good research output suggestive of a policy which might be emerging from the burning of night oil by the numerous support staff (you may call them researches) often turning to be night mare to convince the political bosses. How on earth development issues can be limited to political parties without institutional backup. Are parties suppose to run a parallel institutional network? Or the institutions also become politicised to give feed accordingly to the political class. The individuals in the recent political arena tries to make the policies based on the their believes which in most of the cases are poorly analysed by themselves. The polarisation of the parties in the national issues is also resulting in the policy polarisaiton on the party lines. To some extent these are good to understand the good and bad outcome expected of the decisions taken by a political leaders. But do we essentially mean to say that the system is not in place to find the problems, discuss with people for verification and solutions. Development to wide spectrum of people means illusion created by the political masters. The populism of the policy depends more on the freebies which in long run may not be fruitful.

There is little doubt about the political parties in asserting their wish to the policy makers, when they themselves become the policy makers by not just discussing it among themselves also creating a no question mode for the people, the problem of acceptance arises. The serious development analysis in these scenarios take a back seat. The state governments now if seen from the political perspectives may stand in front of central governments in accepting the major political decisions or even rediculing the central decisions. Same in the case of the grass root democratic setup a situation of distress arises when the basic policy intentions and guidelines are violated. We are in a situation when more we look into the problems we try to find the quick answers which are of course short lived. Certain conflict in the policy approach or infighting between the political class has seen as loss of good opportunity in sharing the best of all. 

State Elections reduced to Personality Politics

Strange that Indian's democracy instead of getting more mature is getting more fizzled out with literates being herded by the power leaders to effect their decisions. The power politics have taken toll on the rationalism of the people. The recent concluded state elections have more to do with national leadership taking control of the state. The state issues hardly mattered rather the performance of the center is successfully evaluated and referendum asked for the contesting leaders. The issue of governance and decentralisation have failed to move the people on the issue on which the election could have been conducted. The election though tends to be more participatory with more participation, the sense of disorientation is clear within a political system. Its like one party, one person, one vote, whether you are in local, state or central election. This personality though lying low in southern India, transformed into the central and all India, is set to effect the electoral choice not of one candidate but a serious lobby and policy outcome of the ruling parties. The opposition would be happy to win game one by coming with sufficient majority in most of the states. What emerges is the lack of issues and implementation will by the ruling parties and opposition declaring hordes of populus schemes aimed to woo the voters. This is correct when the leaders often offer the cheapest food to get votes and its said that India is coming out of poverty.

This syndrome continues when others are lured with laptops, sarees, dowry (paid by govt) and other freebies to get the chance to vote for the parties. The value based judgement of the candidates are missing. What would be caricature of Indian politicians when they are supposed to 'give' in advance there share of booty till they achieve power.