The power of 2

In subtle terms, the Indian political system has always been a bone of contention in the recent years. However, the harsh reality is that it is no different that prostitution. The seat being the prostitute and politicians being the pimps! It is hard to believe that a nation of more than a billion has a bunch of illiterate immortals in the governing body who are qualified in a subject called "nothing". What is more worrisome however is that the remaining populace selects and elects them time and again. It is not because we shy away from owning responsibility towards our nation or we are too apathetic to think on the topic of national polity. It is because of not acting in the past and present that we have created such a pool of contestants none of whom are capable enough of being the right one.

Anyways, I do not intend contesting on a heavily debated topic of the current state of political scenario in the country. Rather, I propose to raise a point for all of us to think logically for a moment, what may be the reason for us to be in such a situation and what possibly could be the way forward. Historically and presently, if you look at all the nations that we perceive to be as successful and futuristic, it seems that almost all of them have a 2 party system that dominated their politics; be it USA, Russia or UK. Even single ideology systems have made nations successful; be it China or Germany.

On the other hand, when we look at India, there are numerous political parties large and small existing at every nook and crony. Each one of them having their own selfish agendas to appease their limited following and a national vendetta to create a furor each time some policy comes up which is in a national interest but not in their personal. These are fence sitters who will auction themselves for money and power.

As a result what we are seeing today is that such fence-sitters, however small they are, are becoming menacingly powerful enough to destabilize governments and thereby national governance. If the seats arent traded, if the positions arent shared, if money doesnt change hands under the table, the entire nation's governance will be held at ransom by them. In political circuits, they self-prophesize themselves as a part that can make or break governments; in sane terms it is called nuisance value. What happens thereafter is a mockery of the system; mockery in the name of "coalition" governments. In comes the NDA and in response the UPA is formed. Its good as along as the agenda of all parties in a coalition remains constant and consistent and as long as the objective of the coalition takes precedence over intra party feud. But the problem is that it aint possible as a result of existence of individual party preferences within a coalition. In Indian political coalitions, anybody can simply walk out if the policies and actions do not appease individual whims and fancies, thereby holding the enire governments at brim.

What our nation needs to look and think, is having in power a mechanism with primary concern for national governance and progress of citizens and country as a whole. This is possible at a faster rate when we start having 2 party structure. Lest the games of accusation will keep oscillating and we will simply prolong our development.

Jaydeep Deshpande