The Indian Political Drama

Winston Churchill once said, 

'A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and the next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.'

The latter ability is something that I think best describes an Indian politician more than anything else. I am not well versed in the field of politics, but I know enough to say that any politician is a work of fine craftsmanship- striking the right balance between brainwashing voters and executing demands of sponsors, add with that a captivating charisma that makes you believe that everything is wrong and a strong leader like him/her is inevitably needed- and oh yeah, a king's ransom worth of money (or a wealthy Gujarati friend if you know what I mean😁) .

The influence of money and its power in the political world baffles me. Buying voters with money is an old school thing. Influencing voters with crores of money spent on advertisement is the new trend. The rise of social media and increased affordability of mobile phones have unintentionally become partners in crime. Creation of fake news has been a silent weapon, and by the time it is identified as fake, it has already served its purpose of convincing the voters. The so called 'real news 'which we hear and read everyday are not so real too. With most media houses clearly taking sides, people who follow only one or two channels obtain just half the truth. As Shivam Shankar Singh says in his book "How To Win An Indian Election" ,a lot of times even vigilant voters who think that they have cast their vote based on their own conclusions have been manipulated into believing so while being subjected to blindsiding half truths and repetitive fake news.

And then comes the religion and caste based dirty politics. In a country which derived its independence with a partition based on religious grounds, this problem is deep rooted in our history. The concept of reserved constituencies , in which only candidates belonging to a particular community for which the constituency has been reserved can contest, has indeed made sure that the minorities are well represented in our Parliament. But it has also achieved the last thing that a country like ours needed- strengthening the hold of the caste system.

One solution to this problem can be to adopt the proportional representation system. It essentially means that each party or candidate will get seats in proportion to the percentage of votes polled rather than the number of constituencies won. With the kind of diversity that we have in India, this system will be very helpful  and may even eliminate the concept of reserved constituencies.

But like every other idea, its implementation has its own problems. This system could backfire and lead to immense political instability , and may even end up doing the same thing that reserved constituencies are doing to our caste system. The thought that citizens would accept a complex system like this is in itself a questionable one. And even if it is implemented , would it be a successful system ? To answer that, we would have to wait to see if this implemented.  But mind you, it's a very big 'if' right there.