The Foreign Hand

By- Pamarty Venkataramana

India has been going through one of the most democratic exercises of modern world : the ongoing elections being conducted in a phased manner to facilitate the smooth deployment of security forces to help the Election Commission conduct it smoothly and fairly are both energising as well as traumatising for the informed voter class.
Energising because the often divergent but different viewpoints of contesting parties helps to assess the ground realities of the seven decades plus nation.

Traumatic for it also brings to light the low standards and even lower moral and ethical behaviour of a large number of Candidates indulging in mud-smearing campaign and vicious personal attacks against one another.

All of this results in the evolution of a most bizarre atmosphere bordering between dementia and compulsive obsession disorder.

Slogans have been coined; curses and abuses hurled with multicoloured banners vying with festoons and flags of the thousands of aspirants dotting the landscape.

This year around mass media and technology have become commonplace but the limelight seems to have been grabbed by hyped pundits of people-strategy and less by actual scholarly discourses on the agenda announced in respective manifestos.

Everything eventually seems to evolve into an unequal fight revolving around the towering personality of Prime Minister and lead candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Narendra ji and the comparatively much less experienced Rahul ji from the Indian National Congress Party. The galaxy of all other leaders from several regional and religion based parties – young as well as seasoned fade away in glare of the media – driven polls.

Propaganda has come to be the mainstay of mainstream political sphere.

Oneupmanship and political opportunism remain the DNA of desi politics. Power – (be it retaining or gaining back power )however is the underlying theme of the costliest festival of modern civilisation.

All this may be nothing new even to the first-time voters and all who are getting to press the button of an electronic voting machine to cast their vote but there is a higher aspect that deserves attention and must be highlighted to bring into focus positivity of the magnificent assertion of a free society.

India has witnessed thousands of great leaders emerging from across a myriad sections of society as well as walks of life.

All the more since the gory days of division of the land into three countries by departing colonialists and after the dark duration of an emergency clamped by then Prime Minister Indira of the Congress Party.

For instance,many with vested interests had abetted the hidden ‘foreign hand’ in spreading tales of Calcutta being the filthy, poverty-stricken city needing the succour of a little nun who settled to be sainted decades later by the Vatican. It has been one of the most culturally advanced regions of Asia and then East India Company was proud of the city. The ‘City of Joy’ even today is one of the most modern and fast developing cities and is as smart as Kaula Lumpur or Dubai but lesser knowing campaigners on anonymous social media channels have dragged tragedies occurring in interior parts of West Bengal State as being part of the anti-India tirades being launched by terror from across the border from Bangladesh. A terribly wrong depiction of the historical blunder of letting refugees from East Pakistan (Bangladesh) indiscriminately into the border-State.

The latest episodes of Rohingya Muslims and need to have a National Citizenship Registry are but a sequel to poor policing of laws in force and the long standing conflict over Concurrent List-State List- Central List of subject matters laid down by the Constitution adopted in 1950!
Every worker of every political affiliation has an ideology aimed ultimately at improving the lot of fellow citizens. It is only a minuscule who harbour secret and ominous ambitions of destroying systems and snatching away fundamental rights.

Stalwarts have led this multi-cultural society but recent decades have exhibited a shocking derailment of institutional systems and abuse of power. So much so that one gets to shed tears of shameful helplessness at ghastly instances as the Nirbhaya killing and mob lynching but the spirit of independence which has been passed on by many a Mahatma including Netaji Bose is lit with every such aberration of Good Governance claims.

Luckily the youth of 2019 are a most awakened class of voters and realise that poverty,unemployment and total failure of the criminal justice system are but lesser evils than the imminent and pernicious evil of terrorism stalking India since August,1947. Hence,all wise citizens would vote for any candidate who swears by securing external borders of the country coupled with a sterile system of internal security.
The ‘foreign hand’ remains amidst us. Use the endowed power of the Constitution to vote right. In best interests of the Indian Nation.

Whoever gets sworn in as the next Prime Minister of India must however not let anyone who is of sick health to occupy a berth in the Union Cabinet. Else, all Voters would but be rendered fools as in the past. Taken for a merry go round ride.

All aspiring politician groups as well as workers from the grassroots-level onwards aim to build a better India where the ultimate goal of Constitution (viz;justice – social, economic, political) be attained and every citizen is able to lead a peaceful life in harmony with both Nature and the Society. So,let there be an appeal not to demean one another. We are all citizens of the same country. India believes in good of all beings.

Jai Hind!🇮🇳

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Pamarty Venkataramana

Pamarty Venkataramana (PVR) is a distinguished and eminent international Jurist, Poet, Author, Speaker and Thinker based in India. His many books are published.

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