All fat, no muscle

In the wake of announcing the outcome of polls to the country’s various Legislative bodies, it is customary for the losing parties to vent their voice to inform the citizens about the malpractices of the winning parties, highlighting the play of money power and muscle power in garnering the votes needed for victory at the hustings. The Election Commission’s silent roar as it were in response to complaints against the victorious individuals dubiously glorified as people’s representatives ends in a loud whimper in public domain only helping the print media to fill their columns with narratives that people read as time pass and the chatterati for chattering until the cows come home. Even the unlettered sections in society are aware of the fat volume of money splurged by contestants in the polls, win or lose. The point that it is only the people who provide the muscle power to ensure win for their heroes. That is what democracy is all about.

An American clergyman and writer James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888) is quoted saying “A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.” A wit has qualified the quote to say that the land’s politicians also think of the next generation, only to build an enduring foundation for prosperity of the next generation of their kith and kin.

Both the government at the Centre and its counterparts in the States across the country, including the incumbent Government of Karnataka are having a torrid time facing charges of maladministration. It is once again muscle power of sorts on play in the road shows by masses led by leaders of the parties that didn’t cross the bar in successive elections. Unfazed by the unrelenting demand for showing the exit door to the respective governments midway through their five-year term, the elected representatives of people in their seat of power and authority are making hay while the sun shines, as the proverb says, adding fat to their personal wealth built with tainted money. Hiking their monthly salaries and sitting fees during Legislature Sessions at will is only additional fat, financially speaking.

In the august company of the political class who take turns in successive five-year terms to carry on their lucrative business of administration is the nation’s army of bureaucrats — nearly 50 lakh in the Central government and God-knows-how-many in the 36 States and Union Territories, pampered every 10 years once by the Pay Commission’s freebies, their numerical strength being the government’s muscle power, not to forget disease of muscular dystrophy (weakness) when it comes to their only duty of implementing the land’s laws.