Reining in the ruling class

Indian democracy has tended to gravitate to a five-years-once expectations of its masses and disappointments as mirrored by the current goings on across the land, Karnataka figuring along with other States. The eligibility to seek votes as part of the process of getting elected before wearing the badge of the country’s ruling class, with or without being nominated by one or the other duly registered political party, is defined in such a way that should tickle any Indian to give a shot at coming before the people and seek their votes. The requirements that the person aspiring to contest in the polls must be over 25 years in age and be a registered voter mean that anyone among nearly 90 crore Indians can currently aspire to be a part of the ruling class. Obviously, considering the profile of India’s people at large, particularly on the count of their faculty of sifting the grain from the chaff, the profile of the persons in the land’s ruling class is what it is and doesn’t need any elaboration.

The nation’s Parliament and also the Legislative Assemblies as well as Councils of many States are known to have had persons with sterling qualities of head and heart during the initial years after the nation came under self-rule. The features of dignity and decency of the interactions between the ruling class and the opposition witnessed in those years have been thrown to the winds by the present crop of politicos, barring rare exceptions.

More than one crore Indians are currently joining the existing mass of voters annually resulting in the cost of conducting the periodic polls rising by several hundred crore rupees year after year. If one were to carry out an exercise of cost-benefit ratio of successive polls, both nationally and regionally, it is anybody’s guess what the exercise would reveal. Given the openly coming out profiles of the individuals contesting in the polls under the banners of different political parties, the senior citizens of the land, who have memoires of the years past may be aghast at the goings on in the land.

The tragedy of Indian democracy is not just that unworthy persons are managing to monopolise power and authority in the administration but the bigger tragedy is that the land’s people continue lending their generous hand to the politicos to revel as the country’s ruling class. There are no signs of the people changing their outlook as well as acting to rein in the run-away ruling class.