Change in the New Delhi power regime, upcoming Lok Sabha elections, star studded preelection visits have created enough material for analyzing the landscape of Indian Political space in minds of every common citizen of this country. Since last November 2013, manifestations of the changing landscape of Indian Political space is quite evident.
On one hand, the people who showed faith on the open ended space creating administration structure of the existing government backtracked and ousted the Indian National Congress in different states to bring new faces, ideas and thoughts in the political space: on the other hand, there are people who are also showing faith on political leaders whose political motivations and agenda are not always driven by a larger reliance on the expansion of human space and rights. At the same time, human space giving nature of the ruling government in a way has acted as a boomerang against them. May be the ruling party gave space to their state operations and gave freedom and lost the control of the local operations which led to corruption, inefficiency of operations at the state and grass root level and reduced their larger connect with the people resulting in loss of the election. The loss happened even though UPA has always brought in the developmental needs of the people of grass roots in their political agenda: be it through NREGS, be it through food security. By saying all this, I donot want to propagate or promote any particular political party. It is just an attempt to independently assess certain trends.
In retrospect, it seems that the developmental agenda within the political process has been making its way for a transparent information disclosure driven non corrupt political decision making. Does the Delhi election win of AAP indicate that? The way of winning the hearts of Delhi people by AAP through transparent sharing of information about funds, credentials of candidates hints towards it. It also indicates that people now want to see that a political party is also efficiently governed through non corrupt finances, effective, efficient information disclosures like a good firm which shares the information to shareholders (in this case the people who vote).
However, the politics of AAP is also not so simple. It has the element of an efficient manager which discloses the information of its firm to the shareholder, but it also has a moral element to it. Therefore it is also questioning morality, ethics of the existing political process and mixing it with a kind of accountable firm. Thus questions of right of people to decide through decentralised nature of operation has been brought in. It is also getting enmeshed with the morality and ethics while making decisions at the local level. It is over here, a danger lies. If the move towards a morality driven politics gets a strong tint and punch of power, then an element of intolerance and encroachment into human space can come in. It can also lead to a control driven politics which can go against the freedom of people and enrage them. If such a control driven politics increases gradually then it can actually again bring back corruption at a decentralized level through the same people who tried to eradicate it at the first instance by using morality, ethics and decentralized form of governing people. Somewhere, the success of AAP will lie how they balance these concerns in the next few months. Their successful balancing will also indicate the direction in which the country is headed in the next 10 years in terms of its political process.
The other player in this political landscape has been in a way more consistent in terms of their political stands. It has been easy to analyze their political motivations which inspite of being promoting the concerns, needs of the hour of the country might not essentially be in the interest of a human being and human right. This has been well evident in terms of their views related to sexual minority rights within the country. It has also brought in the conflict between individualism and nationalism in the political agenda making process of this key contending party of the upcoming Loksabha elections.
Thus, who ever wins the forthcoming Loksabha elections, impact of the changing landscape of Indian political space will surely be felt on human rights and space within this country. Will it be for the betterment, progressive movement of the Indian society can only be realized, felt and sensed in the next two to three years.
On one hand, the people who showed faith on the open ended space creating administration structure of the existing government backtracked and ousted the Indian National Congress in different states to bring new faces, ideas and thoughts in the political space: on the other hand, there are people who are also showing faith on political leaders whose political motivations and agenda are not always driven by a larger reliance on the expansion of human space and rights. At the same time, human space giving nature of the ruling government in a way has acted as a boomerang against them. May be the ruling party gave space to their state operations and gave freedom and lost the control of the local operations which led to corruption, inefficiency of operations at the state and grass root level and reduced their larger connect with the people resulting in loss of the election. The loss happened even though UPA has always brought in the developmental needs of the people of grass roots in their political agenda: be it through NREGS, be it through food security. By saying all this, I donot want to propagate or promote any particular political party. It is just an attempt to independently assess certain trends.
In retrospect, it seems that the developmental agenda within the political process has been making its way for a transparent information disclosure driven non corrupt political decision making. Does the Delhi election win of AAP indicate that? The way of winning the hearts of Delhi people by AAP through transparent sharing of information about funds, credentials of candidates hints towards it. It also indicates that people now want to see that a political party is also efficiently governed through non corrupt finances, effective, efficient information disclosures like a good firm which shares the information to shareholders (in this case the people who vote).
However, the politics of AAP is also not so simple. It has the element of an efficient manager which discloses the information of its firm to the shareholder, but it also has a moral element to it. Therefore it is also questioning morality, ethics of the existing political process and mixing it with a kind of accountable firm. Thus questions of right of people to decide through decentralised nature of operation has been brought in. It is also getting enmeshed with the morality and ethics while making decisions at the local level. It is over here, a danger lies. If the move towards a morality driven politics gets a strong tint and punch of power, then an element of intolerance and encroachment into human space can come in. It can also lead to a control driven politics which can go against the freedom of people and enrage them. If such a control driven politics increases gradually then it can actually again bring back corruption at a decentralized level through the same people who tried to eradicate it at the first instance by using morality, ethics and decentralized form of governing people. Somewhere, the success of AAP will lie how they balance these concerns in the next few months. Their successful balancing will also indicate the direction in which the country is headed in the next 10 years in terms of its political process.
The other player in this political landscape has been in a way more consistent in terms of their political stands. It has been easy to analyze their political motivations which inspite of being promoting the concerns, needs of the hour of the country might not essentially be in the interest of a human being and human right. This has been well evident in terms of their views related to sexual minority rights within the country. It has also brought in the conflict between individualism and nationalism in the political agenda making process of this key contending party of the upcoming Loksabha elections.
Thus, who ever wins the forthcoming Loksabha elections, impact of the changing landscape of Indian political space will surely be felt on human rights and space within this country. Will it be for the betterment, progressive movement of the Indian society can only be realized, felt and sensed in the next two to three years.
Posts
