"Chote Sarkaar, Nakhre Hazaar aur Desh Barbaad"

"Those who want to reap the benefits of a great nation must bear the fatigue of supporting it" said the Great English-American revolutionary Thomas Paine. Unfortunately, he did not live to see how India has modified these words of wisdom with their own version of Democracy. From quite a few years, a decade to be precise, our federal structure has been following a rule - "Reap the benefits of a Great Nation and let the whole Nation bear the fatigue of supporting it". And all this is made possible by no other than hundreds of regional parties - "Chote Sarkaar" in my vocabulary - across the Country. DMK, SP, NCP, JDU being the driving force behind this change.

I will explain the roots of my protests against the regional parties named above. But before that I want to clearly mention that I am not against the presence of regional parties in our polity. After all, this is one the best tools for a Democracy like ours to represent the concerns of the people from even the most remote parts of the country. However, my concern are the ways this efficient tool is being denuded off its moral responsibility towards the Nation as a whole and hence my protest is towards the involvement of such regional parties in National Elections. Let us see case by case.

Go Travel Forever! Socially Distanced Travel Motivation!

First case under study is the LTTE issue in Sri Lanka and the toll it has taken on us as a Nation. What happened with Tamils in Sri Lanka was not Humane in any sense. But to have a brush with the history, I should reiterate that an Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was deployed in Sri Lanka in 1987 to counter LTTE and it comprised of soldiers from the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force. 

We all know how badly it failed (Read Here) - mainly due to political blunders which I shall address in another post - and how many of our soldiers got massacred at the hands of LTTE. To be exact, the count stops at 1200 (Read here). Also, the LTTE assassinated an Indian Prime Minister as well. This remains nothing less than a shame for our country till date. 

Go Travel Forever! Socially Distanced Travel Motivation!

Now, let us look at the reactions of major regional parties of Tamil Nadu on this conflict - DMK being the oldest of them all - after the end of Civil War in Sri Lanka which marked the elimination of LTTE to it core. As a part of UPA 2 the DMK made Indian Government keep off from the bids for the sea ports construction that were offered by the Sri Lankan government. 

Result? China bagged a mega deal and found an easy way into Indian Ocean closer to our borders on the South. China's regular mischiefs along the borders on the North is nothing new but in spite of being aware of the dangers if we have let it come closer to us from all sides, as in this case, then its a National Security concern visible enough even to everyone.

Does it make sense to risk a Nation's security as a whole for some regional issue, which in-fact in this case is an internal issue of a foreign country altogether? Concern for Human Rights could have been raised in UN or in other International forums and we could have saved our waters from intrusion by China if the policy of NOT keeping the NATION FIRST for petty gains would not have been followed by regional parties of Tamil Nadu.

Go Travel Forever! Socially Distanced Travel Motivation!

Second comes the combined case of SP (in U.P.) and NCP (in Maharashtra). Both the parties have only one aim - grab Money in form of dole-outs to State Governments by the Centre. Every now and then they threaten to pull their support from the Centre Government and in return flush out some thousands of crores in the name of grants for Agricultural progress of their respective states. Interestingly, the progress only appears to be of their bank balances and nowhere else in the state. 

Moreover, having a larger part of the cultivable land of the Nation these acts of corruption by SP and NCP cause a deep negative impact on the production of food for the masses which is again one of the causes for inflation and higher account deficit for the country. The drastic case of two decade long drought in Vidarbha in Maharashtra is a classic example to support this argument. 

In UP its even worse now. Samajwadi Party has extended this policy of blackmail to get a no-action assurance from the Centre Government on cases of failed governance in the state (read Muzzafarnagar and other 100s of riots in UP).

Go Travel Forever! Socially Distanced Travel Motivation!

The UP state Government has even gone to the extent of releasing terrorists locked up in different jails of the state for showing it as a good gesture towards a particular community in a hope to ensure the loyalty of their votes for Mulayam and Akilesh Yadav (Read here). Who will bear the losses from the deadly actions of the terrorists released by UP Government for mere vote-bank politics? Of course, the NATION as a whole.

Lets move on to the next case - Janta dal United (JDU). JDU, the ruling party in Bihar, is the most interesting in this lot. On one hand Mr. Nitish Kumar claims his governance model to be the best in the country and "inclusive". And on the other hand he regularly visits Delhi to beg for 'Special Status' for Bihar. His definition of "inclusive growth", it seems, is to devise a way to remain backward and eat on the resources of the rest of the country which have come by sheer handwork of the people and development in other states. 

Go Travel Forever! Socially Distanced Travel Motivation!

If Mr. Nitish Kumar is a so confident of his "inclusive" model of growth and governance then why doesn't he lift Bihar to a level where they need not beg special favours from other governments? Why should the Nation bear the burnt of his ill-governance, lack of innovation and hard-work to lift-up his state in the race for Development like other exemplary states have done?

All these problems of blackmails by regional parties can be brought to a halt in Indian Democratic structure if the rules for contesting elections at National level are made more tough for the regional parties. 

By raising the bar of minimum number of seats required, in at least three-fourth of states in the Country, for a regional party to contest elections at National level this problem can be solved OR that we simply STOP voting for regional parties in National Elections.

Go Travel Forever! Socially Distanced Travel Motivation!

However, on an ending note this must also be made clear that a solution can come in different views & forms very easily but if ever we want it to come on paper, to get our polity rid of this evil, then there are several actions to be taken before that. First and foremost is to do away with the weakest Central leadership,

that we have today, that shamelessly tolerates and even publicly puts "Coalition Compulsions" - I call them "Nakhre Hazzar" - as an excuse for looting and weakening this country - finally "Desh Barbaad".

Thanks,

Prateek