Dictators, Morons and Cry-babies

“You know why this is the worst prison in the world….Hope…Over the years, many have tried to escape but failed miserably…you see without hope there cannot be true despair..”

-          Bane

In case you haven’t seen the movie, (I am holding myself from damning you to hell), but still just in case you haven’t seen the movie, the scene refers to a prison where Bane was himself incarcerated for majority of his life (perhaps even born there) and where he has now imprisoned Bruce Wayne to break the latter’s spirit. The prison is an underground dark pit…but it’s peculiar point is a hole about the size of a well right in its centre…which gives light and well…hope for escape. One can see the light…the sky…there are crevices in the wall from which one can dream of climbing through…but it’s a life threatening climb that looks just easy enough to do…but of course isn’t. That’s the worst thing isn’t it…if one has resigned himself to Destiny…if one has given up all hope, he is free…free from the burden of effort…of trying…of struggle. But as long as there is something that keeps feeding you a hint of an opportunity, it will continue to tease you by that mere possibility…by trying to gasp that little chance of escape to a better life.

In a movie so blatantly laden with themes of democracy, citizen’s revolution and personality cults, many would not equate this famous prison scene from The Dark Knight Rises to be an ideal description of democracy…but this scene almost quite sums up my philosophical views on the Indian democracy. I said philosophical because even though political ideology involves philosophical influences to a large extent, politics has always had an engaging affair with practicality that philosophy sometimes steers clear of.

As I have always made clear, my views of Indian politics, have veered from true democracy to socialism to autocracy and anarchy, (yes, anarchy even before the Joker and V for Vendetta made it super cool). Now, before you start accusing me of just not being firm on my beliefs…well what the fuck is the point if your beliefs don’t evolve over the years…each and every great thinker, leader, politician etc. has gone through a phase to settle on framing their own ideas…to stick to one set of ideas all your life is an insult to human evolution.  However, that’s not to say that you can change your principles as and when it suits you….(only politicians get to do that) but what I believe is that your core principles do remain the same and though you might commit to different ideas in public…there are core ideas which you believe are true no matter what and they will influence your life after a certain age. According to the Indian govt. (and most governments world over), an individual supposedly achieves that at age 18. As though a switch is magically switched on and people suddenly start knowing who is better at framing their tax policy at the same age when the only two things that matter (at least to guys) are…..

Although, philosophical ramblings apart, I do agree that we have to set a barrier to allow people to participate in democracy, but as I have made clear in my previous article….since when did age become the only determining factor…what about literacy and education (not the same thing)…so currently my views have evolved on Meritocracy. And I believe, I will settle at that…it involves all my core ideas…equal opportunity…Intelligence…distribution of power and ensuring morons aren’t in-charge.

Speaking of morons, as to how our democracy resembles Bane’s prison…well, it offers people a false hope…a chance for change…by permitting anybody to participate in its governing process. However by allowing seamless participation it’s allowed all kinds of assholes to enter into positions of power by the only merit of being born in the right family and/or using their caste/money to be popular amongst a section of people, which has seriously eroded our standards of governance. Although, popularity is seldom a mark of efficiency and in politics, one man’s hero will always be the other man’s villain…after probably the first generation of politicians who were also freedom fighters of some sort… no other politician has enjoyed uniform acceptability in India. And those in power will always remain in power, they will never let the poor truly develop or never let the backward caste ever rise of the backwardness…they will sprout all kinds of pseudo-ideologies and stir up names of great leaders as and when needed to merely achieve the goal of being in power. Corruption will give birth to corruption. Casteism will give birth to casteism. But for the sole reason that we are a ‘democracy’ and still have a relatively fair election process that the people are not down in the streets going all ‘french revolution’ over their ass.

 

I bet the french have some unnecessarily long but romantic sounding word for this too...

This is how down in the dumps our system currently is…although I have written about electoral reforms and etc. before (which you can read here) I won’t go too deep into what the problems are.

But as Balasaheb Thackeray has once said, “Democracy in India is a guise under which the corrupt hide their sins”. And he couldn’t be more right.

However, coming to terms with practicality, since we all are stuck in Bane’s prison…we have to grab whatever chance…no matter how difficult or life-threatening it is…to lift ourselves into a better society. This is the thing about democracy again…Bane’s prison provides at least a chance…even if one in a million…an autocracy (like China) or a confused theocratic ‘democracy’ (yes am talking about the religiously extremist piece of shit failed state-Pakistan) does not. So time to take the chance…but like Bruce Wayne learns to do in the movie, he has to go without a safety rope…without a cushion of falling safely to go through. Fear of death…fear of failing is what drives him to make that epic final jump successfully.

What drove me to come back to this blog after a year…well, elections!... to be specific…and also finally doing 4 rounds in a period of 3 months to get my name enlisted in the voter’s list. OK before you go on, I came to Pune from Aurangabad right about age 19 and since, middle-class people have it harder than Bangladeshi illegal immigrants to get themselves registered, I couldn’t get it done until 7 years later. Not that I tried really hard before…it’s just that I was 19 and I had better things to worry about... 

Anyways, since the country is in a mood for change…I decided that this is the right time to get registered. Even though the only original reason I wanted to get registered was to merely exercise my right to give a middle finger to the system i.e. select the None Of The Above option (NOTA)…but there seems to be some hope on the streets.

Yes of course am talking about Modi and BJP, not that am a really big fan of him nor really a big fan of the BJP. But even as a 10 year old, I couldn’t bring it in my mind to support congress. And forget my own personal preferences, no matter how kattar a Congress supporter you are…let’s face it…they have done a real shit job in the past 10 years…all the scandals and populist schemes apart, the worst being having an impotent, uncharismatic PM who cant even move facial muscles rather than an entire country. 

Not that BJP is the epitome of good governance or something…but hey let’s have a change at least for the heck of it. At least have some new scam-sters in place. Who knows they might get two-three things done in a better way than others. At least they seem to have some idea of where they are going. Unlike you know who

Besides, for those pseudo-liberals who think they are being so different and cool by pointing out that Modi hasn’t really done all the things he has said well…even if he has done two things like completing the Kutch irrigation canal and improving the city of Ahmedabad…that still is two more things than Congress did. Also, for the sake of practicality…if you are criticizing anything…a) you should be the one actually doing something about it or b) you should have a better option/comparison to offer. I agree things aren’t ideal etc etc…well here is a secret…I ideally want to have a three some with Malaika Arora and Monica Belluci…ideal yes…practical…fucking no…get the point?

As Rahul Gandhi’s rape on national television in that infamous interview by Arnab has proved, he is definitely NOT an option. 

And even before you mention AAP, Kejriwal may have ran away again. They call Modi a dictator, well Kejriwal is a cry-baby in comparison. Not efficient enough to be dictator, not calm enough to have at least a little childish charm like our little Prince.  Sure you can be a CM and sit on dharna…just the same way you can be a CEO and go on strike against your employees. But the fact is you CAN do it if you want to…just that if they weren’t listening to you in the first place no way as hell they are gonna listen to you now. Kejriwal is actually more of an embodiment of Bane’s ideas to torture Gotham…poison the people with hope and then take it all away suddenly. 

But anyways, lest this sound like another Modi advertisement…(really annoyed with all of those btw), I don’t really adore him as the perfect leader either (I reserve that title only for myself). His speeches are awful, he has been trying to create a one man personality cult around himself rather than project the ideas of the party. But that’s about it. He at least appears as though he could do something. Personally (and I think I speak for most people’s sentiments) I hate Congress more than I like Modi. No wonder people who haven’t earlier been on-board with the whole Sangh Parivar parties are now at least wondering about giving them another chance. They didn’t really do that bad during Vajpayee’s time if you ask me. But then to each his own, personally I would choose an efficient dictator over a cry baby or a bumbling moron anytime.

Moral of the story is…you HAVE to choose someone…even if its NOTA. Don’t lose out on the opportunity to make a difference. Please do vote for any goddamn party you want. But do exercise your right. Even if imperfect, currently it is the only option we have. Go ahead…Take a Leap of Faith.

And as South Park once said “Democracy sometimes means having to choose between a douche and a turd..” Your Choice.