By K R Sudhaman
Aaya ram gaya ram politics began in India when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister. She used to be accused of decimating the opposition parties by buying wholesale elected representatives. It all started with the former Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal who bought wholesale opposition MLAs to form a Congress government in Haryana, though it was in a minority in the elections. Now Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have perfected it and taken this menace in Indian politics to the next level.
As Sanjay Jha, political analyst and former Congress spokesman, once said the way defections are taking place now, the 2024 Lok Sabha elections are going to be a contest between Congress (Nehru) vs Congress (Modi). This meant that BJP’s grand design to make Indian politics Congress mukt Bharat would instead become BJP full of Congress members.
On a serious note this sort of rampant aaya ram gaya ram politics raises a fundamental question—what has happened to morality, especially in Indian politics. One does not see this happen often in mature western democracy. People are in a particular party because of their preference for a particular ideology through which they want to serve the people. Here in India the political ideology seems to be only to serve themselves. What is worse is the BJP, which claims to be an ideology-based party and that a party with a difference, has now started indulging in the worst form of aaya ram, gaya ram politics. It is not only frequent but wholesale. More importantly, the persons against whom serious corruption and criminal cases are pending and alleged by BJP itself are taken into their fold. Once taken, the cases either disappear or put on the backburner, giving great relief to the alleged criminals.
There is now no value for honesty and integrity. This amplifies the fact that our educational system is totally faulty despite all tall claims of substantial improvement in literacy ,skill and educational prowess in the country. The fact of the matter is that our education system does not teach the basic requirement in life, that is morality. Moral education does not mean religious education. See the way people drive in this country. There is no semblance of fear in violating rules. Even policemen turn the other side at traffic signals, knowing fully that a sizable number of people have violated rules by crossing the line at signals or jumping the signals.
In India rules are meant to be broken with impunity. Two-wheeler riders do not wear helmets, meant for their own safety and policemen do not take cognisance of this violation. Policemen themselves would have violated rules and indulged in corruption to get a particular posting. Basically there is no fear of law, which can be easily bent, especially by the rich and powerful at the cost of morality. Why blame school students when those who teach them do not have morality. They get jobs in schools, especially those run by the government by bribing the ruling local politicians.
There are organised touts for this purpose. In private schools, the teachers are paid less than the scales prescribed by regulatory body and the school authorities get an undertaking from them that they have been paid the official scales. This is the basic morality of our schools. Likewise there is corruption and nepotism in government jobs. There is corruption in reservation, a constitutional guarantee provided for the uplift of the backward people. Some sub-sects of every community other than Brahmin come under reservation category to enable the rich and powerful to abuse this reservation policy by getting false certificates to get admission in educational institutions and jobs. In all these cases meritorious and deserving cases do not get the benefit barring a few.
Take the case of DMK’s ex minister Senthil Balaji in Tamil Nadu. He has been arrested in connection with corruption charges with regard to jobs in state transport corporations, when he was a minister in the AIADMK government. Now he is in DMK. The DMK leader, M K Stalin, who himself raised the issue of corruption when Balaji was in AIADMK, appears to be shielding him now and retained him as minister without portfolio for several months after his arrest. He however resigned recently, perhaps with some motive in fighting his case.
BJP too is the main culprit.. If one takes the case of Suvendhu Adhikari in Bengal, Himanta Biswa Sarma in Assam, Ajit Pawar, Ashok Chavan in Maharashtra, so on and so forth. All these persons have serious corruption charges and were frequently flagged by the BJP including the Prime Minister Modi. Now they are part of BJP and there is no talk of their corruption issues. These are cases of individual politicians shifting sides. BJP, a minority party in states like Goa, some northeastern states, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, have formed governments by getting the support of some legislators of opposition parties through money and muscle power to form governments. Lately they are attempting to topple duly elected majority Congress government in Himachal Pradesh.
Now BJP is in power and with Modi’s charisma, party’s muscle and money power backed by RSS’s nation-wide network, there is bound to be some short-term gains for the ruling party because of this immoral aaya ram, gaya ram politics. But what is regrettable is they have not learned lessons from Congress, which was the original practitioner of this politics from Indira Gandhi’s time. Of course, two wrongs do not make one right. But what is important to note is that the Congress popularity and vote-share has been steadily declining ever since the aaya ram, gaya ram politics.
The declining trend is because of the resentment of the cadre towards this kind of politics. The cadres work hard for the party at local levels, only to find somebody imported from another party with no ideological moorings, becoming their leader. The winnability factor may work in an election or two but the cadre gets upset and stops putting in their best foot forward in the party affairs. This resentment will not show up immediately, but in the long run it will affect, particularly a cadre based party like BJP.
Today it is fine for them but the time is not far off, when it will become another congress with only leaders and no cadre. More importantly, right thinking citizens will have to start pondering over how to improve our moral education and exercise our franchise to those politicians, who are genuine, moral, upright and think about the constituency and welfare of the people rather than welfare of himself. This will require a concerted effort to impart moral education to the vast majority of the people, particularly the oppressed. It is not going to be easy and requires a stupendous effort over generations. (IPA Service)
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