Character crisis in political leadership

G r e a t I n d i a T r u s t
Email: sudhakaranck@gmail.com visit: www.greatindiatrust.org. Tel: 0480 2804452, 09745821113
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01-05-2010
Our Mission: Restoration fo Innerparty democracy in political parties

Dear patriots,

We are a group of patriots concerned with the degradation of our society as a whole and its political institutions in particular, deteriorating day-by-day, threatening our existence as a national entity, despite all the constitutional amendments, judicial activism and efforts by many reform activists to rectify the anomalies. We propose dialogue between the like minded patriots concerned with the state of our politics and society to expose the causes and prescribe possible remedies to achieve our common dream: a strong India, a ‘Great India’.

*** Most of our reformers, intelligentsia and media are projecting corruption, communalism, diversity, etc… and few even perceive political parties and/or its leaders as causes of the degradation. We have reasonably proved that they are not causes of degradation but are symptoms-produced-by or our-basic-traits-aggravated-by the perversions and pseudo-ness of the democracy we practice.

All of us perceive deferent reasons for degeneration and are trying in as many ways to achieve our common goal – a strong and prosperous India, a Great India – mostly dissipating our resources with out being able to make any dent to the rot. I propose a confederation of such reform activist/NGOs, in an effort to give such efforts a clearer direction. This is not an effort to organize another political party, or to project a leader or for-or-against any political party or leader.

We identify:
1. Character-crisis in our political leadership (the Raja),
2. ‘Proliferation of the political parties’, related ‘Coalition politics’,
3. Weak head of governments and It’s Susceptibility (PM/CM…) to coercion by the coalition parties or the group leaders of ones own party…
… as basic ills of our society’s degradation.
But remediation of Character crisis in political-leadership - the-Raja, because of its over-bearing potential to aggravate other flaws & weaknesses of the system & society and to cause abject moral decay of the masses/the-Praja, and its potential to breed rampant corruption, incompetence, cowardice and hypocrisy in the society, is a prerequisite for the success of any political reform agenda.

So I appeal all of our reform activists to push all other ills (mostly secondary symptoms) to back burner to allow concentration of all our resources to address this most vital ill – Character-crisis - and rectification of the flaw that produces it: ‘Negation of Inner-party Democrcy’ in the internal function of our political parties.

I compare a vibrant democracy with a multi-storied pyramid, with two doors of contrasting characters on each floor: ‘One door periodically attracts and filters-in the most competent ones to administer it, while second door purge any one seen not so competent during their limited tenure there’. Hence the ‘better’ keep rising while even the ‘good’ fall on the wayside. This ensures that each layer is periodically rejuvenated with new blood and the apex layer of the pyramid, seat of the highest authority (be it a political party or a government at any level), is always occupied by the most competent among the aspirants for such post. Unfortunately those doors are malfunctioning in our Democracy – tainted opportunistic sycophants and lackeys are pushed-up by the vested caucuses in the concerned parties and persons exhibiting grain of competence/integrity is purged.

Such malfunction is caused by the negation of ‘Inner-party democracy’: the rejuvenating force of democracy itself; and its substitution with ‘Consensus/party-panel/nomination’, all of them anti-democratic perversions, to expropriate positions of political power between the reigning caucuses themselves and their kin and to dole out the crumbs to their lackeys.

Inner-party competition and elections should have attracted and promoted competence and integrity and purged incompetence; its substitution with consensus is promoting nepotism, lackey-ism and incompetence only and repulsing integrity and competence; thus causing character-crisis in political leadership aggravating all other ills of our society.

My priority is to expose this flaw – the pseudo-ness of our democracy and to make practice of inner party democracy mandatory and transparent in all political parties participating in our democratic process to induct competent persons of integrity and character into leadership of all political parties. I had undertaken 3 days Hunger strike (19th, 20th & 21st of May 2010) demanding inner-party elections in Indian National Congress Party, it being the party with widest reach in Indian politics.

I appeal active participation/partnership of all reform activists - patriots, concerned by the degradation of our political system in general and the quality of political leadership in particular - to achieve our cherished common dream: ‘A Great India’ with competent and comparatively virtuous leadership.

With regards
Sudhakaran Cheravattail, (Managing trustee – Great India trust)
Pullout, pin – 680663.