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.

Strong, responsive leadership for a Great India

Of late I have been thinking about this a lot, what’s the root cause of the Indian situation(corruption, injustice, anarchy, violation of human rights, etc.). Will removal/amendment(if at all that happens) of a couple of oppressive  laws like 498a, DV Act, etc., result in any tangible improvement in an average Indian's life?(won't there be other laws to misuse, as long as the authorities do not have a will to wipe out injustice and abuse of judicial process).

 Most us know the root cause intuitively, that its because of the lack of political will to change and set things right, we also know that this chaos is left unattended so that no ordinary citizen has the time or energy to question the "rulers". 

The other side of the coin is that we can progress at an amazing pace if we have Political persons who have the caliber and commitment to serve the nation. So now the question is how to promote these people with caliber and commitment?. 

One of the most important factors which can result in introduction and promotion of apt political leaders/reps is to make the selection of candidates(to State Assemblies or Parliament) linked to people's choice(we are talking about the selection of candidates itself, which presently is the job of higher Party leaders, and considerations are not capability to serve the nation, its anything but that(nepotism, mutual favours, money power, caste power, etc.))

Please access this website for more details in this line of thought: http://www.greatindiatrust.org

Please note that an action plan is thought of, and its best if introduced to the readers after they are convinced about what is the root cause of India's backward situation. 

Once  we agree on this point we can further discuss about the remedies/tools to bring about change(to promote a strong and apt leadership in politics) which will result in solutions to multifarious problems that presently engulfs India.

Those of you who are interested in knowing and discussing about this approach to our various problems in India, can join this newly formed yahoogroup: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurGreatIndia 

We all may be currently working for specific issues which Indian’s are facing, these issues are in fact actually symptoms of the Systemic-Rot, which we endeavor to change through "The Great India Movement".

Please do join: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurGreatIndia , also read about the basic ideas at: http://www.greatindiatrust.org/ .

Download the ebook - Great India..Indian Democracy: Problems and Solutions-> http://bit.ly/bmnTkY 

Mail: sudhakaranck@gmail.com

Phone: +91 9745821113, 0480 2804452, Kerala

I too have a dream – A Great India

I too have a dream – A Great India

6-11-2008

Many experts, participating in debates on American/Obama election, had been saying some thing like:

‘This election proved that  ‘America is a great place of happening. An American, if competent enough, have the freedom to dream anything - even the highest office, irrespective his cast, creed and colour…  and have unrestricted right to contest and strive to achieve it’.

Contrast this with ours:

• Can an Indian afford such a dream in the present political set up?
• Do we stand a chance of getting even a nomination of a political party as its candidate for elections to any elected office – even to a legislature or Panchayat council – if we are not close enough to, a kin or a lackey of, the reigning caucus of the concerned party at the concerned level??

·        Denial of a ticket by CPM to Achuthanandan (present CM of Kerala, is just one among many such cases allover India in almost all political arties.

·        Was not the Prime Minister-ship of Dr. Manmohan Sing a gift from Sonia Gandhi? 

Such manipulations have been accepted as norm, rather than an aberration, in our political system.

Is not this lackey-ism a humiliation, a curse, for a Democracy?

Or can it at all be called a Democracy? …

More than a democracy… it is a democratic perversion/farce.

Here we flaunt extravagantly all the paraphernalia of a democracy, but with out its soul.

• Do we get a chance to evaluate and elect head of our governments at any level… national … down to the Panchayat??
• Can we ever expect leaders of such stature emerge from our political parties with the present genre of leadership and nominations/consensus being the norm??    

Would you not like to see leaders with such competence and stature emerge (get elected) to lead our nation??

American political system, with most competent and patriotic leaders as role models, motivates Americans to cast away their racial differences and to integrate themselves as more Americans than as black, whites or any other racial lines.

What is the case with Indian political system?? … We Indians are disintegrating more and more in religious/casty/sub-casty, regional/sub-regional/linguistic lines… and on any other fissures/nuances we can find… our politicians, even some pretentious socio-political reformers, are busy driving wedges between our inherent fissures and diversities to build their vote banks or cheap applauds ….

   

No use of blaming them. There is a flaw in our political system which compels/incentivise them to do so. Even if I myself am in politics, with the present system I can not avoid succumbing to those compulsions if I am to survive and prosper in the present Indian politics.

We are heading in the disintegrative path with ever increasing acceleration.

If we have to escape from this trap we have to rectify that flaw. Or we are doomed to disintegration.

I too have a dream… as Martin Loother King had for America…

…. a ‘Great India’ for our future generations to live in peace and prosperity.

I know the impediments in realizing this dream and the means and ways to rectify them… 

We, those who cherish a ‘Great India’ dream, have to stop squabbling on the petty matters and come together and work selflessly to remove those impediments and create conducive condition to happen a ‘Great India’.

With regards

Sudhakaran, Great India Trust.