“I was arrested – I was jailed – I was on hunger strike”
This statement is a very frequent statement that we are hearing in the past few days from our national TV “TVM” during the so called debate of the candidates for the upcoming parliamentary election. During the debate, majority of the seconds given to each candidate is used on throwing dirt on the other candidate. There was a time when I thought, are we contesting for a seat in the fish market or local market where one or the other is trying to sell their products by going to an extreme where by they don’t have a clue of what they are saying or doing.
When I see any candidate, be it from any party or any constituency – going through a speech during the campaign, they make sure that they could possibly talk less about what they have in them but rather abuse or criticize the other candidate and then pile up a whole lot of day dreaming and present it towards the general public of that particular constituency.
Moving back to a normal citizen life, when a citizen try to approach a interview and when he/she pass through the hardships, they have been asked to do a medical checkup and more importantly provide a police report – certifying them of been good and loyal citizens of the country without any offence in their past history.
Then come a situation whereby, if a citizen during his juvenile days if committed a crime and if that is in the police report – chances are high that he may loose the job irrespective of going through all the hardship of the interview process and medical checkup. Sometimes they are able to go through also after considerations but then also once you enter the premises of the jail, you have already got that big stain on your body which could not be washed off easily in our society.
Moving forward with the current situation, we see most of the parliamentary candidates promising, abusing and negotiating every other day. But then it is politics, I also understand that politics is known as the “dirtiest game” in the world after mud fight. But then again, it’s time that we don’t learn things from countries around our isles but we implement a few role models to other countries.
Normally a habit is that we always implement things that we see in other parts of the world and other societies and try to implement those activities directly into our society without doing any analysis or cross examination or alterations which is suitable to our society. But now it’s time that we shall not repeat the same mistakes all over again, its time that we not only observe what and how others are doing but bringing in our own culture into it and then try to adapt into our society.
From what I have observed, I see that most of the candidates are following the Indian ongoing election process and learning from there. But that’s the second largest populated country and our total population is just as small as one of those villages of that country.
When Varun Gandhi gave an anti-secular speech against Muslims favoring Hinduism, he was arrested and jailed. But then now when he is released he has come out more matured and with vengeance but not the guilty feeling that India is one of the most secular country and his remarks on the minority was a real drawback. Now BJP is using him as the tool for the election. But then again there is something else also we could learn from that country, When Mahatma Gandhi was fighting for India’s freedom he was arrested, he was abused and he was jailed several times but then again you won’t find him using that as the qualification for him to fight for a cause or a reason. Whereas he never mentioned about it and moved on with his own non-violence means of struggle to freedom and by the end he got freedom for India.
When we look into our society, we already have a messed up youth and young generation who have lost the trails or the paths of what is right and what is wrong. We already have a situation where we are not been able to control them and every other day we are able to hear some or the other stories.
“Few believe that it’s the influence and some says that its parenting and I believe its both”
Now in a situation where the normal citizen are tackling all this problems of getting too much exposure to the western culture or eastern or southern or even northern and the conflict of controlling the emotions is on high rise – comes this new high selling mechanism of the candidates “I was arrested – I was jailed – I was on hunger strike”
This statement by them had given me a feeling that well in this country, to be a politician and to contest for any seats – first thing I need to do is get jailed for some or the other reasons (political, drug, prostitution, terrorism, pedophile etc) and when I come out I would get my PG. politics (Prisoner of Graduation in Politics) and this would be first qualification. Followed by abusing all the other candidates, followed by the ultimate way of showing unrealistic & unreliable high dreams to the voter class of that particular constituency.
Why do we need this heads or Members of Parliament? To let the high authorities above them who are running the government turn the ship out of the whirlpool and to anchor it in safety? Or to cut the anchor and cheer the country ship into the whirlpool and then sinks our culture and society and makes profit out of it?
Some say that most of the candidates who have out rightly spoken about the getting imprisoned during their past history were to get the basic citizen rights be heard and change those prevailing situations to the present situation? I might agree with those few who really did get imprisoned for this but those others who were jailed for other purpose but now using it as a tool to campaign. What about them?
Anyhow – my ultimate concern in one sentence is:-
When candidates are speaking about been jailed or going to jail or been arrested and been manhandled by the police on national TV and other mass media or during rallies or speeches are giving a very wrong picture to the already messed up society where by youths are already loosing their rightful paths.
I just hope from the bottom of my heart that the present generation of our society doesn’t take this as a role model and think “ITS COOL TO GO TO JAIL” or commit a crime. Instead these candidates should be talking about what they can do realistically or what an MP means and what an MP can really do.
* I haven’t aimed at any particular candidate – it is in general context.
