Skip to main content

What (not) to expect from a politician

 

The photo has no real significance to the subject being discussed :-)

Off late, I have seen a lot of my friends venting their anguish against politicians. Many of them expected the politicians to behave more responsibly, discipline the public on dos & don'ts of COVID precautions, get national priorities right and basically change the society to which they belong and are elected representatives.

I think this bunch has wrong expectations from the wrong group of people. Here is why -

A politician's entire existence is centred around election victory. Winning an election is their Key Performance Indicator (KPI). A consistently losing politician who is not making any effort to come to power, is not even a politician. Acceptance from society, popularity and majoritarian view are the fundamental characteristics of a politician. They have to operate within the limits of these fundamentals to maintain their existence. Isn't that why we always refer to successful politicians as someone who 'knows the pulse of their people'? 

If we don't like what the politicians are doing, that means there is something fundamentally wrong with the society - at least the majority of it that these politicians care about. To expect the politicians will show mirror to the society & it's people, highlight their shortcomings, false beliefs is utopian. For a politician focussed on getting elected, going to a voter (or a group of it) and telling them that they are wrong, is a recipe for disaster.

To do that, you need an activist. Someone who will call a spade a spade. Someone, who will tell the world if there is something wrong - even at the cost of unpopular. In fact, being righteous is the KPI of an activist, not being popular. An activist will always tell the world what they may not want to hear. As activists work tirelessly to educate the society about right & wrong, eventually (sometimes) the majority swings in their favour. They start gathering crowds and form a popular opinion. At this point, they can chose to become politicians and get elected OR let a politician take advantage of the majoritarian view.

I hope with this, we have clear expectations from individuals based on their KPIs and stop whining.  


PS: a politician may pretend to be an activist but not the other way round. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

RSS - an answer to the caste discrimination

One of my old post on Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh drew a comment today. It posed a few question about the stand RSS takes on the issues of caste system in our contry. The reader also asked if RSS could be a possible solution. And this, my dear readers in the fuel for this post. Let me put forth some facts about the organisation called RSS right at the beginning. RSS is a social organisation. There is no formal registration and participation is completely voluntary. It is not a political, religious or profit making orgnisation. There are no posts, there are only responsibilities (in fact that what they are called). These facts make it clear that this is a place where entry and exit is pretty easy. There are no costs involved with either. Which means there is no-one who can tell you that he will get you registered with the RSS and do you a favour. RSS is for everyone. In my opinion it is a perfect place where caste ism cannot exist. There are no reservations for a certain community. T...

The oscar for dilemmas

As I was travelling from Goa to Pune in a Bus, I overheard some conversation and could see a lot of dilemma on the face of a fellow passenger. As the story evolved, I could connect with him. Thus it went: They were a couple, he was with his fiance/wife/girlfriend (a non-ma/behen relationship). There was another girl (pretty) who wanted to a lady's seat. She could get it only if this gentleman would give up the company of his travel mate as there were no other female passengers on the bus. I have been through similar situation and have said no and felt guilty about it till the society at large did something equally unjust to me. But this incident in the bus the other day, sparked off some more such dilemmas that I have come across quite often. I thought of having a golden globe of dilemmas; put them on the blog and see which is the most common dilemma. First being the one above, the second dilemma that comes to my mind is of cheating in exams. No No. Me cheating is taboo enough! It ...

A Beginners guide to working from home

I just switched jobs a month ago. Along with other things, my new employer is a huge supporter of working from home. While my previous employer wanted me to be in office for 9 hours 15 minutes (I know, it's a weird number!), now I am pretty much by myself. This is a drastic change in work environment, schedule and methodology. Not just for me, but for my family as well. It has it's merits and demerits though. On the positive side, I save time and money on commute, get freshly cooked lunch, can help my wife with chores and plan my evenings better since I know when I will be home from work(!). On the flip side, there are challenges like being taken for granted, assuming your availability all the time, domestic distractions (kids, food, sleep, guests, salesman, TV etc.), infrastructure issues (electricity, Internet and telephone) and personal lethargy. I badly wanted to overcome the challenges because I began to feel that my productivity while working from home was worse than wh...