Indian General Election 2019 wins Hearts not the Brains of people

Article No. 4
01/June/2019

Sensationalisation is the best marketing strategy for poor products and services. It is applicable in every walks of everyday life as election campaign too. Sensationalism over rationality and morality kill right and truth in the decision making of people. There is a general tendency that people are more sensitive to feelings rather than merit. When we analysing historical records, it is found that Indian people generally slow to distinguish good from the bad. Indian nationalism and patriotism in Indian people from wrong historical teaching. It is found from British history in India to Issue of Kashmir. History of Indian Renaissance also not acknowledged contributions of British in India.

It is very easy to take pride in oneself by feeling and motivating, but confidence needs real efficiency and ability. Hindu-Nationalism is the one of the front runner subject of the ruling party in this election. A political party having a religious agenda and manifesto to form a government is fundamentally wrong for a democratic country. For a happy and satisfied society, it is essential that the government should be always secular and society should be always religious. Intermixing of religion into government always led to maladministration, corruption, anarchy etc. It is true for almost every kingdoms in the medieval and ancient history of the world. Such practice is highly dangerous in a democratic system. The unique and most basic feature of Indian people is that they are very flexible to convince anything without any effort. This feature of unquestioning nature in Indian people make their future a complicated one. This General Election can be analysed in terms of distinguishability of people, political ideologies of Indian political parties and relevance of opposition.

Lack of distinguishability of people
There is no correlation between distinguishability and education among the population cross-culturally. Distinguish right from wrong depend on many factors more than education. Wisdom and understanding are mandatory for having distinguishability in a person. Wisdom is “the trait of utilizing knowledge and experience with common sense and insight”. Understanding is “the capacity for rational thought or inference or discrimination”. Both wisdom and understanding getting from morality from religion and rationality from free will. It lacks in Indian people overwhelmingly, which cause poor decision making. It is not just a decision to cast a vote for which political ideology even in shopping mania of all unnecessary free garbage.

Generally, people make conclusions from their knowledge and communication. Casting vote is a decision come from communications and knowledge received from the election campaign. In modern times, there are a lot of influencing factors in an election campaign rather than communicating information and knowledge. Presentation skill, convincing ability, creation of hype etc. are widely using for winning of minds of people. All these are needed for establishing the truth in an election campaign, but it can be manipulated for spreading lies to influence people. It is actually a deception. The truth about any matter is always absolute, still, it can be temporarily masked by manipulation. Here, acceptability with the unquestioning nature of Indian people towards anything makes it vulnerable to really progressive societies in the country. Rational reasoning and religious morality help people to distinguish truth from lies. It will help them to be selective not only in politics but their individual life too.

Congress, moving from centre-left to left
From its formation, Congress is always leaning to left in the political spectrum. Now, it is really in the mid of liberal-left socio-political spectrum. It is definitely not good for any country for its future. Conservative-right socio-political ideologies are growing much faster around the world including in India. Mostly, conservative-right socio-political ideology is very essential to a country looking forward to the future. The idea of Congress party not originated in a fortnight. But it has a legacy to Indian National Movement through Mahatma Gandhi, father of the nation. It is an undisputed historical fact that making and forming of India as a nation from more than 500 British and Princely states. Both British and Indian National Congress is responsible for forming all its 130 plus billions citizen to identity ‘Indian”. Absence of British and Indian National Congress; there would be no India or Indian as such today.

But congress’s socialistic idea in the Indian economy ruined very much since independence. It had unrepairable damage even after LPG (Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation) in 1991. People’s eager to freebies and over depend on the Government for their welfare is started by the wrong motive of Congress, which started from the protest against the British government. Congress has still route in villages in the country as it started in very earlier in 1885. Balkanization of Congress party due to its week structure as well as over democratic freedom in the hierarchy and internal factions. Even though, comparing Hindu-nationalism with issues of liberal-leftism, it is better to endorse the second one.

Essentiality of Opposition
Voice of opposition is very essential for parliamentary democracy and even every walk of human life. Weakening of Indian Opposition not only from the approach of the ruling party but from opposition party within too. Role of an opposition party in a parliamentary system is enormous, from legislation to check corruption to expose the negative side of the ruling party and government. A proper critical analysis is only possible through a strong voice of opposition. It is very needed to properly debate a topic to find the best in it.

Constructive criticism should be the motto of an opposition political party in India rather merely opposing the cause of opposition. Communication and convincing ability of an opposition party are very essential to make aware of their approaches, policies and ideas to citizens. This communication and convincing ability were very weak in opposition parties in India in General Election in 2019. At the same time, the ruling party run high voltage campaigns with all their resources and mighty hand. Opposition parties other than Congress failed to lift Rahul Gandhi as a potential prime ministerial candidate. This is described by Lalu Prasad Yadav as a “Strategic blunder” of opposition parties rather fight each other like BSP, SP, TMC etc. All such weakness of opposition ended in drastic failure to mighty Modi.

Hope is hopeless
There is no problem with BJP other than Hindu-nationalism. Even though their socio-political ideologies started to shift from right to liberal-left. Three problems described that distinguishability of people, political ideologies of Indian political parties and relevance of opposition may not be solved in the near future. It needs a structural change of the political-cultural mind of the people. It will take a longer time than expected.

Diversity of Indian people must be governed with diverse culture, not imposing majority ideas on the minority. Religious freedom must be upheld with having tolerance towards conversions. Conversion is not possible by means of force. It is a choice of people to follow a religion. Anti-conversion laws in this country in different states are against humanity and freedom as well as a clear violation of Article 25 of the Indian Constitution.

India is a country having enormous resources with human capital. It must be utilised to beneficial to the growth and development of this country. So it needs strong mandated government for future policy and planning. Now, the BJP government has stable mandate to rule this country. Major apprehension is that BJP, RSS and other Sangh Parivar organisations and their followers' attitude towards minority religions in this country. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and Open Door USA say that India is becoming more vulnerable and difficult to religious freedom and propagation of religion. So it is a golden opportunity to the newly elected government to show their commitment towards religious freedom and development based on objectivity with insight.

By,
Nithin A F
Doing Post Graduation in Psychology
Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala.
Email : nithinaf@gmail.com
www.NithinAF.blogspot.com
01/June/2019

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