Sunday, May 03, 2009

Party politics is the most meritocratic profession of all

[Here is Tavleen Singh today on why Indira Gandhi was the “worst leader” that India ever had.
And
here is me in an old ToI piece pointing out that Jawaharlal Nehru was “pure evil.” ...
And yes, I said that we need a new politics. This is politics as the “public actions of free people” and has nothing to do with political organization, which can always come later. This free politics of individuals guided by an overall ideology must precede political organization.
Today, we are fortunate to also have Meghnad Desai the Labour peer
calling for a new politics. Note that the examples he gives of his politics for the Labour party are all about party politics, or political organization. He concludes that if we seriously start on the road of new politics, we will succeed by 2025.
But think about it: Politics is NOT political organization.
I am calling for a new libertarian politics in India, unrelated to either Party or State, in the schools and colleges, in the media, and on the streets – on T-shirts.
That’s the place to begin.
Push The Tempo! Watch the
video for inspiration.
Chacha's Politics... And Mine from ANTIDOTE by Sauvik]

No point in quarrelling with the past and blame the dead. Outcome of mass movements launched by JP and VP is still fresh in our memory (not to speak of the Mahanta syndrome), and hence the talk of A New Politics is illusory as we learn from Obama's example. Shekhar Gupta is spot on to aver that "The essence of parliamentary democracy is the party system," and "Party politics is the most meritocratic profession of all in democracies."

Savitri Era Party, though ignited by the Sri Aurobindian vision of a divine anarchy and world union, prefers to adopt a more pragmatic view of things right now. Politics will have to be reformed and refined from within the present system in the same manner as spirituality is to be sought from within the existing religious formulations, “for it is only through life that one can reach to immortality,” wrote Sri Aurobindo (CWSA.13.9). [TNM] 4:48 PM

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