Blind Leading The Sightless By Tony Martin “Wanted peon. SSC passed, smart conversant with English and Konkani and/or Marathi’, screamed the prominently placed classified in the Saturday Times. The bold type setting drew my attention to it. And I was fascinated. Fascinated because, reading it the irony of qualification suddenly came flooding to my mind. Ours is a strange system. A system where to be a peon you need to have a host of essential and desirable qualifications. But to be a representative of the people in the legislative assembly you need not have any academic qualification as such. In fact you need not have any qualification at all, except that you are an old enough citizen of the state with a lot of money to buy votes. And if you can manage to get the maximum number of voters to vote for you, than nothing else matters. You are a member of the legislative assembly or for that matter even a minister. Never mind if you are a total illiterate and all written languages mean Latin or Sanskrit to you. It is an amazing paradox of our times that we have so conveniently taken for granted and learnt to live with. I wonder why somebody does nothing about it. That there are no qualifications stipulated for contesting assembly elections is a sad reflection of our political system. What is even more tragic is that we repeatedly elect and let illiterates and semi-illiterates represent us at the seat of power. More than passing the buck on the system we have to be rational and place the blame on ourselves for our collective stupidity and thoughtlessness in electing our representatives. Without the academic criterion access to the seat of power is let open to all and sundry rendering democracy in a poverty stricken country as ours, a buying and selling enterprise, where buying votes is as easy as buying fish. Little wonder, rogues and morons with money have become MLAs and ministers with not an iota of sense of administration. I sometimes doubt whether they have any sense at all. To elect such people as MLAs is plain foolish. In constituencies where, for people daily bread is all that matters, it is understandable that money power takes the cake. What is unpardonable is the fact that in major cities the educated constituents blind themselves to the nature of the contestants and elect a person who is a total misfit. What is more depressing is, the same moron is elected term after term. He is a brute to say the least with no etiquette whatsoever and knows nothing about anything, and yet there he is, an uncivilised and uncouth rogue representing a seemingly civilised people. Why? Only because of a cursed system of government called democracy. The Indian and particularly Goan democracy is a sham. Very plainly speaking, it is a political game the very rich play at the cost of the unsuspecting masses. More so because of lack of any serious involvement of the people. And that makes winning a seat in the assembly a child’s play. If you have the capital just sponsor a few tournaments, help some people financially, be a big donor for religious events and bingo! You are the man of the masses. Before you know you are an MLA or even a minister, the honourable representative. And what does the honourable representative do? The representative concentrates with all his heart, with all his mind and with all his strength on his one point programme. The one-point focus is on making a fast buck while the going is good. How much ‘the Representative’ sponsors and donates is directly proportionate to how much he loots. And how much he loots also determines his future prospects. If he makes money, he donates and if he donates he is the winner again, Not surprisingly once an MLA is always an MLA. Additionally he becomes a minister or a chief minister. Well now you know why our MLAs have been getting elected for consecutive terms in a row. Simply because they can afford to. Perhaps if academic qualifications for assembly contestants were made a prerequisite then it would salvage our bad political situation a bit. For than at least not any rich moron will be able to contest and money will cease to be the sole criterion for contesting. But then to think of it, academic qualification certificates at all levels are not beyond the reach of money power, what with corrupt officials and cheap universities. Hence, besides academic qualifications an IAS type national or state level competitive exam like political eligibility test should be conducted for all those who intend contesting the assembly elections. This will not only ensure some respectability to the legislators but will also result in the efficient administration of the state. Otherwise, very soon people will lose the very little faith they have in democracy. And Abraham Lincoln may well be proved wrong when he had said, “that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” As things stand it appears democracy is leaping towards unchecked anarchy.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 19:48:17 +0000
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