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There is only one honest solution: the creation of a new political party representing the new, emerging political culture
The comparatively benign role of British colonialism made India’s elite lose its most precious asset. Despite its intelligence, energy and talent the middle class lacks independent critical faculty. Intellectually, it became a slave of the English speaking west, first of Britain, then of America. The acceptance of western democratic values, good in itself, created an inferiority complex towards the people who originated them. Now a new generation has grown up. Hopefully it will banish the sense of inferiority that afflicted the older generation.
India’s freedom struggle was led by the western educated middle class. After Independence, its members got busy with careers and professions, comforted by the thought that the Nehru dynasty, imbued with similar values, ruled the nation. Over the years, the values got eroded, governance deteriorated and India increasingly was ruled by hoodlums instead of competent leaders. It is fallacious to trace this decline to the political empowerment of weaker castes and communities. Both English-speaking Ambedkar and Tamil-speaking Kamaraj, acquitted themselves with exemplary democratic conduct. Politicians today do not. They have corrupted the system. They have destroyed governance. That is why 26/11 happened. That is why the middle class for the first time is realising that no single party but the entire political class is guilty.
But to what end? Middle-class spokespersons in TV studios and on the streets make similar demands: they want accountability, efficiency and governance. They light candles and raise slogans. It is this kind of naivete which invites ridicule mixed with pity. If the middle class is genuinely seized by the democratic spirit, why just light candles? Why not exercise the freedoms of expression and association still available to it? There is only one honest solution: the creation of a new political party representing the new, emerging political culture. All else is irrelevant. Is the middle class up to it?
(Puri can be reached at rajinderpuri2000@yahoo.com)