Re: [India_Vision_2020] Slandering Parliamentarians is a dangerous trend ~ India Vision 2020

(Moderator's Note: The author of this mail is Mr S Narendra. He has served 5 Prime Ministers as Information Advisor and was the Chief Spokesman of Government of India.)

Respected Mr. T S Krishnamurthi:

I value yr wise words. Coming from a former Chief Election Commissioner of India, you pitch for electoral reforms. You are asking the cat to wear a bell. This is not likely to happen anytime soon.

Push has to come from outside. The anger against politicians and the system is growing outside of politics. In my other mail to the group, I refer to Prof Barker's diagnosis made in late 1940s. The extra legislative action will grow putting pressure on the system. That may persuade the cat to wear a bell with low decibels, yet a welcome change

S.narendra.

On 2 May 2012 11:24, Krishnamurthy T.S. <krishnamurthy.ts@gmail.com> wrote:

(Moderator's Note: The author of this mail is Mr T S Krishna Murthy, Former Chief Election Commissioner of India. Only during his tenure as CEC, he introduced EVMs in all the 543 Parliamentary constituencies. )

I have a slightly different view.Parliament needs better people.But the existing parties/parliamentarians are reluctant to bring electoral reforms.

This does not justify sweeping statements even though Baba's words did not condemn all.

The problem is many people inluding many parliamentarians dont have control over their tongues. This is indeed a national trait and tragedy.

Thiruvalluvar's advice 'Yaavarayinum Na Kakka' needs to be reiterated. (meaning that more than anything else, be careful with your tongue)

Best wishes
TSK
T.S.Krishna Murthy
Former Chief Election Commissioner of India
Flat No.9, Gokul Tower
(Next to Mookambika Complex)
No.7, Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Road, Alwarpet
Chennai - 600 018 (India)

class="gmail_quote">On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 4:08 PM, Prime Point Srinivasan <prpoint@gmail.com> wrote:

hi all

(Please read this message calmly and think over for some time, without getting emotional. Please send your response giving constructive and implementable suggestions and your experiences - Srinivasan)

Today media reports quote Shri Baba Ramdev referring to Parliamentarians as 'murderers and illiterates'. Even earlier Team Anna was also slandering the Parliamentarians in a similar language.

Politics and Parliament are Institutions like Bureaucracy, media, corporates, educational institutions, judiciary, etc. People associated with all these Institutions are drawn from our society. Over a period of 3 or 4 decades, the society is getting degraded. This is reflected in all the Institutions.

People are becoming more and more self centered. Even the reputed corporates indulge in unethical practises. Even the parents do not teach values and ethics to their children. 'money' has become the goal for people.

Hence, isolating the Politics as a bad element is not a right step. Even there are allegations that anti-corruption movement does not have their own registered organisation, but they spend huge amount of money in their agitations. Transparency seems to be lacking even with the activists.

Many NGOs get funds from foreign countries and misuse their friends in the name of social work. Many educational institutions are run in the country in the name of trusts, with commercial motive. Government is not able to touch them, because of their high level connections with media, bureaucracy, corporates and politicians.

It has become a fashion of the day to slander the politicians and Institutions like Parliament. It attracts lot of media coverage and also 'likes' in social media. It is a dangerous trend. How can a member of parliament be different from the member of the civil society. Emotional talks cannot leads to solutions.

We need to function within the system. It is not possible for us to change the Parliamentary democracy. When many countries are not able to sustain their democracy, with a huge population, India is able to strengthen the democracy well. We enjoy freedom of press.

As Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi said in our Sansad Ratna function, 'slandering Parliament amounts to slandering ourselves'. Our county and Parliament has faced lot of challenges in the past 60 years, like wars, economic recession, famine, sanctions, emergency, etc. When the country was rocking, it was the same political leaders at the Government and Parliament have with their visionary thinking managed the crisis.

As Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi said, our Indian Parliament had enacted many laws prohibiting dowry and un-touchability. But these evils are not getting removed from the society. These acts could not do anything.

Only in this context, Dr Abdul Kalam also said yesterday, " LokPal Bill can only put the people in Jail. But we need good human beings".

Few months back, I was conducting a study with the rural and poor people, as to whom they considered more credible, whether politicians or NGOs. I interacted with hundreds of people at different locations. To my surprise, I found that the local politicians ranked very high in their credibility. NGOs were not commanding such credibility with them.

Though the respondents agreed with me about the rowdyism, dishonesty of their local politicians, they said that these politicians irrespective of political parties came to their rescue when they were in trouble like flood, Tsunami or cyclone. The local politicians stand shoulder to shoulder with these poor people and organise relief measures. But according to the respondents, NGOs visit them late with relief measures and press photographers. It was a tremendous insight for me. Because of the local politicians connectivity with the people, they get credibility with the people and also get elected. The message is that the people want connectivity with them and to come for rescue when they are in need.

Even if a person sitting in the Parliament has criminal background, we need to understand that they were elected by the voters. The voters elect them, in spite of the full knowledge of their criminal background.

In stead of slandering the Parliament, the activists can go to the people and educate them for not electing the people with criminal background. Or if they have connectivity with the people, they can contest for elections. Good people can contest to become ward councilors and become people representative.

In the past, we had educated people starting political parties like Lok Paritran. They raised lot of hopes. In many centres, even though they could not win, they secured sizeable votes. I know personally that they were doing only week end politics. They did not get connect with the people. They never talked about the people issues. They treated politics as part time profession. Within two years, Lok Paritran collapsed. Similar experiments have also failed.

Such slandering of Institutions like Parliament or Legislature will only send out a wrong signal to the younger generation, as if the entire system is wrong. They are doing great disservice to the nation by making the people to believe as if the politicians are only bad elements, while all others are angels. This is a dangerous trend. Like we have good and bad people in other segments, we have the good and bad people in politics also.

Instead, the activists should try to create an awareness for good people being elected to Parliament and other legislative bodies. They should also hold consultations with the major political parties to find out the possibilities of developing good politicians for the nation.

Corruption is an omnipresent phenomenon. The civil society also contributes a lot. We should strive to bring social awareness about this.

Slandering and sensationalising will enhance only emotions and will not help us to find solutions.

Another important phenomenon I find is that middle class do not get connected with their ward councilors, legislators and MPs. All their mobile numbers are available in the respective sites. They are easily contactable. But we also do not take time to meet them and discuss our micro issues with them.

I request the members as to how we can constructively and practically take it forward to find a solution. We do not want to receive messages saying that is wrong and this is wrong, etc. All of us know the problems. We need to jointly rectify them. Pl share your constructive and implementable suggestions. If you have already implemented, please share your experiernce.

Srinivasan
Prime Point
9176650273