“Let
us Think and Act with an Open Mind
to
Develop a Vibrant Democracy” - Article
26
srb
Can the gift of
the gab make listeners fools?
Professionally qualified, trained and
experienced persons in different disciplines at different levels are essential
to successfully manage any large complex organization. Even some gifted persons
who had built up a large company used to select such suitable persons at
managerial positions. It has steadily replaced topmost level also by professionals.
Governments also had resorted to this method. For example, Union
Public Service Commission (UPSC) in
India selects officers who have the required basic qualifications and intellectual
capacity to develop the required functioning efficiency. They are thereafter
given special training wherever necessary. During the process of selection,
UPSC takes advice of professional experts in pertinent fields to ensure that selected persons are likely to
have comparatively the best professional competence and intellectual capacity to
develop the required functioning efficiency. They reach top levels after working
experience of many years.
Shockingly, these professionally qualified, trained and experienced
officers at top levels are supervised and
controlled by persons who do not have professional qualifications, training and
experience!! Though this practice is obviously illogical and against
principles of management, it has continued for years because no one has
questioned this absurdity.
Albert
Einstein, one of the greatest thinkers and scientists had cautioned: “The
important thing is not to stop questioning”. But, the irony is that we have not even started questioning
the above absurdity. Why?
Parliamentary democracy was started to save
people from slavery to autocratic
monarchs. With passage of time it deteriorated into a pseudo democracy in
which a monarch was replaced by a clique
of power hungry political leaders. When political leaders observed the tremendous powers they have acquired, they
started to fight among themselves for power, resulting in formation of
political parties. Party leaders, using the gift of the gab, mesmerized people to
start hero worship and to get deeply involved in their political
fights. This way they succeeded in diverting peoples’ attention away from
pseudo democracy in which a clique of political leaders, who do not have professional qualifications,
training and experience, have gained full powers to supervise and control professionally
qualified, trained and experienced managers!! This is also a mockery of the
system of competitive selection of best professional officers and the
latter spending enormous amounts of time, efforts and money for acquiring
qualifications, training and experience which they cannot use freely for
efficient functioning. They were not given a chance
to prove their worth (Article 24 provides for this). Why this
elaborate exercise and its misuse?
Root cause for not questioning
this contemptible situation is that political leaders, by becoming heroes
using the gift of the gab, fooled people to believe
the absurdity that they had the super human capacity to
effectively supervise and control professionally qualified, trained and
experienced persons, that too in a
variety of disciplines!!
This contemptible absurdity has
led to prolonged mis-governance with lop sided priorities
which made the rich richer. Number of rich persons (even millionaires
and billionaires) has increased rapidly. But others
(who farm the large majority) had to struggle for basic necessities of life and
had been forced to live without dignity, as second
class citizens. Lakhs are suffering from poverty, hunger and
lack of shelter at night while the rich live in
palatial bunglows, squander money and waste food. According to Global Hunger Index 2016 India was ranked a
lowly 97 out of 118 developing countries. Even worse, its rank slipped from 83
to 97 in 16 years (The times of India dated 13.10.2016). Neighbours Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh, Nepal and China are all
ranked above India. Children suffering from malnutrition get low priority, if
at all!! Highest priority given for growth rate at the expense of social priorities
like education and health, which are
essential for good quality of life with dignity, is a matter for serious
concern.
They also claimed that this supervision
and control was necessary to ensure that professional managers listen to
peoples’ voice. They created the election system so that they can claim that
they represent people. This has turned out to be a contemptible hollow claim
as explained in Article 2. For
instance, even in the highly praised Lok Sabha election in 2014, the ruling party got
support of only a minority (31%) of the electorate and clearly showed that they were far away from representing majority of people. Even this minority support is of questionable
quality because many of these voters had either sold their votes or voted for
persons from their castes, as explained in Article 1. Why was this startling
revelation of contemptible hollow claim
ignored?
Because,
blind hero worship prevented people from opening their eyes
to this second absurdity of hollow claim also.
A third absurdity is the wrong belief that
voters, among whom large proportion are illiterate or inadequately educated,
have the capacity to judge and elect persons who can perform functions of
governance efficiently!! In
the absence of this capacity, blind hero worship influenced election and
political leaders with the gift of the gab gained.
Even if political leaders have the unlikely
super human capacity to supervise many types of professionals, people
will not be benefitted because politicians have become enemies of
democracy as justified in Articles 19 and 20. Moreover, while planning any
programme they give priority to two questions-
(1) how will this benefit my party? and (2) what will I gain from it?
To conclude briefly:
Can the gift
of the gab make listeners fools?
My answer is not only “Yes” but
also that it can lead to mental slavery as explained above. Alas!! My
wish and that of many others like me, as
individuals, to come out of it is nipped in the bud by the political system
which has gained tremendous power!! I can
only hope and pray for people to come together and start a peaceful revolution to achieve comprehensive
democracy outlined in Article 24 which frees people from
mental slavery to political leaders and suggests
a better system for people to exercise their voice more frequently
and effectively.
If you agree that a change in our democracy
which is based on these three absurdities explained above is overdue, let us
strive to make people aware of the need to join
together to overcome mental slavery to political leaders and to set the ball rolling towards a peaceful revolution to
make comprehensive democracy a reality.
A caution: If we hesitate to put all our efforts for a peaceful
revolution, a violent bloody revolution which is
already looming in the horizon will engulf us soon!!
Let
us be encouraged by the fact that Mahatma Gandhi (who got us independence from
the mightiest empire by leading a non-violent movement) has shown us how even unbelievable
changes can be achieved when ordinary people come together and use their hidden
power to do extraordinary things.
·
The gift of the
gab: Ability to speak easily and
confidently in a way that makes people want to listen to you and believe you.
This mesmerizing
capacity has often been used to develop blind hero worship resulting in mind
slavery and mockery of independent thinking.
No comments:
Post a Comment