Indian Politics: Strategy of Discrimination (Part 1)

Well, I haven’t been blogging from a few weeks since I have been pre-occupied with other activities so when I decided to take a break from a rather well established routine of the past couple of months I thought what more refreshing than blog on Indian Politics. So here it is, a critique on Indian Politics, the funny thing is the strategy that I discuss here is probably the most tried and tested one and generations of Indians have suffered but it still exists and here it is the “Strategy of Discrimination”. Once I wrote this blog I found that it is too long to be on a single page, so I have re-written this blog in two parts, the description of the two parts is as follows:

• Part 1: Is the part you are currently reading, it talks about what I mean by “Strategy of Discrimination” and how it is related to Indian Politics.
• Part 2: In part 2, I build upon part 1 and give some examples of how the “Strategy of Discrimination” is implemented without any fear or opposition.

Let’s start with the definition of “Strategy of Discrimination”. Indian politicians suffer from several shortcomings; while the list is never ending for the purpose of this blog I would restrict it to four major issues:

1. Politician not Leader: India probably has a bunch of shrewd politicians who are not leaders. This means that their appeal is restricted to a certain group of people and that restricts the future prospects of their political careers since if this group abandons them they cannot do anything else, they practically don’t have any other skills.
2. The Herd Mentality: Indian politicians don’t have a vision of what they want to achieve there is no clarity in thought. The aim is to survive until the next election. Vision refers to a leadership quality where someone has a well grounded and pragmatic view of the future and is capable of taking difficult steps to develop a nation, so a change of tactics for the greater good is achieved easily. Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Shaeed Bhagat Singh and Netaji Subash Chandra Bose are some visionary leaders that come to my mind immediately.
3. The Monkey Syndrome: This refers to participants to the so called Monkey Experiment. Most critically Indian Politicians lack genuine creativity and problem solving skills, and that should be attributed to the traditional outdated mindset of politicians in India. So even if generations of politicians face the same problems like poverty, lack of education, social backwardness et al. they know only one solution i.e. Discrimination which leads to reservations, regardless of the benefits.
4. Zero Accountability: The entire Indian political system suffers from an unknown virus that reduces accountability, of course general population of India cannot question the decision taken by a politician the insecurity and fear of confrontation with political goons coupled with a corrupt police and lethargic judiciary are some reasons for this.

These points taken together lead to a dangerous and potent mindset focused on a single track strategy of dividing the general population by whatever characteristics imaginable. This dividing leads to a group of citizens pitched against another group of citizens, a condition not ideal for national integration. This I have tried to summarise in the phrase “Strategy of Discrimination”. The fact that a politician is not challenged, is not held accountable and has known one strategy that has worked for generations might represent a single most critical reason for socio-economic backwardness in India.

India has had discrimination for decades and by the looks of it barring a serious civil moment the chances that a real change will occur is less. The unwanted heritage of discrimination for unknown reasons existed in India (caste system) in the last millennium, it was further utilised by the British East India Company (caste and religion) and as if the damage of centuries was not enough even post-independence Indian politicians suffering from the Monkey Syndrome, they couldn’t think differently and continued on the same strategy (caste, religion, gender, language spoken etc.).

This ends Part 1 of the blog, I hope the concept of “Strategy of Discrimination” together with the probably reasons for the continuing existence of this strategy are clear to readers. In Part 2, we will talk about some examples of how this strategy is applied in India.