Life in the age of money and muscle

Life in the age of money and muscle
Samuel Paul


The disruption of traffic on Bangalore’s busy roads and the resultant suffering of many people, caused by a mammoth march and meeting organized by a political party, have rightly led to a flood of public protest and condemnation. This angry backlash surfaced spontaneously because the disruption touched our lives directly. What we do not realize is that this is merely the tip of the iceberg. After all, political parties do not disrupt our traffic every day, or even every month.
It is what we do not see or feel about their activities that should make us angry enough to demand serious reforms in our political system.
For starters, consider how a political party organizes a huge meeting of lakhs of people, many of them poor. How does a party that loses at the polls, generate so much public support? Truckloads of people are brought in from villages and towns. It is known that they are paid to attend the meeting.
The hired audience, their transport and food, are all paid for by the party and its supporters, who are not required to divulge their source of income. Consider it the ‘down payment’ the party makes to win their votes. The story is repeated at election time — liquor, sarees and cash are distributed to low-income voters.
Political parties do not blame each other, as everyone does the same. And all parties have their own money machines behind them — be it a liquor or mining lobby. It is this investment they try to recoup when they come to power.
How do they do it? It is no secret: those in power target mega projects and juicy deals to take their cut. They auction off money-making jobs in government to the highest bidders. They suck funds meant for the poor, with the support of their agents in the bureaucracy. The Lok Ayukta may catch a few of them, and expose crores of unaccounted money and property. But there are seldom any convictions and dismissals. There is a well-oiled machine that serves all the parties well. The cycle is complete when this money is deployed to finance big meetings and vote-buying in the next elections.
The party that organized this week’s meeting appears ready to join any other party — BJP, Congress, or anything else, to gain power. Policies, values and visions are for intellectuals and gullible foreign visitors. Is it any wonder that we have moneybags and criminals as our representatives?
Painting all parties with the same brush is not fair — some may be a shade better, but all are guilty of turning a blind eye to these evils. No party wants to bell the cat; these players in the age of money and muscle are happy with the status quo.
As citizens, are we missing the forest for the trees? Do we realize we are only the pawns in this game of politics?
Most of us assume we are in the age of the rule of law. We are asking political parties to follow certain rules. We demand that the police keep our traffic orderly; we are unrealistic.
As Mr Kumaraswamy rightly reminds us, our indifferent middle-class citizens who do not even register or cast their votes do not deserve anything better.
Nothing more can be expected when our priority is merely to protect our lifestyle and immediate surroundings, and we go back to business once political parties agree not to disrupt traffic, that hurts us and our children.
It is time we see the connection between the recent traffic disruption and corrosive cycle of political misconduct behind it. If we fail to act, we’ll be taking society to a disaster much worse than Monday’s traffic chaos.
(The author is the founder of Public Affairs Centre)