NE intellectuals on the pros and cons of present electoral politics
Source: Hueiyen News Service / NNN
Imphal/Guwahati/Dimapur, January 22 2014 :
Manipur scholar Dr MC Arun, Nagaland's well known peace activist Niketu Iralu and others have expressed their opinions on the present system of electoral politics maintaining that it is not appealing to the intellectual group in the region.
They also expressed that the system has gone the populist way to the extreme and regretted that ideological politics has been killed by the issue based politics.
Dr MC Arun said there is chaos everywhere in India today and he attributed these bleak developments to the dying of ideology based politics killed by issue based politics.
"A political party floated based on an issue becomes very popular and runs the government but when the particular issue is addressed then that political party's relevancy has become little," noted Dr MC Arun.
The Manipuri scholar then said that the most immediate panacea to this negative trend is to have 'neutral' and powerful civil society organisations to check the system.
"There are people and intellectuals who want to participate in politics but reluctant due to the farce system.
However, they are not considered silent spectators--they are waiting for a right time," stated Dr Arun.
Nagaland's noted activist Niketu Iralu summed up the present development and saying, "A politician thinks for the next election while a statesman thinks for the coming generations" .
He is of the view that various factors including stiff competitions, limited resources and rising population have brought the system to this situation.
"But simultaneously we have to deal the situation that, we should keep trying to reform the system," Niketu Iralu suggested.
Samudragupta Kashyap, a Guwahati based senior journalist from The Indian Express, said that though the Indian system is the most vibrant one, the problem is the failure of the political parties to educate the people on the need to understand things.
"Yes, the system has let the cheap politics to emerge," said Samudragupta Kashyap.
He is of the opinion that politics will continue to play cheap.
Pradyot Deb Burman, who is the crowned Maharaja of Tripura, told Newmai News Network things would have been better in spite of the flaws in the system "if political leaders were clear and sincere in their endeavour to serve the people" .
The Maharaja of Tripura continued, "If these things are there then a lot of this so called activism and chaos could be handled" .
New Delhi based senior journalist Anubha Bhonsle of the CNN-IBN, however, does not like to call it populism.
Talking to Newmai News Network over phone from Delhi Miss Bhonsle said," Well, I would not call it populism; these are regional parties whose catchment areas are issues--identities of that state" .