In the run up to Goa’s elections in 2022, there is a sharp escalation in the empty noise decibels with tu tu main main, blah blah blah and tittle-tattle from various political competitors. It's nothing beyond the pot trying to convince the public by hook or by crook that the kettle is black and obscure the real situation. The sole purpose of such nonsensical rhetoric is to occupy the space in newspapers and on TV channels, thereby limiting the scope for the public to access information on vital issues plaguing the State and the country and thereby prevent a rational debate. The only thrust of the political campaign by politicians and their allied corporate lobby is to short-circuit the rational thinking of the voters. Providing consultancy services to politicians on how to dupe the voters in elections is now a noble and glorified profession and an atmanirbhar and swayampurna industry.
The nation’s present misery of untracked and unlimited corruption and communalism is nothing but the outcome of the fascist fairy-tale, about acche din in a Congress mukt corruption free Bharat, which was sold to the people in 2014 by intellectuals, technocrats and celebrities. These peddlers of deception have made Goa the laboratory to reinforce the political platform for religious extremism in the country. They are fishing in Goa’s political waters to divide the secular votes by pushing an illusion of a Congress mukt Goa for defection free governance. If lies around the Swiss bank accounts of the Gandhi family along with 2G and Coal allotments under the UPA government could be marketed as the truth to install a corrupt and communal regime under the pretext of eradicating corruption, what is the guarantee that the latest noise around saving democracy from BJP is not another bluff towards the final assault on the Indian Constitution?
Those politicians and strategists with a difference who mask themselves as pro-democracy crusaders, and launched themselves from an anti-corruption platform, now prefer to sweep the issue of corruption free governance and Lokpal under the carpet. Their interest in Goa is only to secure their status as a national party and increase their nuisance value to disrupt secular unity at the national level. Should these political tourists not be telling the 80% literate Goans about how their enticing idea for a Lokpal in India has helped check corruption, instead of diverting public attention by selling employment, free power supply and religious pilgrimages to the voters? Do Goans not deserve to know what are the systems put in place to ensure accountability and transparency in the governance of Delhi and West Bengal?
Should Goans not be informed about zero corruption and the effectiveness of Lokpal in these States? What is the grassroots participatory approach in policy making adopted in the governance by these so claimed political parties with a difference being sold to Goans as panacea?
There could be no greater insult to the Goan intelligence than these larger than life branded politicians claiming to defend and protect democracy, when actually they are taking forward the religious fundamentalist agenda for a democracy mukt Bharat. Their fallacious reasoning omits a crucial fact that the defections after 2017 were actually a bi-product of the oxygen supplied by the secular vote splitter and spoiler parties to keep the BJP alive with a hung assembly, and prevent a decisive majority for the Congress. How can communalism and fascism be defeated by focusing the election campaign on splitting the secular vote? And if these parties are promising a revolution, new dawn and clean governance, then how are their electoral promises of freebies, doles and free religious pilgrimage tours different from the very same corrupt political legacy of bribing voters which Congress was accused of employing? Is the promise of nominating a Christian for the deputy CM’s post not the very same second class treatment arising from Hindutva’s bias and using of minorities as decoration which is practised by the BJP?
When Goans very well know that the present political system is about deceit and corruption, yet they swallow the false promises of politicians in good faith. It’s the short-sightedness of secular Goa, arising from thinking with the heart instead of the mind, which sustains the deceptive politics. Goa’s politics has degenerated because Goan self-centredness. If criminal investigation agencies follow the same approach like the Goan voters, of taking the fraudsters and criminals at face value and trusting their word in good faith, will breakthroughs in investigation ever be possible? When for the political class, elections are about employing political strategists to neutralise people’s ability to think rationally and manipulate their thoughts and behaviour with the increased abuse of Artificial Intelligence from political war rooms, can voters afford to carry on with their primitive mind-set in choosing their political representatives?
Goans have experienced time and again that when politicians promised the sky they only ended up pulling the mat from beneath the aam admi’s feet. Under this prevailing anti-people, divisive and corrupt political system, today’s promise of a revolution, clean governance and a new dawn can only end in phir wahi raat (the same dark scary night) of political betrayals once the elections are over. Goans need to reflect on this George Carlin quote: Governments don’t want an intelligent population because people who can think critically can’t be ruled. They want a public just smart enough to pay taxes and dumb enough to keep voting and electing corrupt politicians.
(The author is a Social Activist who has worked in creating awareness on local self-governance.)