Article 19: December 2017

Democrazy

December 26, 2017

Tamil Nadu is a state that has its own political arena which proves to be extremely dramatic. The main qualification, as believed by the public, for a politician, is cunningness. To a certain extent, this proves to be the truth. The voting public seem to have lost faith in the so called leaders’ cunningness which is leading this wonderful state into “hell”. The drama played by the so called leaders should be cut short for the state to prosper. This can be achieved only by revolution. Any revolution that has taken place in our world has started with the desperations among the common public. When the time comes, the people of Tamil Nadu have to be ready to take on and lead themselves to prosperity rather than continuing the same drama with different actors.

Public Awareness.

The Party is bigger than the candidate. The irony is that the place where Mr. E.V.R had lectured all through his life about ill effects of superstitions, still sees political leaders as celestial beings. The most important aspect in which the public should vote is the idea that the current candidate is proposing. The mandate for the election is one thing and the basic ideology of the party is another. Both have to be taken into consideration while the general public cast their votes. Due to the increase in the influence of the internet, many fake news and unnecessary paths are being dug for the stream [public] to flow which must be stopped. We have to stop being active on social media alone and start to be active socially. Relying on a single person for everything is not common sense. An individual who knows about the happenings of one problem need not know the depth of another. So we need to stop looking up on a single person or a group of people who are not the government, to solve every problem of the state and we should definitely stop cursing them on social media if they don’t share their opinion about a certain other problem.

Democracy as believed by many is the torch light in the path towards equality, which is being thrashed to the ground in the name of elections. Itself being a complex concept, democracy is beaten and played around like a football by even more complex entities called political parties. The basic system of adult suffrage is made into a mockery. This situation of travesty must be combated only with self-realization. Each individual has to understand that the ignorance of the people towards democracy is the capital with which the so called leaders are banking on.

Who’s the fool?

The voting public has been manipulated by all sorts and the desperations among the public is widely seen. There exists an urgent rush towards political freedom from the existing hamster-wheel situation which has drained up the energy of the common man. At the same time, the voting public is also open to accept “gifts” and “tokens” from the show runners which totally defies all laws pertaining to democracy. This situation presents itself as a paradox with extremely contradictory approaches for the same problem. So who is the fool? The common man who gives up his hamster for lab testing and expect it to be treated well? Or the so called politician who plays blackjack with the voting public? It is not a very easy question to answer, it is just more complicated than it looks.
Whom can we blame? When a financially poor family is given a bonus of their year’s earnings for nothing in return, there is very little chance for the deal to break down. Also, when you had done nothing even remotely related to uplift the society, there is almost zero options to bank on except gambling. All these in and outs of the election had painted different unnecessary colours on the face of democracy to make it look like a clown. In spite of being a land with rich history regarding the struggle for democracy, democracy had been taken for a ride for quite some time now and the ride doesn’t seem to stop any sooner.

Needs

As E.V.R says, any action that changes the previous for good is a revolution. The person who takes pains to change it is a revolutionist. There is only a slight difference between a reform and a revolution; Reform is to make changes to the existing in order to improve, while Revolution is to completely destruct the previous to create a new system for the betterment of the system. As the building (current political scenario) is very much degraded by the scum parasites living on the walls, there is a need for a revolution rather than reform. A revolution does not necessarily need to be done by the youth but for a revolutionist, the main qualification is a youthful mind. To quote Mrs. Indira Gandhi, “you cannot shake hands with clenched fists”. So if you are not broad minded, you cannot be a social revolutionist, let alone a political leader. All great revolutionists in history from Buddha to E.V.R have tried to break down the building for good but have not been able to, meaning, no revolution can be 100% successful. C.N.Annadurai created a revolution by becoming the chief minister of Tamil Nadu dethroning Congress. The anti-Hindi agitation proved to be the starting step of the revolution which destroyed Congress from TN state politics. All great political leaders were revolutionists trying to eradicate social inequalities.

Conclusion.

The developments, the great union of India, has achieved in political terms has been abysmal. From money to caste, the basic structure with which the politicians bank on has been a great backward fall. The current scenario had learnt very much from years of struggle for independence from the imperialistic powers, but supposedly from the wrong side. Oppressing people with power and banking on the unawareness of the public isn’t a new experience for the Indian public. This imperialistic drama has to be brought down and its artists stripped off for the theatre to adopt Purna Swaraj or complete true independence from mal forces. That is possible only when the audience altogether rise up to tear down the screen and not to applaud the disgraceful performance in return for the futile gift tokens.

By Benolin

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Stagnation

December 25, 2017

Evolution, the basic law of life, illustrates how a small microorganism grows into groups of complex structures - the society. It establishes the magnitude of a small spark which could later turn the whole forest to ashes. The word evolution gives us meanings on various levels, from biological to spiritual. The necessity for change is inherent in all types of evolving societies; stagnation in this process of evolution would lead to revolution.

The situation of the society in India is a complex one when compared to other world societies. The main evil that holocausts the society is a spider web called the caste. This spider web comes in varied types, sizes and magnitude. Even though religion has many limitations in uniting people more than it divides, the more serious threat is the caste factor, which in India has been parasites, preying on the very few good cells of religion. Bipan Chandra, in his book, refers communalism based on religion as the disease that we haven’t found a cure to. If communalism based on religion is the disease, then caste is one of the major viruses that causes it. Casteism in Tamil Nadu had laid roots which are deeper than Mariana trench. Man has reached the Mariana trench, but not the depth of religion and caste which is intertwined to the society by the same process of evolution.

While looking at the reforms and social activities that the state has witnessed, Tamil Nadu is one of the very few societies which has stood up against brahminisation. But when we look closer, rather than the need to reform the society, the veiled reason behind the social activities were related to the usurpation of power. It is however faulty of us to generalize the accusation. Social reforms engineered by great activists like E.V.R, Narayana Guru, Annadurai and many more brought about a new revolution in the southern state of India.

The Dravidar Kazhagam(D.K), under the leadership of E.V.R, brought in a new style of reforms by uniting all “backward” castes against the “dominant” ones. This wasn’t easy for him to do because of the honeymoon which the dominant caste enjoyed in the society at the cost of the backward. This very argument’s casteist hue can be eliminated by the use of the words “educated” and “uneducated” as Tilak did, but the magnitude of E.V.R’s reforms fell outside the circle of “power” which demanded the casteist colour to it. Brahmin bashing was a usual thing in the life of a “periyarist” which gave him/her the authority to ask the unasked questions and pose unprecedented threats to the existing stagnated society that begged for evolution.

Politics always needs something with which it could bat and clear boundaries into peoples’ homes. The small spark which had the potential to bring down the might of congress during the late 1960s was Casteism, for or against doesn’t matter. The reform which had been started by E.V.R had turned into fuel for Anna’s DMK. Again, it is faulty of us to totally accuse Anna’s DMK because the part that it had played in reforming the society is humongous. However, E.V.R’s treatment to cure the caste disease, in today’s scenario is raising many questions than it had answered. Although D.K’s approach of removing thorn with thorns had reaped fruit during the later part of the twentieth century, it also, has reached the stagnation point and is in desperate need for evolution.

The main drawback is that many periyarists were not great visionaries as their leader. Their leader propagated the importance of self-realization and self-study. He had famously asked his followers not to believe in him and urged them to find things out for themselves. E.V.R had realized the stagnation of the society with mal-structures and the need to reform the hitherto conditions. But in the process of this evolution, his techniques had left marks which would later play a major part in the turn of politics towards a casteist direction. Apart from the financial stability of the backward caste, nothing has improved in terms of life in the society. Earlier, the dominant class named the so called “low castes” as untouchables and separated them from the society. But now, the earlier socially out-casted “low castes” separate themselves as Dalits. However there is a lot of difference between the two but one cannot dismiss the underlying similarity which haunts the chances of a reformed society. The hatred developed between the castes and the villainization of certain so called “higher caste” had again brought a social imbalance which takes it back to the square one to the old stagnated society which demanded evolution.

Any mass movement or social reform cannot be conducted throughout the year and to know when to stop is the quality very few had possessed in history. The societal changes are inherent in a society and people who can manipulate the course of the change can be accepted as leaders. But for that paradigm shift to happen, every atom in the molecule has to bond together and attack the valency of the society which would lead the society to a stable state. It also takes a lot of time and sustained work from every individual in the society to move towards the greener part of the river bank. However the process of evolution is bound to stagnate and the corresponding reform has to take place within a certain time period in order for evolution, the law of life, to continue its never ending path like the universe which will never cease to expand.

By Benolin

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Article 19

Democrazy

Stagnation

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