So, I was (un) fortunate enough to have attended the July 20, Lok Sabha session in the Parliament on Friday, held in regard to the no-confidence Motion.
A no-confidence motion isn’t about winning or losing, right or wrong, your party or my party. It’s a worrisome and a sad state of affair where our heads lack trust in each other, a basic attribute required to run a country as great as ours.
To be very honest, in the first ten minutes, I was in tears. There were no cameras on me (obviously) so no drama, but yes I was in tears. In front of me were the elected members of our country, representatives of this great nation heckling and shouting and saying things like, “arrey chup baitho”, “aap thak gaye ho, paani pilo”, “kitne mein becha?”.
As a young Indian witnessing one of the most historic days, alongside a group of 10-15 girls aged around 15 years who had just walked in, watching the leaders of our country made me feel ashamed. I couldn’t hold back realising that even if they were fighting and shouting in an uncivilised manner, they (most not all) were not fighting for the people or the issues. They were fighting for optics (both sides), to be able to secure positions of power in the upcoming election. Not to work towards real development and change and social justice but to secure power. And keep continuing on that vicious cycle.
I had grown up watching my father meet people in the mornings, who approached him to help them regarding various land issues, family and communal issues, domestic abuse issues etc. in our small town of Pachora, Maharashtra.
On one occasion, when I went around town to distribute sweets for my 12th-grade results, I learned that the daughter-in-law of a house was also awaiting her results.
During this time, our domestic help would talk to me about her family’s financial problems owing to the lack of rains; they were unable to pay back the loan for their newly- purchased tractor. She would tell me about her dreams of educating her two sons properly and buy land for them, to secure their futures. “nahitar aamchi paristithi khup changli aahe baraka aishu” (otherwise we are pretty well off, this loan has forced me to work as a domestic helper).
I would notice that one of our help wouldn’t drink water from the same glass as the other, because she is of a lower caste. Having heard and grown up with these stories and witnessing the proceedings at the highest house of representatives was a shock to me. Not that they aren’t aware, but the vote bank politics, the optics’ politics and just the human hunger for a feeling of superiority and power doesn’t allow them to see beyond the basic human tendencies.
On Nelson Mandela’s 100th birth anniversary, former US President Barack Obama said, “Caste differences still impact the life chances of people in the Indian subcontinent. Women and girls around the world continue to be blocked from the positions of power; prevented from getting an education; victimized by violence and abuse and still paid less than men for doing the same work.
Look around —strongman politics are ascendant, suddenly, whereby election and some pretence of democracy are maintained, the form of it, but those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning”
So as we are promised, development and justice, would it be too much to ask for moral leadership and grace?