Random thoughts about Politics, Economics, and Society

Finally the last major party in AP that was not supporting Telangana has a rift. Devender Goud decided to resign and come out of TDP and pursue telangana on his own. This puts a big question on Naidu's hope to come back in the next elections. While Devender Goud is not a big crowd puller, he can get all the telangana guys in TDP and weaken the party. Devender Goud must be fancying his chances after KCR's TRS failed miserably in the recent bye elections.

One question that occurred to me while thinking about this issue is - How are these politicians able to get so many supporters. I guess the reason is totally economical and then sociological in nature. One side of India's story is that more and more youngsters are getting educated and getting good jobs. On the other hand there are many others for whom life has not changed in any way, in fact it becoming worse for them. While democracy provides the biggest intangible benefit of "freedom" though curtailed due to different forces, tangibles are becoming a problem. The free market economy that is talked about is non-existent in its ideal state anywhere in the world. Even the so-called free market proponent's - UK and US, are not allowing free market fully. The social objectives are not being met by Democracy fully due to the individual indiscipline.

Think about a middle-aged guy who studied till high school and couldn't further it due to various issues - self, family, society etc etc. What can he do in today's economic scenario? Many times his life is stagnant and he is looking for something that he can do enthusiastically, something that can give him social and economic benefits and participation in political action seems to fit the bill accurately. This exactly works in the opposite for a young and educated person in India, which is why we don't see any smart guys entering politics. As the economic divide is becoming bigger and bigger, there will be different forces that try to reduce the disparity, some of them are quite crude. The form of these forces include corruption, theft, cheating, mafia, terrorism, corrupted and self serving politicians etc and etc. Only after the scenario becomes worse by which time the loss from these forces is more than the benefit of ignoring them, educated people would take action to eliminate these forces.

While corruption, theft, crime, mafia, terrorism, naxalism are all viewed negatively, one must keep in mind that all these are due to the failure of political system in achieving social objectives that they are entrusted with.

End of the day what does every human being living wants? They want a happy life, while the "happy" word has different definitions and meanings to different people but broadly everyone should be able to lead a life that he/she would like to as long as their actions do not harm others. Others should not only include human beings but also all other things on earth. The word "Survival" generally indicates a short-termness in nature but similar to "life" it is continuous in nature. One survives or lives every moment, so there is no short-term or long-term to it, it is only our limited knowledge and thinking capabilities that make it short-term or long-term.

There is so much that we human beings have no clue about - including the environment about which there is so much of "green talk" happening, that our ability to take decisions that are good for Earth can be questioned.

As a race we have moved so much away from "basic living" that we have forgot why we are doing all these things. One side is the inquisitive nature of ours that keeps pushing us to explore and understand everything, on the other side we have the pleasure seeking nature that keeps us at work and trying to improve things of comfort. The pleasure seeking nature is the main fuel behind the business world and therefore the search is endless.

Sometimes I wonder that we are forgetting what we need basically need and instead take things for granted. For some reason, human race has chosen to live together and thus created the "Society," which is constantly evolving and the increasing population is a proof that it has been successful so far but the miseries of so many human beings alive is also an indication of its shortcomings. In earlier days, religion attempted to correct the social shortcomings but now religion seems to have lost this capability due to overuse and increasing knowledge.

Looks like it's time for us to cool down a bit and think why we are doing what we are doing and then take a call about what to do next. I know that one person thinking wouldn't make a difference but it can make a beginning. Let's think about this and do something that makes sense.

I know that this post is quite long, complicated and intertwined but I would greatly appreciate thoughts from the readers. Have fun