Interview with Geeta Gokhale, BPD – Part I
Regular readers of this blog would recall a short series of posts I did earlier this year (see here and here) on the emergence of new political parties in India being formed by young professionals who had chosen to join politics as a conscious career choice – with a view to reform the system.
While ideas like Times of India’s recent “Lead India” campaign may have created an image of (Indian) politics being “hip and fashionable”, the reality is far from this perception.
In spite of all the “feel good” stories about economic growth and technological developments, politics in India (by and large) continues to be mired in corruption, entangled with all sorts of unsavoury elements and bereft of ideals.
So efforts like Bharat Punarnirman Dal(BPD), Lok Paritran (LP), Bharat Uday Misson(Bhumi) deserve all the encouragement and support we can muster. I felt I could help them in my own little way by publicising some of their thoughts and views on the core issues that we face as a nation.
To that end, I sent a series of questions to the various “parties” requesting their responses to some of these issues.
In response, Geeta Gokhale, National Treasurer of BPD emailed me her thoughts on some of these topics (the list of questions is large – so the interview is in two parts).
Unfortunately, barring BPD, I have not heard back from anyone yet.
If anyone of you has access to the leadership of Lok Paritran, Bharat Uday Mission or other similar groups, please request them get in touch with me – better still, pl. prod them into responding to some of these questions…
Of course, all of you are welcome to have a shot at the list of questions too!
Below are Geeta’s thoughts… Please bear in mind though that BPD is still in a nascent stage and the party’s stand on various issues is evolving. Hence these views should be strictly treated as Geeta’s personal views and not necessarily reflecting the stand of BPD or having the endorsement of the party leadership.
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Question: What is your position on campaign finance? Corruption in elections/ vote-rigging?
Answer: Vote- rigging and the malpractices during elections indicate death of democracy. We are constantly focusing on creating political awareness amongst people as our topmost agenda. When people like you and me take this game so seriously, I am sure that this will create an awakening amongst the rest 55% people who don’t care to vote.
Out of 30 to 45% people who vote [including bogus voting], if someone wins 7 to 10% votes, he is not really elected. He/she is just there by chance, thanks to the ignorant people and the diseased democracy.
Campaign Finance is the most significant issue, which we are thinking of today. While in UP elections we managed to get some donations from different social groups and individuals. But that is not sufficient. We need money for organization building and for elections.
If the active members could shell out 10% of their income for the party, that would be good for running the party office. Guess a few software engineers like me would be sufficient 🙂
A political party can be a very unique institution with a group of small businesses, personality development centers and a social service wing. A very huge mass of youngsters is getting attracted to our party. With this idea we can offer them training, employment and satisfaction.
This idea is evolving and we need more entrepreneurs. The core committee is working on this.
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Question: What are your views on reservations in education, jobs, promotions, private sector (and reservations on the basis of caste, religion, socio-economic measures?
Answer: Social Equality is our core value and we don’t discriminate on the basis of cast, creed or religion.
In India, still there are communities who are deprived of basic education. We still see in rural areas the disparity between the upper casts and lower casts. It’s high time now that the lower caste people be treated as human beings. So to inculcate social justice and equality, it would have been appropriate to provide the reservations as suggested initially.
But that was an experiment which “failed miserably”. After so many years, the statistics shows that the reservations don’t always reach to right people. Reservations are unfortunately used by the politicians on “Divide and Rule” basis. And nothing can be more harmful for the society.
Reservations to the top education institutes would be a disaster. I strongly believe that India’s greatest power lies in the young and talented brains produced by these high profile institutes and there cannot be any compromise on merit.
While I was discussing with Sundeep, we feel that basic revamp in the current education system is the solution. We need to upgrade all the municipal schools in India so that every single child gets the best of education for free. And there is no child labor in India.
Offering reservations is like asserting (to) a group of people that they are backward. And I feel that is very insulting for my fellow Indians. So instead of looking at this issue from vote bank perspective, we believe that India would transform into a society with no need of reservations, in 20 years from now.
So all in all, we are against reservations.
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Question: Views on “criminalization” of politics and views on banning people with criminal convictions from standing for elections?
Answer: In 2002, Supreme Court ordered Election commission that every candidate has to produce an affidavit regarding his criminal background, wealth and educational qualification.
This was an important milestone and created trouble for many of the candidates. Central govt. tried to defy this order by a passing a law.
But in August 2002, association of democratic reforms, peoples union for civil liberties and Loksatta, these civil organizations come together challenged this law in Supreme Court, which yielded positive results.
After that we see that the election commission has enforced the affidavits. In continuation to the reforms in the electoral process, Election commission of India has suggested that people with criminal background should not be allowed to contest elections. Hopefully by next assembly elections, this law would be already enforced.
We shall not allow criminally convicted people into our party. There is no point in creating a whole new party if we want to play by the same rules.
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Question: In your view, what is the single biggest problem in Indian politics today? Is it Corruption? Criminalization? Lack of competence? Fragmentation of electoral base – along casteist, religious, regional lines? Something else?
Answer: The answer is “Lack of Aggressive Nationalism“.
Corruption, criminalization, fragmentation of electoral base would happen only when the elements of this system are operating with insecurity consciousness. The insecurity is in terms of money and power.
Self- Interest and interest of party preside over the interest of the nation.
We are lacking leaders of national character. We need today’s BhagatSingh who went beyond the limits of body and mind for the country. BPD is the platform to create leaders of national character.
*** END of PART-I ***
More from Geeta, hopefully soon.
As always, views, thoughts, comments very welcome (Sanjeev, I am looking at you to kick-off the discussion!).
Related Posts:
BPD, BM, LP: Light at the end of the tunnel?
Dear Shri. Shantanu,
I am hitting the ground running. sorry, before Shri Sanjeev kicks the discussion off.
The ideas of Ms. Geeta are appreciable and her thoughts are what each Indian today feels but sometimes does not find a suitable place to express.
Regarding the problem of money for the elections, even if every Indian who wishes to be a part of the new resugent India contributes only Rs. 100 per month , with the burgeoning ITES sector I am sure the needs of the BPD may be met.
Regarding the matter of education, matching the requirements and the needs it may be a Himalayan task to take it at one go.
If it is of interest to you at the Suddanada Ashram a scheme has been instituted. This envisages the identification by the principal of a few school students of the tenth and twelfth to continue their graduation in their preferred fields and these students are fully sponsored. Their educational needs are fully met, and they stay in the Ashram and their boarding and Lodging expenses are met by the sponsorer also by donations to the Ashram. They also learn the vedas and they are free to serve the Ashram and continue to serve it or can also go their independent ways if they feel so after they complete their graduation
By the way all these students are first generation students and are the children of fishermen or farmhands.
I hope this scheme will get two birds with one stone. A. Education B. Members of the community who have no caste distinction and with the thought of Dharma in their minds.
Regards,
vck
VCK: Thanks for your comment and dont wory about jumping the gun!
I was merely hinting at Sanjeev since I know he is deeply interested in this subject.
Please can you send me more details of the “Suddanada Ashram” scheme?
I would like to publicise it on my blog and also get in touch with them?
Thanks for your help.
Dear Shantanu
I like this idea of yours to interview young politicians, and enjoyed reading your interview with Geeta. More power to these young politicians! I agree with most of Geeta’s views and wish her luck and success.
But I would like to suggest, if she is open to suggestions, that she re-think and re-frame her views exclusively in the language of freedom. We want reasoning on why a particular policy is good or bad for our life and our freedoms; not statements that can be divisive or confusing.
For instance, the argument as currently framed on reservations is not persuasive, and in fact, is divisive. First, let us look at the statement: “to inculcate social justice and equality, it would have been appropriate to provide the reservations as suggested initially.” That is incorrect. Reservations were wrong then, and are wrong today. The concept of reservations is unjust and in stark opposition to freedom. I also particularly disagree with ideas like social justice. Freedom and justice can only be individual: not social. Reservations attempt, in principle, to punish the current generation for things they never did; they discriminate on the basis of social identity. That is complety wrong. This worng thing couldn’t have been right even in 1950.
Second, to say that “Reservations to the top education institutes would be a disaster” is prejudicial, divisive and can be seen as casteist. It implies that some people (lower castes?) who get in because of an initial low score are permanently destined to stay at that level. That is wrong and inflammatory. Copying in exams is not the preserve of lower castes, nor is corruption, or any other evil. And many so-called bright people sit on the haunches and do nothing, while the allegedly not-so-bright people work hard and excel.
Hard work and continuous learning ultimately matter in life, not high school grades. Therefore no one should ever prejudge the future contributions of any person based on caste. Then people can start thinking: Geeta – Oh! You are a Gokhle so you must be biased against lower castes.
Lower castes who complete their studies and do brilliantly in life have not been a disaster; cannot be a disaster! So we can’t generalise. I know truly outstanding people in the IAS in my batch who came through reservations. They are, in my opinion, way better than many of their corrupt and lazy ‘high-caste’ counterparts because they kept learning the whole of their lives. We also had a President, ex-IFS officer, who perhaps came in through reservations. No. I don’t agree that reservations are a disaster because of what happens in higher educatation institutions.
Reservatgions are are plain wrong. I oppose reservations on the only tenable ground that one can use to oppose this idea: namely that it is unjust. We want a free India to be based on justice. My suggestion therefore, to Geeta: do consider grounding your world view on the fundamentals of freedom. People are looking for clear guidance on what freedom means.
* * *
Second, a short suggestion to the small parties and groups that are currently proliferating in India.
It is easy for 10 people to form a group. But political parties need hundreds, if not thousands of crores of rupees to succeed at the national (even state) level. Nobody will give that kind of money to small, motley groups of people who have no chance of succeeding at the national level.
What you need is critical mass comprising a group of at least 1500 outstanding people (and I mean really outstanding, not amateurs with passion but limited ability and experience) from all over India. This step is hard, but it is the minimum critical size needed to gain momentum of any sort.
So, the first step is to bring together about these 1500 honest and highly capable Indians from all parts of India. These people should then discuss and agree to advance the key messages of freedom and good governance. They will need to agree to (1) what the new India will look like and (2) how these 1500 people will deliver the reforms if they came into power. I recommend using the internet to these 1500 people to arrive at their common platform.
Unite into one amorphous group under the umbrella of freedom, at this stage. Leave aside egos (in fact anyone with a big ego can’t be accepted to be part of the 1500 – refer to level 4 and 5 leadership of Jim Collins). Then leave aside prior ideas, and discuss good governance, international best practice models, and so on. That will take 2-3 years of work.
Once this critical mass and critical focus is achieved, funding will naturally follow in, in the crores of rupees.
With that funding, this group of 1500 should then form a single common political platform and explain their policies to the people, over at least three years of campaigning. Brochures, public meetings, door to door campaigns. More funding will then follow.
Finally, after a total of 5-6 years of work, this group can contest elections and is likely to succeed in being elected and in reforming the country’s governance. Without such a focused aim, outstanding people, clear strategy, and a policy platform that most people of India can understand and support, the financial support that a political party needs to make a real difference is unlikely to emerge.
I hope this was helpful.
Regards
Sanjeev Sabhlok
Dear Shantanu,
Thank you very much for your response. I am giving below the details required by you.
Samvit Sagar Trust, Suddhanandapuram, East Coast Road, Uthandi, Chennai – 600 119. E-Mail: samvit@vsnl.com
Website: http://www.selfknowledge.info
Thanks a lot for your interest in the idea.
Regards,
vck