Making Politicians Irrelevant

I don’t understand politics; I understand ethics only___________Borges

The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.__________John Calvin

Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another._____________Homer

There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear._____________Ben Jonson

We understand more politics than ethics. And no wonder we find ourselves in hell. Hell is facing other people you don’t like. Hell is greed, envy, desire, ambition for worldly power. Hell is where love is not. Hell is regret, guilt, heedlessness. Hell is the laughter of the enemies. Hell is feeling unable to act. Hell is a desecrated nature, deserted relationships, distrust, betrayal. Hell is the world under capitalism. Hell is the world today. Hell is Kashmir in search of home, in search of trustworthy leaders, in search of peace.
Our world is hell thanks to the money power. Our politics seems such a stinking affair because of money power. Our people go hither and thither, in search of Hell are girls pining for marriage but none ready to marry them. Hell is prolonged unemployment. Hell is failure to maintain an ethic, satisfy demands of one’s conscience, be oneself, afford to speak truth.

I now ask aren’t we living in a hell created by our own misdeeds. Yes! Our own misdeeds. We fail to cultivate the courage to side with the truth. Sheikh Abdullah couldn’t afford to tell the truth that power (exemplified by Nehru) doesn’t honour truth or demands of the weak. Prof Mujeeb has said the last word on the question of Kashmir vis-à-vis India, “Army doesn’t leave from a territory it has conquered unless driven away from it.” Sheikh Abdullah invited Indian army and that ended his political clout. It was only a matter of time that he would suffer 1953 and later humiliation of accord that clipped his wings and made him a Chief Minister. Our leaders, who surrounded him, could never afford to tell naked truth to the power he exemplified. Many Muslims couldn’t oppose two-nation theory in the name of a truth that they believed delegitimized nationalism. We didn’t listen to Maulana Azad. We failed to cognize the truth that Jinnah was pushed to the wall to seek Pakistan. We disregard the truth that Iqbal rejected nationalism and feudalism and today in Pakistan, created partly in his name, both jingoism and feudalism have been ugly realities.
There is an ideology and there is a truth. For perceptive analysis of this difference we need to use the tools of Marxist and deconstructive approaches in a world where ugly binaries and ideologies.
Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.____Thomas A. Edison
Why can’t we make politics irrelevant? How do we tolerate genuine people falling for temptations to power? Our kith and kin, our friends think they can make the difference.
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