Is Politics Bad?

Picture this!

1. Our beloved President of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was shown on television interacting students visiting the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Just before departing, he asked them: "How many of you want to be politicians?" All he could get was a peal of laughter. They probably thought he was just kidding. I am sure he was left disappointed.
2. If a friend walks up to you and says, "I'd like to join politics". You'd either probably think he's too naive or consider him getting too greedy.
3. If a politican does good, the most common reaction would be that he's just being populist and playing to the vote bank. If a NGO does the same, we say why can't our politicans be like them.
4. If an NGO has been acquitted in a legal case, we say they have been vindicated. If its a politician, we say he's manipulated the system.

There are so many more examples which brings us to the question, "Is Politics Bad?"..... This is a question that I find most people today answer in chorus.....YES. After all, the media has exposed many a scam and that has made most of us agree that politics is bad and nothing good can come out of it today. In the last decade or so, with the overzealous penchant for showing the "truth", the media has actually portrayed only one aspect of the Indian political system, although I do agree that it constitutes the majority of it.

I, for one, would like to differ a little...not with what the media has exposed but with the general perception that has been created. No human is born a criminal and no system is without black sheep. It is the men and women from our own society that make up the political class and therefore they are just one amongst us. When we have good and bad in society; so should there be in the political class. That the political system lures many into doing what we think all of them do is true to some extent; but we must also realize that there are many individuals, men and women, out there who are very much part of this system and are striving to achieve what we all dream to achieve, a developed nation. They are the ones that the media only goes as far as to mention that they have a "clean image", a phrase which implies that it is just a notion. This is in stark contrast to the judgements they read out on the politicians of the other kind with utter conviction. What a great disservice we do to those individuals, however few we may think they are, is obvious.

Then why does the average Indian think that no good can come out of Indian Politics? Is it a feeling of relative righteousnees that one gets by showing others in bad light? Or is it a habit to take things at face value and find simplistic causes for the problems we face? Whatever be the reason, the repercussions of such extreme cynicism are extreme in itself; The average Indian today has written off every single politician, We see summary trials of politicians without evidence and a defamation of a career option that provides the maximum power to an individual to do good simply because he/she is chosen by the citizens to do so and is at their mercy. It is this ability that makes Politics a noble profession. If anyone is bad, its the politician and to be precise, a certain number of them. Politics in itself is a noble profession by its sheer ability to do good, if an individual wishes to.

But alas, we have destroyed many a good man and woman in the system who have withstood the lure against all odds, by this mentality. After all, who would want to do good even after being branded a bad guy. Its similar to awarding a marks card to a student saying, "Anyways I know you're not going to make it, so here's your fail certificate before you take the test". Or a manager telling his resource " Well, here's a new project. I am certain you are going to ruin it". How motivated do you think that employee would be after that comment?

1. What is even more dangerous is the trend it has now created.
   The media, in a way, has "educated" the bad-doers about the illegitimate benefits of being in politics. I wouldn't be surprised if we actually do a study and find that most criminals actually entered politics after the media picked up a random case and portrayed that as being the norm.
2. The good people are staying away from it for the fear of being called bad; its a thankless job and many think they simply cannot do any good. The only men and women who would want to enter politics today are those who wouldn't mind being called bad since they already are, after all they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Ironically, we are ending up creating the very scenario that is being falsely overexaggerated. If this trend isn't arrested, the politics of India is going to degenerate in this vicious cycle to a point of no return because the endangered species of good politicans are being hunted by us to the point of extinction. If we don't act soon enough, we eventually wouldn't have any good people left in the system.