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Politics and Crime




The present Lok Sabha has the highest number of MPs with criminal cases against them.  One-third of the MPs face serious criminal charges.  All the MPs of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD – Bihar), 15 out of the 18 MPs of Shiv Sena (Maharashtra), and 4 out of the 5 MPs of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP – Maharashtra) are people with criminal records.  More than one-third of the BJP’s new MPs face criminal charges most of which are very serious.  The Congress Party fares better with 7% of its MPs facing serious charges while there are minor charges against 18%.  Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have contributed most of these criminals to the 16th Lok Sabha.
Courtesy: Here
These MPs are very wealthy too.  82% of all the present MPs had assets worth over ₹1 crore each in 2014 (when they were elected).  Wealth does play a significant role in making politics criminal.  Criminals enter politics precisely because they bring wealth with them to the political parties.  Parties sell ‘tickets’ to candidates who are willing to pay the highest price.  The wealthy criminals have a lot of black money and hence they are ready to pay enormous amounts to the political party provided they can win a seat in the Parliament or the Legislative Assembly.  The party is happy to get the funds. 

Political power is the best means for whitening black money as well as erasing criminal records.  Add religion to it, and the mix is headier than what one can imagine.  While political power enables one to float above all legal structures in the county, religion sanctifies one’s actions.  Mass murders, for example, become holy acts when they are given religious colours.  Forget minor crimes such as mafia attacks.

Are Indians fools to elect such people to power?  The question is raised by the latest edition of Indispire (a forum of Indiblogger, a community of Indian bloggers).  The answer is both yes and no.  Yes, because the people can choose to say no to these candidates if they want.  No, because the people have very little choice: most candidates are criminals irrespective of the party – the range and degree of the crimes may vary, that’s all.

Politics in India today is a criminal activity, in short.  India stands terribly in need of a leader with a vision who can clean up the entire system.  Unfortunately the country shows no sign of any such visionary leader.  We are condemned to be ruled by criminals as long as we don’t learn the other available alternative: question the leaders when they fail to deliver.  Our television news channels are doing a great job at this.  But the fate of NDTV shows that the channels won’t be able to go very far.  If a leading national channel is unable to lead a fight against political crimes, who can? 

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 180: #ToErrIsIndian


Comments

  1. Pranju chakrapaniJuly 28, 2017 at 9:20 PM

    Two businesses will always remain profitable- religion and politics. And they will remain profitable till we remain blind to their deadly concoction with each other and also other elements.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 28, 2017 at 9:26 PM

      The common man's stupidity is what nurtures both religion and politics.

      Delete
  2. UnknownJuly 28, 2017 at 10:30 PM

    Perhaps India is the only country where we could see a symbiosis between crime and politics.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 29, 2017 at 1:56 PM

      One of the many such countries, in fact. Politics and venality have always shared a symbiotic relationship. They were born for each other. They are the most enduring spouses. Religion is the Narada in it.

      Delete
  3. Jyotirmoy SarkarJuly 29, 2017 at 7:25 AM

    Informative post indeed, as it is believed by the educated people that the politicians should be chosen with exam(Like school and colleges) and with certain qualifications, any person with criminal background should be banned to join politics...but who will make this rule?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 29, 2017 at 1:59 PM

      The rules are made by these very same criminals. In spite of having an abundance of black money with them, they keep on revising their pay scales and other benefits very methodically and very religiously. The whole written history of mankind revolves around these bastards. Einsteins and Heisenbergs who make the real contributions remain in the background and any bastard who rules people for some period of time becomes a hero in history :)

      Delete

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