When we talk about politics, only two things come to our mind — elections and power — but we do not take into account the principle behind it, and that is why many problems have arisen.
‘Sattesathi Kahipan’ — I watched Makarand Anaspure’s film, in which it depicts how a candidate, his party, and his workers destroy even their family to gain power, and how they trample upon truth, justice, and morality.
Whether it is a candidate, a party, or party workers — when a person does not have the awareness or the thought that ‘power’ is not an end but a means, a lot of trouble arises.
In reality, power is a means of transformation and development; transformation and development are the goals. Only when this clarity comes to every candidate, their workers, their party, and the voter, will principled politics begin.
I want to create peace and order in my constituency, stop thefts, fights, and quarrels, provide civic amenities to the people of my constituency, and bring about material development.
From the perspective of the country, unemployment and corruption are costly and must be eliminated. A candidate going into power with the vision of ideological transformation of the citizens of the country and material development of the country — that is principled politics.
But if someone thinks — I have nothing to do with the country and its people, I only want my own development, I want to accumulate a lot of wealth and protect it, and for this I need power, and that is why I do politics — this should not be called principled politics but merely transactional politics.
Transactional politics can bring about the development of one family, the power and wealth of one household can remain permanently, but it cannot bring about the development of a constituency and country or transformation among the people.
Principled politics means progressive politics, and politics done without principles means transactional politics — this will be everyone’s politics; politics done for transformation and development is principled politics.
The candidate, meaning the public representative, as well as the citizen who votes for them, does not even know what principles are — there is no study of principled loyalty, party loyalty, national loyalty, truth, justice, and morality. How then will such voters and their candidates do principled politics?
The Indian Constitution expects principled politics. The Constitution is not merely a book that tells how to establish power and how to run governance. It is not merely a book of laws. Rather, after independence was achieved, what kind of system should exist in India, and on what principles should that system function or exist — an analysis of this has also been done in the Indian Constitution.
Every person in India should not live as a slave but as a master — their sovereignty, their human rights and entitlements must remain intact. Similarly, India as a country should not remain anyone’s slave, and the sovereignty of the country must be maintained — the Constitution has taken care of this.
India must be secular; economically India must maintain a socialist policy; religiously India must be secular; politically India must be a democratic country; and socially India must be a country of equality — meaning sovereignty, secularism of power, freedom of religion for the people, religious harmony, socialism, and democracy — creating this system for India is the objective of the Constitution.
The Indian Constitution certainly envisions such a system, but this system — meaning this functioning, this situation, this state — has also been given a moral foundation, a philosophical foundation, which is: liberty, equality, fraternity, and justice. On these four principles, the Indian system must be sustained and must be created — such is the expectation of the Constitution.
How should a principle-based system be? The provision and analysis of this has also been done by the Constitution.
The Constitution expects democratic power — taking into account the wishes, aspirations, and demands of the people, it must be decided whether elections should be held through EVM machines or ballot paper. Hooliganism, bullying, misuse of money, use of caste, religion, and God in elections — this cannot be called principled politics. Rather, ‘anything for power — even if my family is destroyed, I want power, I want wealth’ — this greed and avarice is politics without principles.
If principles are not used for gaining power, and as long as the ideological foundation that power is not an end but merely a means of transformation and development does not settle in a person’s mind, no one will ever do principled politics. Along with this, the dream of Gandhiji, Sardar Patel, Nehru, and all the senior Congress leaders, Constitution-maker Babasaheb Ambedkar, and the freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives — was a ‘Sovereign India, Sovereign Indian people, Socialist India, Secular India, Democratic India.’
Their dream was to give such India the foundation of the principles of liberty, equality, fraternity, and justice. But many events are happening that give rise to the doubt whether their dream remains unfulfilled today. The thought has arisen among intellectuals whether a revolt for freedom will have to be launched once again.
Why do intellectuals and thinkers have such a question? The reason is that this question arises only when power has no foundation of principles, or principled politics is not practiced.
For this, there is a great need for mass awareness, enlightenment, and consciousness-raising about people’s ignorance, people’s superstitions, people’s laziness, and religious fanaticism among the people. People of all religions have become fanatical, and from this, extremists have been born. Today there are organizations of extremists in every religion, and for gaining control over power, principles have been abandoned. Humanity has been abandoned, and they are seen behaving like wild animals.
Destroying this religious fanaticism in every religion has become a burning question. If society ignores this question — if it is ignored today, society will be destroyed tomorrow — serious thought about this is necessary.
Therefore, instead of thinking by taking the support or criterion of religion, it is important that each person think and plan on how the thoughts of those who are fanatics and extremists within their own religion can be changed.
Also, without using at least one of these three things — religious harmony, secularism, or renunciation of religion — it is not possible to eliminate this fanaticism and extremism.
Therefore, whether it is a voter or a candidate, while doing politics, politics must be done not merely for power but for principles — because principles and ideologies do the work of uplifting a person, and those who do not use principles and ideologies — unprincipled thought does the work of bringing a person down. If at least this much is understood, that is enough.
