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How to make our Government listen to Us
"This dangerous development of not listening to the people has an important bearing as the survival of the people in the public life. If somebody listens to the people, that person has to tell the truth, which most of the time is hazardous for the majority, who are enjoying power and position."
Sachi Satpathy : June 15, 2008
In a democratic set up like India, which is the meeting point for the government to take note of the social, economic and psychological burden of its voters? Is it not that frustration among the people for not finding any space among their own elected representatives has resulted only in the development of a syndrome of losing one's identity as a responsible citizen? The losing of identity has begun in the country, particularly when the core concept of democracy that is ‘listen first to the people’ has been ignored, terming them as illiterate. The important aspect of this dangerous development is because listening to the people is almost lacking in every sphere of governance process. Under these circumstances, democracy does not perform what we expect it to perform. This process of ignoring the core sentiment of the people has only shown the way to the surfacing of manipulative politicians, who find the best way to secure advantages in the vote number game, by making majority the scapegoat. And when a large section of the population in a democracy is taken for a ride in such an irresponsible way, where is the point in making government listen to people?
The so called development thinker of the country, who carries the sensitive civil citizenship within oneself, seems to have engaged in a mind-war game, which is leading to a lot of instability. Politicians speak for the people but are mostly working for the all round benefit of the people, who are already in advantageous position and powerful too. The politician's approach today is to divide the country and adhering to the concept of "controlling power though wealth", have made them blind to the problems of a reasonably frustrated very poor majority. When the people of this country started understanding why they needed democracy, the ruling political class are getting scared of this trend of the people who have by now to understand what is happening to them and why is it happening? As mentioned, the concept of listening to the people has undergone change substantially "We are learned people, so you people listen to us, we will give this development, that development". The changing paradigm shift of "talking so much about people without listening to them" has pushed our democracy back by sixty years though we celebrated our sixtieth years of independence recently.
This dangerous development of not listening to the people has an important bearing as the survival of the people in the public life. If somebody listens to the people, that person has to tell the truth, which most of the time is hazardous for the majority, who are enjoying power and position. If somebody in this democracy dares to speak the truth, he or she will be forced to pay a heavy price for that. Reflecting the thinking of the people is similar to speaking truth in a democracy. It is possible that somebody can provide people with a new and important way of thinking, though it may be suicidal with some one's personal relationship. This type of thought and mechanism really can bring change in the system. If one look at searching some sort of optimism existing, one can perceive the fact that the some of the good people, who always strive for working to the interest of the people could not able to maintain their character, personality and ability to heed their thought and belief with people for a long time because of the fear of losing the popularity. Under these circumstances, a good leader will not be able to fulfil the genuine demand of people. Further, these leaders have slowly started imposing their way of thinking on the masses because of their own survival. Unfortunately our democracy has paved way to certain kind of leadership, where people are forced to wait until the consensus is formed. The other way of solving the problem of leadership is through community approach, is also missing in the present context. There is a ray of hope for rescuing the present system, if communities could step away from the margins of their own pain and see how that pain is manifested itself in other communities, so as to generate the larger political forces. But the above sharing the suffering process is also lacking in every sense of its operation.
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One significant shift in our democracy is not what people think matters but what party or a leader thinks matters because of the media's approach of celebrating those, who are close to market performer so as to be shown a favour in some form or the other. So, the people's voice, their concern are now a days totally ignored. It seems to all that after India's independence, there is no need for any more movement in the country. Is the people's movement required only for Independence? These wrong notions among the masses, to limit the need for mass-movement only for independence struggle have helped the power-hungry leadership to encourage injustice. Walking away from the responsibility of a leader to ameliorate injustice and pain show how self-centred and characterless leaders have taken everybody to a situation, where government has become most insensitive to listen to the people's concern. The issue of willing to take risk always helped people in general over opting to walk out. A leader in the democracy should not wait until the consensus is formed, as he should have the courage to take the risk of controversy. During such times, the burning beam of controversy is naturally focused upon the leader, and he has to step forward and necessarily be part of the educative process in taking risk. The present trend among the leaders is to avoid controversy rather learning to use controversy in a positive way to advance the ideas that one is talking about. Further, the wrong notion of personality-based approach of looking at the reform has nothing to do with any kind of development in the country. At the end of the day, it really will not have anything to do with personalities; it is the brilliance of ideas, which helped in influencing the history and politics of a system.
Finally, somebody should not be in a mind set that he or she alone can change the system of democracy from its present diluted form. But, when such momentum comes and somebody steps up to those moments to be trustworthy, face the clashes, and ready to digest unexpected risks, one can be really groomed as a leader in the process. Moving beyond this risk of controlling the event or history, one can become successful in translating the concern of the people at the policy and politics of the country. The existing cynicism that things cannot change, development is a distant dream in the hand of corrupt politicians and bureaucracy, should not be developed among citizen in a democracy, though, it is now largely seen among the voting class. People compromises, sell out, and are corrupt because they choose to be. This is not inherent in the process and subscribing to any such cynicism like "nothing can be done" needs to be thought of carefully so as to make government listen to us. The degree of being opting out of the process, lead one to become an armchair spectator, allowing cynicism to deny the need to grapple the mechanism to stop breeding the leaders and sensible citizenship and in the process, creates more reasons for not being heard in the governance process.
(Author is a development thinker and socio-economic-political lobbyist working to establish a nexus free government in the state of Orissa)