Brazen political opportunism

The writer V Ramu Sharma has aptly summed up that the farcical ways used by political parties and divisive group is the root cause of social evils plaguing the nation causing immense damage in the functioning of parliament. As this is no doubt a blatant failure of our political institutions to uphold the principles of rule of law, mutual understanding and civil dialogue.

Added to this, the pusillanimous attitude of Opposition to stall the parliament for not taking up discussion of Pegasus issue so far and the government's stubborn attitude not to concede the demand for a debate in parliament goes to reveal that the powerful ideal of "Unity in diversity" which has held this country together so far has been seriously imperilled by cynical opportunists.

In other words, it is clear that they owe no allegiance to the party or to the people but act in their own selfish interests. Thus, it is also abundantly clear that their India is not the India the citizens dream of. Quite disappointingly, most of the political leaders are found to be aggressive, the political parties paying vociferous lip service to the urgency of ending violence and debate in parliament on all issues appears only an eyewash. In this worst scenario, it is sad that politicians only dream of electoral victory at the cost of social catastrophe. Notwithstanding the looming decline of all political parties on account of criminalisation of politics, appeasement policy and soft attitude towards the wrong-doers and backing the criminals for fear of reprisal etc are classic examples of political skulduggery, it is a sad commentary that this paved path for conflicts of many sorts like economic, social, religious etc to rise creating more problems.

In a nutshell, despite the government and Opposition have a responsibility to deliberate in Parliament and see the pressing issues plaguing the nation are resolved, it is unfortunate that this is not happening due to political parties literally failing to assume responsibility to fulfil the aspirations of people because politics is full of dirt due to our system filled with people having vested interests whose only concern is to exploit power and make quick money than serving the cause of the people. All in all, the stalemate continuing in Parliament, violence by lawmakers in Kerala Assembly, violation of reasonable order of the court are all due to dishonest political leadership and existence of divisive group, it is time, honest politicians rise and speak up to root out political opportunism, a social evil degrading our just society and demeaning democracy.

— K R Srinivasan, Secunderabad