Human
life is nothing but a continuum of conflict between the right & left
portions of his/her brain. The left raises questions on everything and the
right tries to answer them. One complements the other and there is no
existence for us if both sides are not working in tandem. A similar
situation exists on a macro scale too. The Left in any society raises
‘inconvenient’ questions and the Right tries to find answers. The body
politic would be moribund without a proper mix of the Left and the Right.
But it is also important to have an overall direction for any society and
nation if it is to develop and progress. Perpetual ideological conflicts
adding up to a zero-sum game can make any nation stagnant. While assuring
the existence of Right and Left elements in our country at all times, it
is equally important for us to select a net positive direction if we are
to get India into the super league by 2020.
Right or Left
India has chosen the democratic way forward and so be it. Political
parties and politicians will be part and parcel of any such democratic
process. Even if we don’t like most of our politicians, they will remain
an indispensable part of our society at all times. Democracies are run by
politicians and those who want to have the comforts of a democracy should
learn to tolerate all kinds of politicians too. But there are ways and
means to improve the quality of our political leaders if we can encourage
political parties that nurture the type of politicians we adore. All
political parties (including lean and family ones) have an underlying
ideology and ultimately it boils down to which ideology we want to
promote. While the Left parties have an international character in their
ideology, the Right in every country tend to be conservative and
nationalistic. Left is concerned about the human being in each citizen
while the Right prefers to concentrate on the citizen in each human being.
Politics is just one of the numerous activities in our lives and any
political ideology one decides to follow has to be consistent with his or
her own lifestyle, background and beliefs. One cannot be a petty
bourgeoisie at home and lead a revolutionary socialist party in public.
Also one cannot possibly be a communist inside the house and a spendthrift
in public. If one is convinced and decides to follow a particular
ideology, he or she should be equally willing to change with it. I have
come across many communist leaders who take extra efforts to get away from
public gaze for visiting temples / churches / mosques or even for
consulting astrologers. Some of them get away with the excuse of
accompanying their spouses. But then the pertinent question is how they
are going to lead a society if they cannot even convince their own
spouses. Communism is an atheistic ideology and communists should be
avowedly ‘areligious’ too because all religions are built around the
concept of God.
Left Only Promises
Left ideologies have mass appeal because of their concern for the poor and
deprived. It is unfortunate but quite natural to have poor people when 80%
of the wealth in any society is held by just 20% of its members. Mankind
has tried out several systems in several societies so far but pattern of
wealth distribution has remained more or less the same. Even in communist
countries, where private wealth is not allowed, the same proportion is
followed in distribution of state power among the ruling elite. The facade
of state socialism helped only in camouflaging the real distribution of
wealth in all the erstwhile communist countries including Soviet Union.
Without understating the genuine efforts of some great leaders in creating
a socialistic society (immediately after the revolution in such countries)
it can be unambiguously concluded that ‘pure’ socialism is an unmitigated
disaster as an ideology. Strict socialism is a failure and mutation is
called for if it is to be of any relevance in the future.
Marx had described religion as opiate of the masses but less than two
centuries later communism is replacing religion. Left ideologies have
opiate like qualities in attracting youth in every country. The concepts
of socialism, atheism and communism appeal to everyone who reads through
the relevant literature. The utopian concepts about land belonging to
those who till and state power to the working class sound absolutely
logical to any youth who dreams of ushering in a just world. They seldom
bother to analyze the basis of those ideologies and their
contemporariness. For example few realize that Marx (and Engels) had lived
in a society which had few factory owners but millions of workers and they
never considered the aspirations of each of those workers to become an
owner one day. The type of society that inspired Das Kapital was
industrial while most of the world is still agrarian. The value system and
dynamics of an industrial society is completely different from that of an
agrarian one. Industry runs on discipline while agriculture rests on
trust. The type of relation between men and machine is totally different
from that of men and soil; former is mechanical and latter tending to be
emotional.
Right Can Deliver
Human beings are similar biologically and what differentiates one from
another is culture more than color. Thanks to great levelers like travel,
tourism and television, there is a minuscule band of international
citizens who are comfortable in any gathering but a vast majority are at
home only among their own. This feeling of ‘our own’ is what makes a
nation and only when people of one nation stand together there is progress
for that nation. After World War II, there are many Germans, Italians and
Japanese who say ‘patriotism is good but nationalism is bad’. No doubt
they have a reason for saying that. But what they forget is that their
countries still remain strong nations only because of the underlying
national feelings. Patriotism will help in liberating a nation under
foreign rule but nationalism is what will make any nation great. Only
those political parties that can consolidate the collective power of
masses by arousing the positive aspects of nationalism can take any
democratic nation to heights.
While ideologies of the Left tend to be vague as a nation progresses and
becomes powerful, those of the Right focuses more on the individuals as
the consolidation reaches higher levels. Communist manifesto left every
one guessing by merely stating that the state will wither away once the
proletariat has taken over power. But in Soviet Union we saw this in
practice by the consolidation of power by a coterie of decadent leaders
hiding behind an iron curtain of censorship and exiles. Same has been the
case in all the communist countries. The Left ideologies have thus proved
to be incomplete and incapable of taking us the full course as a nation
and as individuals. They merely lead us to a dead end.
In India, we have now reached a decisive stage in our experiments with the
best form of government and society. There is no point in wasting time
looking for an answer on the left side. Neither can we go back to the era
of astrologers, yagas, kings and rigid caste systems on the extreme right.
We can definitely find a modern and progressive form of governance by
staying on course towards the right. As always the answer definitely lies
on the right side.
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