RURAL-URBAN DEBATE ON JAGO PARTY:

I recently read someone discussing building up Jago Party from the ‘grassroots’ that is rural areas, he gave some plan for gram, janpad, zila level working of the party. Respecting his effort on the issue, I beg to differ on this issue.

First taking a look at the history of various political parties, we can say that almost all of them originated from urban centers. Leave apart that, even Jago Party is basically an urban party and being one its core strength is in urban youth.

We all know that all wars are fought and won based on Core Strength, if one’s core strength is powerful and surprising enough the other party looses. People think that since the rural India forms about 65-70 percent of population whatever they do, it will not affect the voters in rural areas. This is a wrong way of looking at it; we are missing the point by diverting attention to an unrelated issue.If rural population is 70 percent then 30 percent is urban. Agree, now the 30 percent comprise of 5 percent high income, 5 percent high-mid income, 5 percent low-mid income and rest 15 low income. I have chosen income because urban areas don’t have the barriers of Caste that strong. So, I am talking to the top 10 percent category now, naturally you might be using services of the lower 10 percent category in the form of domestic helps, dhobis, electricians, plumbers, etc. Even at work place you may have an interaction with them.

The next time you pass you baais or dhobis, just ask them ‘to which place they belong? And are they in touch with the place?’, urban places are made up from a migrated population, all of its residents have their roots somewhere in the rural India.(ask your parents). You will be surprised to know that not only are they well connected to their places, there is a constant exchange of information going on between them, the issues of urban India are reported and the condition and issues of rural India be reported back

This interaction can swing the real public opinion of India in very less time as it now uses mobile phones; watches satellite DTH TV, unlike yesteryears. They also learn from you and me, if you have a large shelf of books in your house they start spending more on their children’s education, if you have computer they start sending them to computer classes. As I’ve said elsewhere we must not see and treat them as passive creatures, they are seeing, listening, and emulating our behavior. They too think on the political issues like you and me and rely on somebody else to choose for them the right party, which more often than not is the village elder-man like our family heads.

Coming back to our topic, if we are able to influence even 10 percent of urban India take it from me more than 20 percent of rural India would be aware of our activities. Also (though sadly) the media attention is more in urban centers so your meager 10 percent efforts too will not go unnoticed. So we must focus on our strengths, what we are good at doing, not trying something new initially, when we are confident about the foundation then only can we build up a structure.