From the Land of Bureaucrat-Politicians and Politician-Bureaucrats

I was reading through people’s queries on Jago website and the most common questions were related to its policies: Can it be done, how would you do it, etc. I have written about it many times (see here or here) but a new insight made me write this.

The question of implementation of promises and proposals is a crucial one for every concerned citizen but asking right questions at the right time is equally important. (I’ve got stuck in questions after the Where’s the Question article)

What has happened is the faulty functioning of our politicians for past many decades have changed our definition of a politician, we now see him as a bureaucrat-politician, one who does transfers and posting right from bottom to the top, who personally ‘delves’ in the matters of day to day administration and is remotely concerned with policies and agenda. After every election we see a series of transfers, cancellation of transfers, re-transfers, continue for many days.

Given such kind of functioning our bureaucrats have also turned the traditional definition of a bureaucrat upside down, they don’t hesitate to meddle in politics, many are directly involved in electioneering for their political bosses, they have turned into Politician-Bureaucrat. Any Politician-Bureaucrat is a darling for our politicians, who chase him till he does not join anyone of them.

This has made us ask administrative questions from politicians and political questions from bureaucrats. Ask a party why did you not do this work instead of asking how you failed to do it, Say I will vote for you once, you have to make sure all that you've said is done in 5 years otherwise I'll kick you out.

I tried to make a list of how a system should function , so that we can understand the difference between a politician and a bureaucrat.

1. The Political Party & The Politicians: a group of citizens who come together based on their belief in similar ideas and solutions. It contests elections, if comes to power makes the policy decisions (based on its manifesto and ideology), selects the leaders (not the whole bureaucratic team) for its implementation and supervises the work.

2. The People: decide what the direction of the nation should be through the elections. They are the real owners of the agenda of the political party they have voted in and they make sure that it’s implemented by the party by the fear of getting voted out in next elections.

3. The Government & The Bureaucracy: It is the tool, the instrument, the machinery that does the work assigned to it by the elected leadership, it does the all work, what it should do is decided by the political party in power, who is elected (decided) by the people based on the proposals and promises of the party.

The Conclusion is: (To Reiterate) The Bureaucracy does all the work, The Work is decided by the government which is a part of Political Party that gets voted in by the people. The People decide which Party gets their votes by the party’s agenda and manifesto.

Then the natural question is why people criticize the policies and proposals of a political party even when they can simply ignore it by not voting for it. The best explanation for it to me is that people feel somewhat connected to the party and its proposals, they try to test the resolve of the people behind it, they want to see are these people plain opportunists or persons of altogether different mettle.

United For Terror:

[N.B.: The person who has written this text seems to be mentally deranged, kindly read with caution!]

OK the Mumbai attacks have at least brought unity in our country’s political parties both seem to be United FOR Terror, each issuing a new message to terrorists and Pakistan with each passing day. Here is a small compilation of these statements in form of open one-sided contract:

1. The UPA led by Congress:

1. Terrorists may attack at will, we will ensure that all our administrative and intelligence machinery will sleep, to allow them safe passage.

2. Pakistan’s foreign ministry need not worry, we will ourselves create rift between the Hindu and Muslim communities, so that our citizens may not ask hard questions from you.

3. We promise that the changes in our administrative system will be cursory, the depths where the real rot is will be left untouched.

4. We are a secular party but behind the doors we believe in the concept of ‘Transmigration of Souls’ (mentioned in Gita) and we have applied it in real life. Our Real Life Gods, our leaders ensure that whoever loses his seat is fixed at a new place (seat) as soon as possible. The Transmigration is based on loyalty to ‘The Family’.

2. The NDA led by BJP:

1. Attacks would not be tolerated especially if they are on politicians, but we promise to fulfill all the demands in cases of kidnapping and abduction.

2. Pakistan’s foreign ministry must be prepared for some random acts like we will fight while having summits, shout ‘Hot Pursuits’ and ‘Aar Paar Ki Ladaayi’ but sit over our arses, so that the confusion persist for long and we can take any stand depending on the situation.

3. We promise far reaching changes, we will make stringent laws but won’t change the system so that we can use them for our benefit, we will further polarize and crystallize prejudices against Muslims in Hindus. We will ensure the adrenaline rush so that half of people die of heart attack and the rest fighting in riots.

4. As you know our party is based on Hindu ideology, our leaders ride ‘Rathas’ (Chariots), we firmly believe in the concept of Transmigration of Souls and Seats. The Transmigration is based on person’s utility, power and money, either the profiles are changed from high to low, in some rare cases the person is kicked out from the party.

3. Hearing that we were doing a story on Terrorism (which is selling like hot cakes nowadays), many other important politicians contacted us, here is a compilation of what they have to say:

1. We promise to disrespect the country.

2. We promise to disrespect its martyrs and true leaders.

3. We promise to disrespect its people as and when possible, in as many ways possible.

4. We promise to create hullabaloo during election days and first few days of any crisis, rest of the days we will do what we are best at doing. (details of this work have to be filled by the reader!)

So friends this is a small compilation of our political parties’ stand on our war on terror where we are not united against terror but UNITED FOR TERROR, take it in writing the next attack is very near.

JAI HIND!

[P.S.: KINDLY TAKE THE ARTICLE IN THE WAY IT IS INTENDED, FOREIGN FRIENDS BEWARE!]

[Influenced by successive statements of politicians: Vilasrao Deshmukh, R.R. Patil, V.S. Achutyanandan, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, A.R. Antulay, Jaswant Singh, Digvijay Singh, and others.]