I think that there will always be some corrupt and greedy elements in any ruling party. There will also be some clean characters, and others in the middle.
It is no use venting out against the present rulers. You will do the same when the other major group comes to power. If one takes a look at the scams from the time of Independence, you'll see that there is always something there, and the only change is the value in Rupees. Today the value of money in increased with more zero's. But corruption has always been there.
Let us look from another angle. The price hike with petrol/diesel. This is not based on the government controls but directly reflective of the price in the international market. So it does not matter whether it is UPA or the NDA, they all know why and will face the same challenge from the public. If the government tries to intervene it would cause the oil companies in India to go into the red quickly and the end result will be worse than the non-intervention. Any hike in fuel will automatically increase the prices in all commodities that need to be transported from one place to another. There will always be the 'opposition' hypocritically whipping up the public about the increasing prices.
We need to look at it from the worldwide scenario because the system is tangled in such a way that when there is economic damage to US affects almost every country in the world. What we should be doing is to figure out a solution that is not making us the scapegoats for the powers behind the scenes. You can get the idea from studying the Wikileaks files. When we pick fault upon the rulers, we are inadvertently doing exactly what these powers want to do – cause anger and division everywhere, especially in countries like India, who can stand up to the nefarious tactics if the public stays more united. There will always be someone who will loot and abuse their positions of power, but look at what is being overlooked. The entire country will be looted if we don't look beyond what is very obvious, and the profiteers are not living in India. What these individual guys loot within the country is much, much less compared to what is at stake.
Take Libya for example. Some countries will keep on attacking the rulers there till he is gone, and then the same people will attack the 'rebels' till they become toothless, and then they will take over the country (oil) for so called humanitarian purposes and fool the whole world. It may not be that easy to mess with a larger country like India, but it can happen and it will head towards splitting India along language-based smaller nations.
IndiaStudyChannel has that rare bit of integrity and freedom – can we use it as a platform to formulate progressive ideas instead of degenerating into a forum for complaints like it is in many other forums? Simply discussing problems will lead to more disgruntled people and a blockage to looking for solutions.
Even if you were made the PM, you would be facing tremendous pressure from all sides in opposition to your mandate to take the nation forward.
Here is a simple list of what you can encounter:
1 an opposition that is ready to howl and complain at every possible chance, however remote
2 pressures from external powers like a biased UN, USA, European Union, Human Rights Groups, Environmental and Climate Change whiners, neighboring countries, terrorism, MNC issues,etc.
3 pressures of a democracy where everybody including terrorists and criminals are given a voice, and you have to give a listening ear and spend much time going through the democratic process
4 your own cabinet – you simply cannot breathe down everyone's neck and watch if they are doing things 100% correctly all the time – 25 or more ministers, and then there are the increasing number of subordinates, any one of whom can play truant to your noble cause
5 your non-political administrative people, who can be of your opposite party, and who can throw blockages into your development programs
6 natural disasters, accidents, etc. that come up every year
7 clearing up the mess from the previous government that don't go according to your plans
8 people like Hazare and Ramdev who whip up public anger against you for whatever reasons they have
9 genuine misunderstandings and mistakes made that get used as a handle for the opposition to clobber you with, claiming you to be a crook and accomplice
10 dealing with the media, who take up the position of stirring up public sentiment with their own agenda for making more sales and advertisements
11 a small group of your own party MPs who can make life difficult for you by threatening to put you in minority, etc. etc.
Leadership is a very difficult job, easy to pick apart, and so hard to support. Let us do what we can to support the democratic system we have chosen. It can succeed if we stay on course. Pray for them if you believe in prayer. Democracy gives you freedom to speak and do, let us put the freedom to good use.
