Why youngsters want nothing to do with politics

Any suggestion that there are clear signs of breakdown of the administrative mechanism in the state would raise howls of protest by the establishment because, strictly speaking, life goes on normally. There are, however, several recent instances that signal small but significant erosion in the legal processes and the failure of the state to protect ordinary citizens.

The first, of course, is the case of labour minister Bache Gowda, whose entourage was so upset on being overtaken by an ordinary mortal that they thrashed him for this non-crime. Whether Bache Gowda himself was involved in actually beating up is beside the point. There is no law that stipulates that ministers’ vehicles cannot be overtaken. Even if there was one, it was for the police to act on the basis of that law and not the driver and gunman of the minister, if not the minister himself, to thrash the errant motorist.

Another similar incident took place in Mysore when some vigilante group attacked a pub for being open beyond stipulated hours. If the pub was not closed on time, it was for the police to enforce law. Like the minister’s entourage the vigilante group had no business taking law into its own hands.

Admittedly, such instances can happen in any state and under any political dispensation and often they do. Whether it is the regional outfits in Maharashtra, or powerful political dons in Bihar or UP, extra legal activities are pretty usual. After all, there are enough politicians with oversized egos and enough busybodies who think they are the only saviours of our culture, values, heritage or whatever. There are such obscurantist organisations with a political agenda as well.

All of them have a right to exist and have a right to carry on their activities within the bounds of law but when a Sri Ram Sena or the bodyguard of a minister attacks individuals or groups, such zeal is entirely misplaced and it ought to be dealt with severely.

That does not happen because each of these incidents is treated as stray and isolated cases. To an extent it may be true but when such incidents happen fairly regularly and when those who are supposed to enforce law, fail to deal with such law-breakers, a nagging doubt on the breakdown of the mechanism begins to surface and that is not a good sign, either for citizens or the political bosses.

Take the case of the attack on the pub. Other than the police in Mysore arresting a couple of goons allegedly involved, the state apparatus does not seem to be bothered about putting such vigilante groups in place. A pub or a bar runs because it is licensed to. The state licences it and in some way, it becomes the responsibility of the state to let such pubs and bars run in conformity with law. It cannot, on the one hand, licence it and, on the other, let interest groups attack it in the name of preserving culture or heritage.

Likewise, the ruling party ought to have taken the labour minister to task for either letting himself or his men pounce on an alleged wayward driver. Instead of the minister being pulled up or the officials with him being shown the door, we have the strange spectacle of the chief minister apologising for his colleague’s mistake and the minister insisting he was not wrong.

If the minister’s attitude is not brazen, even after a signal from his political boss that what he did was wrong, it is difficult to figure out what else is. Ministers generally behave as if they are a law unto themselves. As long as it does not directly step on the rights of citizens, they do get away, but there are always limits to public tolerance as well.

Politics is in danger of becoming an industry based entirely on money and muscle power. It is pretty evident in the attitude of those who control levers of power in the mining areas in Bellary. The kind of language they use or the ‘I don’t care a damn’ attitude of the labour minister now would not have been possible if the political class understood the limitations within which it worked.

Given the level to which the conduct of those holding public office is descending, it appears somewhat naive to expect the very young and the educated to take interest in politics. The scion of the Congress, described in posters plastered on Airport Road recently when he was in the city as ‘our prince’, might want them to change their mind. The young and the educated have better things to do in life. Certainly better things than having an argument with a politician who thinks he has a divine right to road rage.