Thursday, February 09, 2006 #
Paritrana - Their effort deserves backing and publicity.
Paritrana is what I am going to write about. Its been a while since Paritrana hit the news. Remember these names like you remember all people worth knowing, Rajpurohit (Tanmay), Chandrashekhar, Ajit Shukla, Amit Beesen, S Vasudev and Dheeraj Kumbhat.
For those who do not know what Paritrana is, it is a political party that these people have started. What makes their party special? They are people expected to be in boardrooms and scientific establishments. They are techies who are generally people most averse to joining politics and contesting elections. Social work many would have done, monetary contribution for social causes many would have made, but active politics is perhaps the last place that today's youth go for; given the current state of Indian politics which is considered, dirty and corrupt. I would have considered politics as the last thing I would do my self.
While poverty alleviation and good governance is something all political parties have in their memorandum, but these issues are sidelined by vote politics which means "any thing that can bring in the numbers needed to win". Division on cast, religion, language, race is a good way to earn votes and so is muscle or money power. These things are no doubt an integral part of Indian politics these days.
What makes me a fan of Paritrana the most, is that is has been started by people I used to think contribute most for themselves and least for the nation. IIT graduates. While I figured that even an IIT grad needs to prove himself and do good for himself by utilising the best opportunity s/he gets, but number of IIT graduates who are in US which is 40,000, always made me feel that we produce bright engineers for US in IIT and that is all what we do.
My skepticism has ended thanks to the contribution of these 5 IIT brats who might just bring the change that India needs. It is hard work but not an impossible task. After all so many parties gather a lot of votes with much less to offer. It is said that people in some states of India don't cast their vote, they vote their cast. Division is what brings votes and seats in Indian politics. These young men who dared to break convention, and dared to risk their careers for the good of their country, deserve all the good wishes and backing we can provide. Wish they bring unification not division.
I have never voted in my life. I could have been voting for last 8 years but I haven't done that yet. There was nobody I wished to vote for. I don't know if my name is in the voters list at all or not. It appears from news articles I have read that they will contest elections in my home state. I will have to ensure that at least my name is there in the voters list. Let us see if they live up to the expectations that people now have from them. If they do then they might be the first party I vote for. Hope they find good candidates.
I wish them all the best. Paritrana way to go.
They sum up their ideology in their Hindi shloka:
"Sabhi sukhi hon"
"Sukh ka mool samriddhi hai"
"Samriddhi ka mool rajya hai"
"Rajya ka mool dand hai"
Translating in English:
"Let everyone be happy"
"The root of happiness is prosperity"
"The root of prosperity is rule"
"The root of rule is reward/punishment principle"
Paritrana - May you be tough as a Rock.
