DailyPost 2452
WEAPONISATION OF POLITICS
Politics gained mainstream acceptance and acclaim as well educated, passionate and never say never die genre of people joined the freedom movement of the country. They had everything to give and nothing to derive from being in politics. To call them politicians from today’s prism does not seem to be proper. And a party leading the freedom struggle to be called a political party the way understand today, would be putting them to disgrace. The difference is in what they have given and what the present ones derive. Public life and politics have been turned upside down.
Welfare of the people at any cost even if it means personal misery is the benchmark of democratic welfare politics. Today what has been left of it, is the question. Today we live in totally surreal world of social media, publicity, perception, remarks and counter remarks. The whole purpose of whatever happens in the public and political life is with the sole intention of garnering votes and coming to power and retaining it. Power for the party and every individual in the party who has been instrumental in getting to power with commensurate position and all that goes with it. Everything has become a weapon of politics and power.
Weaponization of politics means using every tool in the democratic play book and beyond to be used as a weapon to garner votes, and indulge in acts of unhealthy competition day in and day out. It has to be used vociferously to put the opponents down. People are out of the ecosystem. A tweet of former CEO of Twitter is used for the same purpose as the Hindenburg Report. Suffice to say even the India Against Corruption campaign was used for the same purpose yielding bountiful results who used it as an effective weapon. The prima donna of that movement has been in the backwaters since its success and its successful exploitation by the master crafters of the game.
Even the welfare provided by the governments, called by variety of names today, from freebies to social welfare to empowerment has been transformed into a political weapon, the sharper the edge of this weapon, greater are your chances are of coming to power. The democratic medium of fourth estate, the electronic medium and the anchors thereof; it is left to your imagination as to where you find their right fitment in the political arsenal. No scam or big corruption cases or any irregularity is not used to reform the system, learn out of it for systemic change and make that happen. It is used as a political weapon to reap richest democratic dividends out of it. The story goes back to where it started.
THE WEAPONISATION OF POLITICS IS PUTTING DEMOCRACY ON ITS HEAD.
Sanjay Sahay