Picking A Leader

Vasu Reddy From Chicago
vasureddy@aol.com

For more than a billion people the next three months will be one more crucial time for picking the next leader of the largest democracy on earth. India although a voting democracy, typically is run like a private autocracy, but people still get challenged every five years to go and vote and try to bring the much needed empowerment of the public and the public systems, to empower the country to get on with its developmental needs. India since 1947 have typically voted with heart and hope, and decades later it still is a developing country and never has started to be a developed country.

The country is still plagued with poverty and malnutrition, dowry and harassment, poor and very rich (although it is not a barrier), uneducated and labor without benefits, politics and politics; and any other societal inequality that the English dictionary can think of for a underdeveloped union. We are still at least a 100 years behind on whatever we can classify as a developed society. Every elected government promises to remove the poverty from the Indian nation, but the population and the percentage of people who suffer extreme poverty only grows larger, rather than smaller. The old saying “Garibi Hatao” or remove poverty, has just been a slogan and no government has come close to empowering the citizens to eliminate poverty. In reality poverty may not be the biggest evil that the Indian nation might be facing, considering we have had a great number of generations of politicians who have had the chance to mange the country's affairs since 1947.

The opportunity of development of the nation has been quite rapid since the 1990's when the world started to deploy telecommunications and media as tools to connect and broadcast the happenings instantly and communicate in a flash. Radios' pagers, telephones and mobiles; and lately handhold devices make information instant and communications constant across the globe. Outside of a few instances of censorship in a few countries, everyone on the planet has the ability to receive and send information with just a few key strokes. India has more mobiles than people I would imagine, and internet and television make it a place for everyone to know whatever is happening in the world as it happens. The global communications has truly made Indians quite connected with the world and Indians truly love to talk, discuss and want to know about every little thing that is happening in the world.

The rapid changes in the field of telecommunications has also brought global interest in India and Indian business, and its development. This on the other hand also brings in the scope for money making for the politicians and bureaucrats, who handle the licensing and approval process of investors within India and from other nations who are interested in building their empires. Thus the last 20 or so years of scams and scams and more scams. Politicians all of a sudden have become quite adept at winning the seats at a huge cost and then making that money from scamming the system to rake in manifold from the money they spent in getting elected. Everybody in India and outside know that the scale of corruption is 100% and no less, and everyone want to make as much money as possible while in power.

It has left very little room for the money to flow into the country's infrastructure and development, as the politicians have their hands out for as much as they can grab. The common man doesn’t see the flow of funds as they are supposed to as they lineup the pockets of the greedy in power. No matter who comes into power they constantly are looking for ways to loot the public funds and only a small portion of the money available goes into investment into the country's needs and needy.

Now we are at a time to elect a new set of leadership and a new leader to lead India for the next five years. It is probably time for the public to pick and choose someone who has no incentive to scam or loot, or have someone that needs money around them. It may be the only saving grace to pick and choose a leader who is not in need of money and not in need to scam the public. Once we are able to identify and choose such a leader, then it will flow down to the remaining people under him and the politicians who belong to the party that scams will not be allowed, and thus during the course of the next five years the money will be (mostly if not all of it) invested where it is supposed to be. What the country needs now is a leader who has no need to money and no favors owed to his family or friends, and all the resources of the nation will be truly devoted to the country.