Saturday, November 20, 2010

What can one with integrity do in a political party?

A lot I must say! For a start, this person can assign himself (for convenience I am taking this person to be a male) the role of the unofficial conscience keeper of the political party. When ever and where ever his fellow party-men deviate from the party’s ideals and ideology or the society’s fundamental values, he can sound a warning. Constant adherence to agreed values and principles not only promotes esprit de corps but also gives strength to the group to always do the right thing. A political party can have its own equivalent of the U.S. marines’ “Honour, courage, and commitment” at all times, and our protagonist can play the part of the standard bearer for such morale boosting exhortations. If I were to join a political party, I would promote “Integrity, Humaneness, National security, and Progress” as the watchwords to inform every word and action of my party.

Politics in India has become a dirty word, naturally then clean and honest people avoid it, giving rise to a vicious cycle of mostly unscrupulous people joining politics and by their unprincipled acts making it more untouchable for the right kind. Once in, our man can pull more and more of his own type into politics having convinced them that politics is not dirty per se and that it can be cleaned if persons with clean record come in, in large numbers.

He can also help devising methods to attract legitimate donations by cheques and bank transfers, giving Permanent Account Numbers and other essential particulars of the donors, to the political party. Parties are so much used to be financed by unaccounted for or black money that it will take very hard and determined effort on the part of our man to convince his to contemplate a change in the source of funding. But with continued and sustained persuasion, over time, he can make the party’s income and expenditure more above-board and transparent.

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