People Participation in Politics Communal Politics and The Way Forward By Dr. L. Jawahar Nesan The Educated Chamber

Introduction

With the advent of democracy, political representation has become open to all sections of the society. If politics is for the governance of a state, which, in turn, is meant for the welfare of the people who belong to that state, then it must be represented by all sections of the society. Political representation is different from representation in power (i.e. elected government). Politics related to the achievement of representation in power can otherwise be called as electoral politics. It is a mere participation in politics. Such participation solely will not entail or guarantee participation in governance or legislature. However, transformation of 'mere-participation' into 'acquirement-of-political majority' will lead to participation in governance. Otherwise, politics should not be confused with the special constitutional representation rights provided to certain communities (Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes) to participate in the legislature.

As per the Indian constitution, a common man or a section of a society has the right and freedom to represent the respective society in governance through active participation in politics. When such representation is denied or obstructed to a particular section or an individual, that indignant section or individual will penetrate political arena and form a separate outfit. That outfit will solely work and voice for the interests of the respective section to which it belongs.

It is known that political parties are for political power and by acquiring that power they govern the state, which is composed of all sections of the society. But if their policies were based on the interest of one particular community, how their governance would serve other communities too to which they are supposed to serve as well. They might claim that a coalition of such small parties would take over the power to ensure that the interests of all sections of the society are addressed. However, these parties, having no interests in the welfare of the majority people and know nothing about 'nation building' can hardly serve the welfare of the whole state. All they could do was to entertain their followers on communal violence to get the attention of the country and finally to bargain with the likely minded major political parties for power sharing. Emergence of these communal outfits and their downfall after a short life span are usual in Indian politics. Especially, during yester-election period these outfits will mushroom and form alliance with similar minded parties to face the poll. If the mandate in the post-poll scenario is not clear, the pre-poll alliances will crumble and a new orientation formed of these opportunistic mushroom-outfits will take over the power (governance), leaving the people who gave the mandate being swindled. Will the new formation complete its full term? It must be answered negatively. As the parties work on their own interests, they will not be able to complete the office. As a result, the nation will have to face another general election, causing heavy debt to the exchequer. Not only that but the economy will get heavy jolt, national growth as a whole will be impeded but the people's problems will remain same.

Now, it is crucial that the Indian politics has to be scrutinised for its appropriateness as communalism has deep-rooted in every aspect of politics resulting in more violence, economic downturn and perpetual suppression of the depressed communities. It is high time that the self-styled communal leaders with no possession of good leadership qualities, ideologies, principles and vision must be proved that they are fakes. Simultaneously, people need to be changed in their perception of the leaders. They must know at least how to identify their leaders and avoid fakes and the kind of party they should support for their liberation and well being.

Communalism, of course, will be irresistible in Indian politics as long as casteism exists in the Indian society. But there should be no compromise with communalism in politics as politics is always in synonym with governance of a state and that whoever wins political majority will govern the state. It must also be noted that a fair participation of all communities in politics should be maintained and no impediment should intervene any community entering politics. But neither of these is practised in India. Neither the political leaders lead their communities properly and constructively nor the major political parties allow the underprivileged communities to freely participate in politics through their parties. As a result, more and more political leaderships emerged utilizing the ever increasing political consciousness amongst the under represented communities. Having noticed such developments even the large parties started showing a great tilt towards communal arithmetic in their political strategies. The national interest and the overall development of the society have become secondary.

The pros and cons of communalism in politics and feasible solutions to free the nation from the fate of communal politics are presented in this book. The main focus is why the depressed classes are not effective in political participation and how efficiently they could participate in politics. The book, while rejecting communalism in politics, acknowledges that communal majority and political majority, at least, in India are inseparable in the contest for achieving political power.

Casteism: The root cause for communalism in politics

As rightly stated by Dr. Ambedkar, the social structure in India has a profound effect on the political structure. According to him, it may modify it in its working. It may nullify it or it may even make a mockery of it. It is indeed true that, as it is seen today, it made a mockery of it. Virtually, in India, the political system had been gradually treading from the past towards more fragmentation and now has culminated into a stage where the social structure has replaced the political structure in politics.

In all parts of the multi-communal world, except India, politics is always a common phenomenon, which has different dimensions like economy, social, security and so on. When a society is more a heterogeneous, the political parties also reflect that diverse character, where a party is usually composed of several communities. This character can be described as "communities for parties". But in India, "parties for communities" is the recent development, where parties are meant for respective communities. A close inspection of this development will reveal that communalism has taken over the politics. As stated above, politics is always global and that it has different dimensions, nothing else can replace it. But because of the caste system the notion of politics has changed to a new dimension of "parties for communities". This leads one to question the fundamental notion of politics; i.e., power (governance) of a state.

How political parties could be established for communities? Political parties are for acquisition of political majority to win the governance of the state. A state would normally be composed of several communities and that whoever wins the confidence of the people will be responsible for the governance of the whole state and for the welfare of all communities that exist in that state. Being that, a party must be only multi communal and that it cannot serve only to a specific community. Communal parties will be able to attract only their community's votes, which will not suffice to form the government. Then, what does these parties purport to achieve for if they cannot acquire the political power with the support of their own mass. The most favourable option available to them is a conglomeration of likely minded communal parties to acquire the power. But this is often unlikely to happen. Even if they succeed to acquire the power through the conglomeration, will it suffice to govern the state efficiently and look after the welfare of all communities? It needs skills and qualities beyond that, which most of the parties lack with. Even if they have, they would not do so because they got the mandate only from their own community, i.e. to look after the welfare of that particular community. If they give top priority to the welfare of the most needy ones and overall national interests, they will be ousted out in the next election by their own mass. This conglomeration cannot be compared with the other examples like Malaysia, former Soviet Russia and former Czechoslovakia, which were more constitutional than a mere politics.

Politics and political orientations are always situational; they are subject to change, they can be modified and remodified. Political majority and orientation and reorientation of political combines are not constitutional; they are so fluid and that they can take any form as they wish. These orientations and their strength cannot be constitutionally defined. Therefore, communal orientation in politics should be deemed to be incompatible to the constitution. Anything that is incompatible to the constitution should be forbidden and wiped out from its root. Otherwise, the constitution that purports to offer its service would fail to do so. A constitution can be tuned to redress the social problems, and in order to do so it should certainly incorporate the social structure and relevant problems attributed by it. But certainly there is no need to communalise the politics if the constitution provides safeguards to all communities. If the safeguards are not reared up by the communities and if the social problems for which the constitution provided guarantee are continued to persist, then it is the failure of the mechanism by which the constitution was implemented or simply the people who were in-charge for the execution of the constitution. This needs simply a pressure from and awareness on the part of the community which is affected. It does not certainly need a political party for that community to solve it. However, if the community still feels that it should venture into politics to redress the problem, then they must free themselves from communal sectionism and try to win the confidence of majority of the people (communities) by fostering their solutions, strategies and policies to all social elements. Instead of segregating themselves from the rest of the society they must try to become the ruling class by providing security to and safeguards for the interests of all communities.

Before going into investigating the future course of developments in this regard and find out the right solutions to tackle those developments, it is worth to investigate how this situation has evolved, how communalism has replaced politics, and how politics has become a component of communalism rather than vice versa.

The social structure of the Indian society is a fragmentation of several entities but the connectivity amongst them is "graded inequality". There is no second thought about it. Socially, economically and educationally those lower to the others in the hierarchy are made dependents for their development. It is the post independent period that brought those who are at the lowest strata of the hierarchy to understand that politics is one of the mighty tools that they can use to have their say in the power structure (governance).

Of course, in every democratic state, the political structure is greatly influenced by the social structure. The difference between India and other democratic states on this account is that India has additional social element that brought about much greater impact upon the political structure. That element is "graded inequality". Other states, when they transited to the democratic path had no difficulty in doing so as they had no dehumanising element such as graded inequality in their social structure. Most of the states had willingly provided proportional representation to different sections of the society in the power structure. Also, they did not stand in the way of any one community or sections entering into the political structure. But in India, the caste ridden social structure monopolistically provided the authority, opportunity and environment for the dominant community to preoccupy the political structure, impeding the depressed communities to be away from that structure. All the political agenda will be concentrated around the depressed communities but no one from that community will be allowed to handle the political structure. There have been a great concern and widespread debates amongst depressed all around the country regarding this political untouchability. The main impetus for such internal agitation within the depressed classes was Dr. Ambedkar, who taught them to grapple with the political power. However, for any political party to capture the political power, it must know how to dominate the political structure. The current parties representing the depressed communities are however far from dominating the structure.

The agenda of the parties of dominant communities had to focus the depressed one mainly to obtain political majority. These parties' workers at grass root level had to be the depressed ones and that they had to be on the streets to implement the needs of the high commands of the party. Some times they had to go through immolation and many a times they must involve in riots and damage public properties to constantly show the existence of the parties of the dominant communities. But those by whom the party survives will neither be allowed to reign in the political structure nor be treated equally within the structure. The depressed are made scapegoats for a mere political advantage. The continued existence of such attitudes and the ever-remaining same socio-economic conditions of the depressed made them to venture into the political structure for their own benefits. Thus, these days thousands of political parties of these underprivileged communities are representing their communities in the political structure. This is how communalism got into play around with the political structure. This is a major setback to the dominant parties who so far used the depressed ones just as vote banks. Had the dominant parties at least allowed the political structure open to all communities to reign in, this dreadful situation being faced today could have been averted.

Today, these parties are kneeling before the tiny communal parties to obtain political majority. These days to run a political party and obtain the majority to form the government one do not have to have a vision, principles, and policies on economic, educational and health developments but play with simple arithmetic. To elaborate it, it is a permutation and combination of different communal parties. Even a fool could chair the government provided that he is good with this jig-saw puzzle game. During his/her tenure, he/she has to simply deal with the share of power to these tiny communal parties and working only towards their satisfaction. As long as the exchequer has something in his/her hands, the problem will not arise. But once he/she was empty then problems like increased poverty, high inflation, low productivity and unemployment would suppress the whole nation. Thus, increased violence, clashes between communities and fight for survival will further worsen the situation leading to a civil war. Then, the simple power sharing technique should be by passed and a complete rejuvenation of the nation from the scratch would have to be undertaken towards catering the basic needs of the nation. Most of the times such chaotic situations will have to be treaded through a civil war that the continued jig-saw puzzle game had created.

Participation in politics

It is a known fact that all communities should participate in nation-building if a nation aspires to fulfil its needs. The affirmative action schemes of the US and equal opportunity schemes of some European countries show that participation of all communities is key to the well being of all sections of the society and thus the prosperity of the nation. These countries seemed to have recently realised that denial of participation to minority communities especially depressed and underprivileged would obstruct the economic prosperity of the nation. Poverty, terrorism and public unrest would then become a day-to-day affair, which will cause a serious crackdown in the constitutional set up.

As stated above, several countries, one way or the other, follow some sorts of proportional representation of all sections of the society in nation building. To help understand the criticality of such representation the term nation-building must be clearly understood. The word nation encapsulates many things if one embarks to define it. Is it a word that refers to only a land that has defined geographical boundary? Is it a word that refers to only a group of communities who are confined to a particular piece of land? Or is it a word that refers to only the fellow feeling amongst the people who live in a defined boundary? It is all; it fosters unity amongst people, communities and regions that form its constituents. By saying this, literally, one cannot unite lands or different regions physically to form a nation. If people of different origins or different regions or different languages intend to unite themselves into one and to be identified as belonging to one state, then the whole union becomes a nation. The word nation creates a sense of unity and belonging within the people. One cannot create such a sense between pieces of lands but between people. Therefore, it is the people who make a nation and build it up to their desire. If a certain section of the people mass is denied participation into this exercise, the denied part not only will lose its potential opportunity to contribute to its nation but also it will not progress economically, educationally and socially, which in turn will impede the national growth in all respect. The best example one can take to illustrate this fact is the contribution made by the US blacks in the sports and music sectors. For years, the injustice inflicted upon them did not allow them to contribute to the nation in any respect, but once chances were made open, they were able to contribute to the nation and conquer the whole world as an uncrowned king in the field of music and sports. Had they been forbidden to do so, the nation would have first lost its prominent place in these two areas and second, the plight of millions of the blacks would have remained same forever. This while impeding the national growth simultaneously will reduce the rate of growth of the privileged communities who hold the power. Thus everyone who forms a constituent member (citizen) of the nation has to bear the consequences.

Having said that participation of all communities in nation-building is critical for the nation to be successful as a nation and having seen that all progressive nations strive to engross all sections of the society especially, minorities to participate in nation building, India's situation can now be analysed as to whether both the constitutional provisions and political base enable minorities and underprivileged majorities to contribute to the nation.

India's constitution provides a package to the depressed communities to participate in public services, education and legislature. Besides, at state level, there are some provisions offered to other underprivileged communities (Backward Community) in public services and education. However, participation in legislature is the key to make advancements in other areas like education, public services, business and so on, which has been constitutionally made available only to the depressed classes. The basic aim of this provision is to safeguard the economic, educational and social well being of that community. Whether this provision has served its purpose or not? This question must be answered negatively. If not, then what is the purpose of having these safeguards. Why the safeguards though constitutionally reinforced did not adequately serve its purpose?

The first and foremost reason is inefficient and inadequate participation in politics by the depressed community. As politics is the only means to get representation in legislature, it is the main area that needs immediate redress. Why political participation of the depressed community has failed and become inefficient? This must be purely analysed from the perspective of those who are inefficient as no external factors or no others can make one inefficient. Efficiency of one's own output relies on one's own inherent qualities and skills. External factors can influence inadequate participation but the case of efficiency is different, which is fully dependent on internal characteristics. Therefore, inefficient participation must be analysed from the perspective of the depressed community within itself.

Inefficient participation Inefficient participation can be interpreted within the theme of this subject matter as inefficient political leadership and inefficient political followership (mass) on the part of the depressed community or underprivileged community. Inefficient political leadership can be further interpreted as failure of the leadership to gain support (or followership) of majority people and provide vision to the nation. Inefficient followership is the failure of the followers to identify right leaders (or parties) and their failure to understand whom to vote for during the poll.

Two factors that attribute to inefficient participation are; the feeling of Socially Induced Helplessness experienced by the community and the community being largely ignorant and unenlightened. Socially Induced Helplessness (SIH) is a feeling of lowness induced by the uppercaste communities within the lowercaste people so that provided an opportunity the lowercastes will not even attempt to venture in developing themselves. They have to depend on others for their development. The dependency has been forced by the uppercastes on the lowers. Of course, all are social consequences but one cannot question the authenticity of their impacts upon the political and economic areas. Political construction always has its root stemming from the society and its social behaviour. Political and social systems are inseparable; one influences and affects the other. Therefore communities, which have been made to experience the feeling of SIH in social developments will feel the same in the politics as well. This is one of the main hindrances that impede the depressed and underprivileged communities to flourish in politics. Political parties and leaderships from these communities are always dependent upon that of the uppercaste communities mainly due to the dependency that the SIH has created. It is evident that these days no political parties of the depressed and underprivileged communities are free from this infection; whether they are parties from the BC (Backward Class) dominated parties or from the SC (Scheduled Castes). These parties neither have clear vision for the welfare of all Indian communities and thus the development of the whole state (India). This does not mean that the parties of the progressive communities have the vision and skills, but to provide the alternate hold to the people and grapple with the political power, the non-progressive communities must have these skills. In politics, winning the majority's faith is the key to acquire power that the uppercaste parties or leadership have been successfully enjoying so far. If the leadership from the non-progressive community intends to provide an alternate hold to the people and acquire power, then it must first have a clear vision and then enjoy majority people's faith in that vision. Providing political leadership confined to their respective communities only will not entail to emancipate their people from the political slavery. They must provide leadership to all sections of the society; i.e. to all communities. Leadership to their communities though political cannot make any political transformation. Communal leadership can only make social transformations but political leadership can make political transformations and influence social transformations as well. Communal leadership in politics can only facilitate sectionism, which will lead only to a political war; a war amongst communities for political power. This is a very unhealthy situation and undemocratic too for a nation to progress with. The current trend of 'communal fight for political power' must be replaced by 'political power for communal problems'. Political power can be ably used to solve communal problems if the leadership who has acquired that power indeed has the intention and intellect to do so.

Unlike to have possessed the aforesaid characteristics to solve the communal problems through politics, the communal political leaders use short-term approaches. Tweaking the people on sensitive issues and thus playing around with their emotion has become a successful strategy, though not successful in the long run, for these leaders to get their communities trapped under the fold of their followership.

For emotional arousal of the followers, very cheap instruments such as strikes, bandhs, damaging public properties, and violence have been continued to be in vogue. Billions of rupees worth properties can be easily damaged and billions of rupees can be made loss to the exchequer through the aforesaid instruments under the effective leadership of these communal leaders. All are nothing but to just expand their kingdoms over the mass.

The above instruments are chosen to continually keep the mass under the warmth of emotion without which the very survival of the leadership will be doubtful. Issues fit for nothing will be fostered, for which, thousands of devotees (followers) will have to be on the streets to damage the public properties, to completely arrest the mobility of the public and to create violence so that it will keep the issue boiling over a period of time. All are to simply get the attention of the mass and to show their revolt against the government. In a year or two general election will be in the offing, then, the leaders who got the attention of the public and the political parties in power will bargain with their counterparts to get their share in the power. These outfits with less than one percent votes, that too in alliance with other parties, will bargain with the larger parties in the next election for a share in the government. Later, in a year or two, they will pull back the support they extended to the government based on their own agenda leaving the nation in turmoil. So, what is the net result? These tiny communal parties and their leaderships claim that they are for the release of their people from the communal deadlock, but what can they achieve except to get a small share in the government. Politics is a means to alleviate communal problems as it has its system influenced by the society. But how one (a party) can solve these social (communal) problems unless they enjoy full freedom and control over the political system. To win such freedom the party should win the support of majority people in line with its vision. To win the majority support, people need to be taught and organised on the new vision that makes appeal to them.

Socially Induced Helplessness (SIH), a by-product of the caste system, has certainly done one thing beyond doubt; i.e. it made the depressed and underprivileged communities depending on the other progressive communities to participate in politics. Leaders of these communities are totally dependent on others to reign in politics is the fact that none can question with. But a question must be seriously answered before jumping on to conclude the above statement as valid. It is that why the leaders who enjoy at least their communities' support need to depend on others to survive in politics? There must be two answers to this question: 1) to acquire or share the political power with the assistance of the other progressive communities, 2) to betray their communities for their own benefits. The first case is a genuine one, where the party or the leadership would definitely enjoy its community's full support but it would strive for the avail of a share in political power with the help of other communities. Unless that party or the leadership fully enjoys its community's support, no other party would extend its hands to that communal party to share the political power. But in the second case they might or might not enjoy their communities' support but for the sake of their own benefit they will victimise their own people. Sometimes these second category leaders or parties are fakes who by just creating a trend that they enjoy the support of their communities will bargain with other parties to get their political share. Most often, the progressive communities to intentionally suppress the emergence of the parties from the depressed or underprivileged communities create these fake leaders. Although the first case is genuine, the concern party or the leadership cannot do much for the welfare of its community as political power is meant for welfare of the whole state. All they could do is to achieve some incremental developments under the mercy of the progressive communities. Nothing radical can be done if the problem faced by the community seeks so. Moreover, no progressive or ruling class will go to the extent of loosing its privileges to radically revamp the situation for the sake of the benefit of the affected communities. Until and unless the affected community takes up the issue in hand, produce the right vision and lead the entire sections of the society, its problem will be never ending. But most of the communal parties claim that they could achieve the desired result for their problems by belonging to the first category. It is a mere time waste. But the fact is that many communal parties fall under the second category though they claim that they belong to the first class. Whichever categories they fall under, both are totally fault as the depth of the problem seeks the affected community to take the lead and play a prominent role in the nation building. Is it possible that the affected community being minority can take the lead of the other progressive communities? This question is answered later in this article.

Almost all political parties including the national parties are communal. Can anyone dare to say that the national parties like Congress, Communists and BJP are communal? From the view point of the author of this article, yes, they are the first rated communal parties than tiny regional parties like DPIs and PMKs. How a party can be said to be communal? What are the standards or rules by which a party can be categorised as communal? It is as simple as that a party, which works for the interests of one particular community can be said as a communal party. But from the attitude of the party one can draw the symptoms of communalism if that party is communal. There are several symptoms that one can realise but to mention few, the party always fill key posts by members of certain community, certain community's well being will always be kept top in the political agenda, and certain communities will get more representation in the poll. If these are the symptoms for a party to be communal, can any one point out any political parties that are non-communal in India? There is no exception. Take for example the Congress party. The party's key posts both at national and state levels are dominated by the tiny upper caste minorities. Tactically, this party created a separate cell for the representation of the SC/ST communities. To prevent the lower caste communities to hold the party's higher posts right from the top level down to the panchayat levels, the SC/ST cell was established, where separate posts meant only for the SC/ST were created. What does this indicate except the intolerance of the uppercaste dominated Congress to the lower caste people occupying party's key position. If this is not a sort of political untouchability then what else it could be.

Other parties like BJP are second to none as well. If BJP is taken into account, the tactics are different but the result is the same. Unlike other parties, party positions are not so important in BJP but the result is. Any low caste person can be at the helm of affairs but the policies and principles are the key, which drives the party. To attract majority votes, the party will go to an extent of appointing a lower caste person as its president. But it will never compromise its ideologies, which is the spine of its very existence. As long as it can achieve its objectives successfully, party positions are secondary. But right from the top key positions to the bottom most memberships the party is mainly composed of uppercaste people. Besides the differences in their approaches, these mainstream large parties have one thing in common; i.e. they do not publicly reveal their hidden agenda that they are meant for their own uppercaste communities and shed crocodile tears for the well being of the depressed ones.

Imitating these large parties, emergence of several small parties from respective communities has become a day-to-day affair these days. However, unlike the mainstream parties, these caste based parties publicly reveal that they are only for their own developments. So who has the moral right to control this infection? Unless a new party is launched in line with non-communal policy and become a role model, no one can teach these parties that mushroom in yesterday's rain.

But these days, people are so adoptive to the communal leaderships in politics, which is far worse than the social tyranny of the upper castes. Is it not because of behavioural and attitudinal degradation on the part of leaders and socio-cultural degradation on the part of the people? Whom to be blamed for this pathetic situation? Leaders or People? Of course, both, but without a revolutionary solution this trend cannot be changed.

Inadequate participation

So far, inefficient political participation of the depressed and underprivileged communities was analysed. But their participation is inadequate too, which in conjunction with inefficiency has prevented them from acquiring political power. Inadequate participation is not just about achieving numerical strength in politics but inadequate exercise of control by affected communities over politics. Increased leaderships or increased political parties emerging from certain communities will not mean anything to the betterment of that community but increased control over political power should yield the desired result. A number of parties or leaders can emerge from these communities but if they fail to control the political developments in line with their vision, their numbers will only undermine the interests of the communities that they represent. It will further impede other able leaders or parties emerging from the same communities. Therefore, leaders or parties who cannot adequately participate in or control over politics should be ignored. This must be the first step to eliminate inefficient leaders from politics.

The exact meaning of the term control (over political power) would be of some help to better understand why controlling politics is key to acquire power. Controlling in politics means observing the political developments and taking appropriate actions so that the developments being originated by the other quarters do not divert or mislead people and do not nullify the vision and interests of the concerned party while that party continuously enjoying the full faith of the majority people. This may be a layman definition but it is more empirical. There may be more technical definitions available within the context of political science but the author, while being confident with this definition, feels more comfortable with it as to its reliability. To validate it one can test it under the present political scenario. Take for instance, how major Indian political forces, like Congress and BJP, control the political environment in India. Having achieved majority support, these parties constantly follow the political developments, mainly the raise of other parties (opponents), and carefully distort those parties by nullifying their agenda (vision) from the minds of the people and constantly increase the size of their vote pockets (supporters) by constantly engaging the people in their policy and vision. It can also be realised from the history that these parties before becoming dominant parties had followed the same strategy to get control over politics.

Having cleared the doubts over the term 'political control', a critical review of parties of depressed or underprivileged communities controlling politics should answer the question of relying on these parties.

There are national parties and regional parties functioning at national and state levels respectively. Although these parties are dominated by uppercastes and work for the interests of the same, they claim that they are secular and non-communal. It is also a fact that these parties are composed of all communities and religions. But these parties have been rejected on the ground that they are anti-minorities and anti-depressed. This has caused an excuse for the emergence of community-based parties. As the affected communities have no reliable scope they are in compulsion to follow their respective community-based parties. They have to follow these parties regardless of the capabilities of the parties in helping them out of their miseries. There are several such parties established both at national and state levels should be taken into account for the aforesaid critical review. Uppercaste dominated parties are excluded from this analysis for the fact that they are no longer useful for the development of the non-progressive communities.

Since the time of Dr.Ambedkar there have been several parties arising out of the non-progressive sections like SC and BC. These parties claim that they are meant for the political representation of the non-progressive communities. It is the fact that these communities are not represented well in active politics. They have no say in politics. They have to do what have been told by the parties of progressive communities. They are just vote banks, over which the parties take a ride for power. Consequently, the parties emerging out of the non-progressive communities confine their political agenda only to their respective communities themselves. Their appeals ought not to be wider than their own communities. Not all such parties enjoy the full support of their communities but few do. Those few, though capable to break their boundaries to reach the mass of other communities, limit themselves to the respective communities. But to successfully embrace all masses, there is a prerequisite for the parties to do at the very beginning of their political embarkment. It is to make their agenda or interest wider to encapsulate all communities. Unfortunately no one organisation of the origin of the non-progressive communities can be pointed out to have set their vision or activities wider at the initial period. With shortsighted objectives all activities are aimed at the development of one and only one community, i.e. their own community. After having achieved their full control over their own mass, they look for other communities. Is it possible for a party of one origin to attract other origins to be in the followers fold unless that party shows a kinship to and interests in those communities? This is the first and foremost mistake that these parties commit at the beginning of their political career. As a result, they never gain majority support throughout the span of their political time. Unless they control the majority support they cannot control politics. There are numerous examples one can notice in all states of India.

In Tamilnadu, there are some notable political parties from the origin of SC and BC categories that influence the political outcome. Almost all parties follow the same strategy to achieve their aims. To clearly predict the future of these parties one such a party can be taken as a sample. As these parties are not good samples to be strategically analysed that particular party being chosen here as a sample is not named. The party before being declared as a political party was simply a social outfit established for the sole purpose of protecting the interests of one of the dominant backward class communities. It was named after its community itself. Once, this outfit stumbled the whole Tamilnadu state indefinitely arresting the functionality of both the government and publics for weeks. The demands put forth by this outfit was not so simple, which sought to the extent of making special provisions through constitutional changes for the well being of the community that the outfit belongs to. The leadership of that outfit clearly knew this fact but it went on with the unrest as if it was a problem to be settled in a day. However, that outfit was successful in both uniting its people under its single leadership and winning attention of the major political parties. This enabled it to shortly transform itself into a political party. As a political party, initially, it continued to focus its own community in its agenda. However, later on that party realised that without the support of majority people they cannot acquire and control the political power and thus cannot fulfil the needs of its community. Then, the party tried every possibility and took every opportunity to align another dominant underprivileged community under its leadership. But all went fruitless; not only that particular community refused its leadership but also no other communities were willing to join it. Thus the party was isolated by all communities. However, there were many political parties willing to form alliance with it as it enjoyed full support of its community. It is not a surprise because the community-based parties are always the best horses to ride, as it is easy for the riding parties to easily cover the whole vote bank of the respective communities. The concerned party volunteered itself to be ridden by the political parties and got few Member of Parliament seats or Member of Legislative Assembly seats and finally achieved some ministerial berths in the cabinet. In the subsequent general elections in order to grab power through the back door entry the party thrown itself into alliance with several major political parties by frequently changing its partnerships. The party was a party to several such alignments and realignments but it could not even set its first step towards its aim. By frequently changing its political alignment, it gradually lost its political dimension and policies. The fluidity of the political alignments that were being made to grab the political power has simply torn into pieces the identity of that party. All that the party could achieve was simply a few ministerial berths in the cabinet. Will it be of any use to its community? Some could argue that they have won their share in the political power. Of course true, but just a simple share in power will not fulfil the gigantic needs of the problems for which the party was supposed to have strived for. The alignment being so complex with a composition of contradicting partnerships once won the power had to severely go through the test of time, where, the partners had to compromise with their policies just for the sake of securing their share in the power. The prevailing socio economic problems of the depressed and non-progressive communities seek one to first control the political power instead of only sharing it, which the party has certainly failed to achieve. The future of this party is so clear that it does not require a rigorous investigation. As the party lost its identity by compromising with its policies and goals, over a period of time, it will lose its own community. Having lost its community's support the party would also lose its bargaining capacity to increase its share in power. The party will finally fade away from active politics. The people who aligned behind this party with lot of hopes will simply become orphans once again.

The sample discussed above is representative of all community-based parties in India. There is no exception. They are short sighted with limited political vision and limited boundary confined only to their own communities. As they confine themselves to particular communities they could not enjoy freedom and control over the full political spectrum. All are mainly dependent on the dominant parties for their political survival is the fact that they could easily come over if they efficiently and adequately participate in politics. To achieve this, the parties should think and act globally but utilise every opportunity and possibility towards eliminating the social sufferings that their people have been going through.

If 'enjoying freedom and control over the full political spectrum'' forms a realistic solution then the political vision must be as wide as possible so that it covers the interests of majority communities. This means entertaining full support of majority communities including the progressive communities. At this stage, there is another question, as raised earlier in this article, is yet to be answered. It is, is it possible that the affected community being minority (say, the Scheduled Caste) and downtrodden takes the lead of the other progressive communities?

The above question can be answered affirmatively. To vindicate that the downtrodden community can lead the other progressive communities, the case of Malaysia is taken here for analysis. Before coming to the point, it is important to have a clear picture about the social structure in Malaysia and its various composition. Malaysia is a multiracial country basically composed of people of three ethnic origins viz. Malay, Indian and Chinese. Malay is considered as aboriginal community, where as the Indians and Chinese were migrated from India and China respectively. Of these two migrated communities, the Indian community has the history of over two thousand years of settlement in Malaysia and several thousand years of relationship in terms of visits, trade and invasion. In terms of population strength, few decades ago at the time of independence Malays constituted approximately 50 percent, Chinese 35 and Indian 15. At the time of independence, the Malay was the most downtrodden community whose occupation was predominantly agriculture and fishing. Majority of them lived in forest and villages. The Chinese controlled the business and Indians were largely labourers. The Chinese was the most progressive community which controlled the whole economy.

Independence was given to Malaysia based on the assurance that the interests of all the three ethnic origins would be protected. Once freed from the colonial rule, the aboriginal Malay community took the political power though it was an illiterate mass. Of course, there was no severe competition for the political leadership from the two migrated communities; they were satisfied with their shares in power.

Having summarised the concise picture of Malaysia, it is appropriate now to answer whether a minority and downtrodden community can take the lead of the other progressive communities. To understand the applicability of the case to the Indian context, it must be juxtaposed. One cannot straight away juxtapose India and Malaysia with respect to their social structures as Malaysian one is racial and Indian is both racial and communal. Malaysian is racial in a sense that it is composed of three major races. Indian is racial as there are two races Dravidian and Aryan. But in addition the Dravidians and Aryans combined together had to fall into the caste system and thus became communal, which is a problem non-existent in Malaysia. However, at racial level, these two can be compared. This is one of the main similarities that support the argument that these two are fit cases for comparison.

The Aryans invaded India few thousand years ago. Similarly, the Chinese and Indians migrated to Malaysia more than thousand years ago. This thousand-years migration is based on the archaeological evidences of the communities' establishments. However, their mass migration took place only in the recent centuries. The similarity is that both migrations took place more than thousand years ago, which is a long duration for a community to penetrate into and mingle with the indigenous society. The Aryans were the key for the presence of the caste system in India. But the Chinese and Indians brought nothing into Malaysia except their own culture. As the Aryans entrenched the caste system in India very long back to the Indian migration to Malaysia, the Indians brought in addition the caste system with them. Fortunately they could not spread it amongst the other races but to practice only within them. The Aryans, in a short span after the settlement, progressed as an intellectual community and degraded the indigenous mass using the caste system. In the case of Malaysia, the migrated communities did not aim to impose such oppressive systems, as their motto was just to prosper economically. But in both cases the indigenous communities were downtrodden at the time of independence and they form the majority as well. Though majority the Dravidian race was reduced to minorities by caste segregation. As there was no caste system in Malaysia, the Malay community was united and still formed the largest community. But it was not so larger than the combine of the other two invading communities.

At the time of independence, the Aryan communities being dominant and powerful could not find any difficulties in capturing the political power as the Dravidians were largely ignorant and segregated. In the case of Malaysia, the Malay community was also ignorant, illiterate and economically dependent on other communities. But being undivided, unlike the Indian Dravidians, the political power was fully controlled and taken over by the Malay community. Since then the community continued to enjoy the political power. Few key reasons for having grappled with the power are indeed worth to highlight here. The indigenous community, though consisted of several tribes, did not have any oppressive mode of social system within themselves and that at the time of independence all stood united. Socially, they were not dependent on other communities. This had increased their morale that they were none second to others. Having seen the unity and the feeling of self-efficacy amongst that community, the foreign community could not dare to opt for the ownership of power but to get their due share. Even after few decades of independence the trend still continues and that the Malay community controlling the political power is ever increasing. Though ignorant and illiterate, the Malay community was highly aware on political developments. All these together cleared the way for that community to acquire the political power at the early stage of the constitution. The above discussion proves that the Malay community not only forged unity amongst its several tribal origins and shown its emergence as a single aboriginal mass but also proved to the other two major ethnic communities (Indians and Chinese) that they were self-assertive by playing a major role in building their new nation at the time of independence. This shows that constructive and visionary participation by the downtrodden communities will bring them the political power. In the case of India, although the majority downtrodden population was reduced to minorities by caste segregation, no one such reduced aboriginal caste came forward to unite the majority aboriginal and make a visionary impact upon the nation-building and politics ever since the independence. Recently, there were some attempts like BSP, but except the bahujan (majority people) slogan, they very much lack a broad-based vision and necessary policies to convert that slogan into a reality.

Malaysia is the best example to disregard the claims of certain quarters that economic dominance is a prerequisite for achieving political dominance. Right from the independence the Chinese community has controlled the economy but could not control politics and power. The Malay community could not reach the height of the Chinese besides the fact that almost in all sectors the policies and schemes were tuned towards the economic benefit of that community. But still it controls politics. Today, the community has attained such awareness that no one could challenge its political leadership and that using the political power it has developed remarkably in par with other progressive communities in the world. While acknowledging this trend one should not forget the fact that the Chinese community still dominates the economy, in which the participation of the Malay community is almost little. It proves that economic sovereignty and political sovereignty are two separate issues; political sovereignty might lead to economic sovereignty, the reverse of which is not certain but situational. However, economic power is additional for achieving and sustaining the political power.

From the above illustration, one could not repudiate the fact that an undivided aboriginal mass highly aware on its political rights, having established a well thought political vision and non-dependent on other progressive communities will be able to control politics and acquire political leadership. But could a minority achieve the political leadership? To answer this, it is not necessary to cross the sea. It is evident from the political history of India that a minority can create a political leadership and put the majority under its dominance. Since independence fifteen percent of the minority uppercaste communities dominate the eighty five percent majorities. As discussed above, there are several reasons for this cause like the caste prejudices inflicted upon the majority people, the majorities are politically dependent on the minorities, and the majorities are largely ignorant. These were the strengths of the minorities that they had won out of the weaknesses of the majorities. This means that these strengths were not inherent within themselves except that they were literate and informed. By remedying the aboriginals on these issues the minorities can be weakened. But as stated above the minorities themselves had inherited some strengths on their own which the aboriginal did lack. For instance, the minority was so a literate mass that it was able to successfully exploit the moral weapon to politically suppress the downtrodden majority. Therefore, the segregated aboriginal majorities while remedying their aforesaid weaknesses and increasing their strengths could easily take over the political leadership from the uppercaste minorities.

From the foregoing discussions, it is evident that the following excerpts are ahead of the depressed communities to establish their control over and lead in politics.

· Political parties are meant for political power. By acquiring that power they are obliged to serve all sections of the society by governing the state. Having said this, if their policies are based on the interests of one particular community to which they belong to, they do not hold the moral right to hold the power. In fact, they will not get the mandate from the entire society. The people must be aware that these parties are removed from politics at once. · People's current perception on political leadership must be radically changed. They are not of the view that political leadership means the one which envisions the right political future of the nation and accordingly designs and activates the ways and means of ensuring that future through people's action. · Social system has greatest impact upon the political system. Better the social system more efficient would be the political system. As our social system is underpinned by the caste system, the Indian politics has changed to a new dimension that the political parties are for respective castes as against the universally accepted norm that communities are for respective political parties. · The attitude of establishing parties for respective communities severely undermines the key concept of the term 'politics' that 'governing or serving the state'. The root cause for this attitude is the caste system based on which the Indian society is built upon. Until and unless the disadvantaged section of the social structure claims up on its own and takes a lead along a different strategic vision, communalism or sectionism in politics will prevail. · A constitution can be tuned to address the social problems and in order to do so, it should certainly incorporate the social structure and relevant problems. Certainly there is no need to communalise politics if the constitution provides safeguards to all communities. If the safeguards are not realised by the communities and if the social problem for which the constitution provided guarantee is continued to prevail then it is the failure of the mechanism by which the constitution was implemented or simply the failure of the party (or leadership) in power which executed the constitution. In a democratic set up, in turn, it can be attributed to the failure of the people or communities who voted such inefficient party or government to power. · To take the lead in politics, the depressed communities must free themselves from sectionist approach and try to win the confidence of majority of the people (communities) by fostering their visions, strategies and policies that are applicable to all social elements. Their political agenda must offer security to and safeguards for the interests of all communities. In addition, they must also show commitment and reliability in their actions. · The main reason for the constitutional safeguards not adequately serving its purpose to the depressed communities is that 'inefficient' and 'inadequate' participation in politics by the depressed communities themselves. Efficiency of one's own output relies on one's own inherent qualities, skills and characteristics. External factors can influence inadequate participation but the case of efficiency is different, which is fully dependent on internal characteristics. Therefore, inefficient participation must be reclaimed within the depressed community itself. Inefficient participation in other words can mean inefficient leadership and inefficient followership on the part of the depressed communities. Inefficient political leadership can further be interpreted as failure of the leadership to gain support of majority people and provide political vision to the nation. Inefficient followership is the failure of the followers (the mass) to identify right leaderships (parties) and their failure to assert whom to vote for during the poll. · The feeling of Socially Induced Helplessness experienced by the community and that it being largely ignorant and unenlightened is the main factor that attributes to inefficient participation. People need to be liberated from this suppressing factor if they have to be efficient in politics. · Politics is a means to alleviate communal problems as it has its system influenced by the society. But one needs to enjoy full freedom and control over the political system to solve social problems. To win such control, the party should win the support of majority people in line with its own vision. To win the majority support, people need to be taught and organised widely on the new vision that makes appeal to them. · Inadequate participation is not just about achieving numerical strength in politics but adequate exercise of control by affected communities over politics. 'Controlling' in politics means observing the political developments and taking appropriate actions so that the developments being originated from other quarters (parties) do not divert or mislead people and do not nullify the vision and interests of the concerned party while that party continuously enjoying the full faith of the majority people. Therefore the first step that the depressed communities should do to efficiently participate in politics is that it must remove the leaderships that do not adequately participate in politics. · One of the main reasons for the failure of the communal parties in gaining their majority support is their failure to set up their political vision/activities wider at their early political career. With short sighted objectives, all their early political activities are aimed at the interests of one and only one respective community. After having achieved their full or partial control over their own mass, they look for the support of the other masses but eventually fail to achieve the same. If they show fraternity to and interests on the other communities early in their political career, they would get due recognition and support in due course of time. Therefore, the communal parties should think and act globally but utilise every opportunity and possibility to eliminate the social sufferings that their own people have been going through. · Th communal parties often limit their political scope within their own respective communities mainly because of the fact that they are minorities. However, being minorities, an undivided aboriginal mass highly aware on its political rights, having established a well thought political vision and non-dependent on other progressive communities will be able to control politics and acquire political leadership. · Underprivileged sections often think that they cannot achieve political sovereignty, as they are inadequately equipped with economic strength. Economic sovereignty and political sovereignty are two separate issues. Political sovereignty might lead to attain economic sovereignty, however, the reverse of which is unlikely but situational. The economic power however can offer additional strength for achieving political power.

People participation and their modernisation

So far as the participation is concerned how majority lower caste communities could effectively participate and create leadership in politics has been discussed. The discussion so far went with the perspective of the political parties and their roles in achieving the political majority. It analysed how the depressed community could provide alternate political leadership to the majority of the Indian communities. This section discusses how the general public and in specific the depressed people should participate in politics.

People participation in general is critical which greatly influences the course of politics. People participation shall not be wrongly interpreted as an active participation in politics through a political party. It is people's act of and readiness to making themselves aware of the political developments and consequent control over political agencies to ensure that the agencies act rightly in the interests of the people. If this definition is correct, it is apparent that people have great roles and responsibilities to have the political agencies function in the right path. Especially, in a democratic environment, people have their say or verdict in the political power, which gives immunity to people's opinion so that no agency can work against their interest. But people's opinion must be enlightened as George Washington had rightly said that "the government gives strength to the people's opinion but people's opinion must be enlightened. But if it is dictatorial, people's job becomes a bit tougher that they might sometimes have to go to the extent of making a revolution for political changes. Thus in both cases they are the controlling factors. The gist of the argument is that people must be conscious enough and their opinion must be enlightened so that the fake leaders will be automatically faded away and an enlightened, committed and a visionary leadership will emerge. As this book is about communalism in politics people participation is analysed within this context.

If communalism is seen from the perspective of people participation, only two possible aspects could be seen to have perpetrated communalism in politics. One, people are so divided communally that they consciously prefer respective communal parties. Two, people are so ignorant that parties and their leaderships instigate communal politics in their minds.

Take the first case that people are so divided communally that they consciously prefer communal parties. People are communally divided is a fact that none can deny with and that this division has caused a serious crackdown in the society which led to the situation that higher the position of a community in the social hierarchical order higher would be its social, economic and cultural status. Therefore it should not surprise one if all communities in the order are communally divided. The beneficiary-communities will have to be communal to enforce the division and thus enjoy its benefits. Similarly to reap the basic rights and get the due share of benefits the disadvantaged communities will also have to be communal. However, here the question of utmost interest is that whether or not people consciously prefer to follow communal parties. One cannot answer this question without having a good appreciation of the political developments that have been taking place since independence.

To consciously follow a political party, the people mass must be reasonably intellectual or at least be able to assess the political situation as to choosing the right party to follow. Again there is a question to be answered: whether the people mass is intellectual enough to be choosy in their political participation. As a matter of fact the question must be answered negatively. The majority people are so downtrodden that they cannot follow the political situation on their own. They always are dependent on political leaderships. If for instance the people participation were assessed right from the independence one would be able to make right judgement on the above conclusion.

Early after independence there were several political parties sprung up so that people had several options to follow with their own choice. But majority was with the Congress, how? Was it because of the people's conviction that Congress was the best choice? No, those who did not follow Congress were stamped anti-nationalists was the trend that made everyone to follow Congress. Especially, the majority downtrodden, depressed and backward class people were the vote banks of the Congress until recently. These people were made to be of the impression that Congress was their only saviour. Large proportion of these people while being agricultural labours and dependent upon the zamindari Congressmen had no knowledge of politics except what was instructed by their zamindari landlords. It could be well understood from the disappointment of Dr. Ambedkar that the depressed communities always vote for the upper caste dominated Congress. The Congress had long survived only with these vote banks until a decade ago when the parties like Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwady Party (SP) seized out their respective masses. The Congress though enjoyed the full support of these disadvantaged masses failed to protect their interests and failed to integrate them with it by omitting their representation in the party. On this aspect, there is no difference between the Congress and other parties such as Bharathiya Janatha Party (BJP) and Communists except that the Communists used the strategy of economic well being of the downtrodden and depressed and the BJP by inculcating and increasing the sense of spirituality and hinduthva. But neither of them indeed worked for the respective cause, all were just gimmicks. In fact, these parties once after achieving the political power using these vote banks worked against the interests of the very same people who brought them the power. Had the affected masses were conscious they would not have continued extending their support to these parties. The gist of this argument is that people were not conscious in their choice of political parties but the parties misled them.

Having discarded the main stream parties as misleaders several communal parties claimed to have emerged for providing alternate paths for the respective communities. Although they are yet to form an alternative at national level surely they made sufficient impact at regional levels. Especially, the parties emerged from the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Backward Classes (BC) considerably seized their masses respectively in major states. Does it mean that people consciously follow the so-called communal parties? Does it also mean that the other parties virtually lack the support of these communities? It is not much difficult to answer the first question. People aligned under the instigation of communal feelings can not said to have consciously followed a political party even if such alignment was made under a political banner. Although political power could form a best instrument to solve communal problems one should not forget the fact that politics and community are two different things. Communal representation in politics is key for safeguarding all communities but that representation should not be based on the rule that "one community one party" as no individual party purposefully established to look after the interest of the respective community could serve the other communities as well. In addition, no individual community with its own strength could achieve political power. If the so called communal parties brainwashed its own mass by inculcating a wrong notion that it would safeguard the interests of the community it represents by sharing the political power, then what would it be other than simply an exploitation for the party's own benefit. Thus, in what way these so called communal parties differ from the main stream parties that people must be aware of. Therefore, with full confidence one could conclude that people do not follow political parties consciously; be it communal or non-communal. At this point, it would be helpful to recall the argument made earlier in this book that both mainstream and caste based parties in India are communal. The only difference between them is the way in which they put forth their views and policies before the people. On this account, all national level parties like Congress, BJP, Communists and the regional caste based parties can be branded communal.

Another important cause of concern is that the mainstream parties continue to control politics by still enjoying the support of the majority people. A variety of communities support these parties but they still have to rely on certain communal parties to win the political power is another matter to be discussed. At the end, the mainstream parties enjoy the political power is a matter of importance one should consider. The communal parties will never be able to achieve the political power as long as they rely only on their own communities. Use of political power for solving social problems as prophesied by Dr. Ambedkar is in vogue amongst the communal politicians these days but it is a concept often misunderstood by the so called communal saviours. These saviours often confine their scopes and ultimately aim for share in political power rather than acquiring and controlling it. Dr. Ambedkar's thesis refers to the acquirement and simultaneous control of the political power rather than getting simply a share of it. The majority underprivileged communities could win the political power and by using it they could both redress their problems and safeguard the welfare of the uppercaste minorities. Until and unless they acquired the power they would not only fail to look after their own problems but would further be accused by the future generations for failing to act properly at the test of the time.

The conclusion derived out of the above discussion, to reiterate, is that people do not follow the communal parties consciously and that the half-boiled communal leaderships mislead them. This has simultaneously answered the second aspect of the subject matter that people are so ignorant that parties and their leaderships instigate communal politics in the minds of people. This calls for a topside down change in the attitude of the people in choosing their leaderships.

People modernisation

These days, people are succumbed to the attitude of the politicians. Communal alignment meant for the welfare of a particular community would not harm the desirable destiny of that community but certainly would be harmful if the leadership of that organisation is inefficient and misleads the people. So far as such organisations are concerned, without a little doubt one could strongly argue that they are misleaders. For instance, these organisations claim to have emerged for freeing their people from the persecution of the uppercaste communities. To achieve such onerous task the way they handle it leads one to suspect them whether they are indeed genuine with their endeavours. Their target mass is only their own community which does not suffice for achieving the political power is a fact that has been well discussed earlier in this article and it is not going to be touched here. They are very much seemed to be satisfied with bargaining with their likely mainstream parties for a little share in the power is also a fact that is not going to be discussed as it has been discussed at length in the foregoing sections. But the critical issue is whether they are right in at least protecting the safeguards that have already been provided constitutionally to their communities. They are not is the answer which I would like to conclude at the outset. To vindicate it, the political alliances that these parties enter into with the mainstream parties and their power settlements later in the post poll period can be dealt with.

After the successful alignment of their own people pocket, by the way of fuelling their communal hatred over the other communities, these parties are ready to bargain with the mainstream parties in power sharing. For these parties, running a political party is just opposing the rival communities and continuously instigating hostility with them. Hostility is a key weapon for these parties to keep their mass under their fold as they can show of that they are the only sentinel who can protect the mass from the threat that arise out of the hostile activities. To them, vision, policy, creed, and strategies all are obsolete to achieve a political mission. For instance, a depressed class leader who won the support of majority of his people in Tamilnadu in a short span of time when asked his political mission in an interview broadcasted by a private TV simply replied that his was to oppose a rival political party of a community that belongs to the Backward Class. It is very clear from such statements that these parties survive mainly by engaging in hostile activities with other communities. They have no alternate vision and ideologies to oppose their rivals.

Another strategy that these parties including the mainstream parties adopt to continually enjoy the warmth of holding the political posts and positions is that "there are no permanent foes and permanent friends in politics". Using this infectious policy these opportunistic parties often change their political alliances and by extending their hands to the direct enemies of their mass they deceive their own people. To defend such peculiar stance they often cite similar incidents that took place in the past. For instance, a political party of a leading Backward Class community in Tamilnadu recently changed its alliance over night and betrayed its own mass by joining the direct opposite camp just for the sole advantage of its leadership. The mass is still unaware of this filthy attitude of these communal parties. As the people are habituated to this uncivilised political behaviour over generations it has now become etiquette acceptable to the people.

The mindset of the people has been shifted such that they accept a rogue, who has no knowledge of the people's problems and politics but knows only fraudulence, corruption and violence as their leader. To claim for the validity of this statement some examples could be highlighted from Tamilnadu. Leaders of a mainstream political party sometimes ago were quoted as having involved in murders, acid-fling and communal violence. Several leaders of all political parties were convicted in the court of law for their ruthless involvement in a variety of crimes and forgeries. Besides all convictions, still justice could not be brought to them, as they are more powerful than the law. They are powerful because people are so ignorant and still support them. Such is the case of the leaders of the mainstream parties, the so-called communal parties are in no way lesser on their part too. For instance, one party stumbled the whole state of Tamilnadu for about a week by blocking all roads with trees cut down across the road. Another party publicly instructed their cadres that "be uncontrolled and be unlawful". What does this statement mean except that they are undemocratic, unconstitutional and violent. These activities are certainly punishable under the law but being afraid of losing votes no action has been taken against them. The saddest part of our politics is that the mainstream parties are competing with each other to have alliance with such parties in the public election. Another party's leader had publicly come out with the fact that he was a Dhada (a person who leads a group of combatants and make violence) and further went on to say that all politicians were Dhadas and that Dhadaship was one of the characteristics to become a politician. But unlike others he claimed that he was frank about being a Dhada. All these parties yet get a voluminous mass of their communities blindly supporting their causes leading to nowhere but only violence.

In addition, the unemployed lot has been the prime target of these parties. This unemployed mass being frustrated out of unemployment will easily turn to be violent and drunk. Illegal and immoral activities such as violence, terrorism, drug-trafficking and illicit liquoring all will attract the unemployed poverty-ridden society. As a food for their hunger these parties often feed them with violent tasks. It is usual these days to see these unemployed mass largely being exploited through violence. This certainly will not benefit to anyone but spoil the growth of the nation. However, it is the society's responsibility to keep itself away from such misbehaviour and misdeeds. Especially, while their leaderships betray them by dragging them into these illegal activities, they must always be vigilant and assertive to keep themselves away from them.

To prevent from being dragged into such misadventures, a society should first learn who they are and where they must go. To understand 'who they are', they must be aware of their past, present and required future social standings. To learn 'where they must go', they must be aware of how to identify the right leadership and follow its path. Right leadership always envisions the right path for the future betterment of the society. It is therefore that the society be very careful and cautious in identifying and following its leadership, be it political or social.

A leadership must be carefully weighed for its efficiency, adequacy and uniqueness in leading the mass towards the future needs of the society. Leadership emerges on its own and it shows its visibility by shaking the society with its vision and change. It is up to the people/society to test the leadership at its early period as to its genuinity, honesty, foresightedness, commitment and integrity so that fake leaderships could be eliminated right at the beginning. Failing which the mass has to suffer at the hands of that leadership until it completes its growth-recession cycle. Otherwise, to escape from the impact of the wrong leadership, the mass has to strive hard for a long time.

Who is not a leader? In the above section, I have briefly explained the true leadership quality and characteristics. Globally, leadership is a characteristic of far-sighted thinking and leading the mass towards achieving the future destiny. But within the Indian sub-continent, it is a matter of attracting the innocent mass and making it a mass of blind devotees of the leadership. Tweaking the people on sensitive issues and thus playing around with their emotion has become a successful strategy for the so called Indian leaders to get the mass trapped under the fold of followers (devotees).

The leadership must have the wisdom to create vision and have the capability to lead the people towards achieving that vision. The leadership must have the special qualities, as described in the previous section, to both gain followers and lead them towards the goal. The quality characteristics required of the leader include honesty, intelligence, integrity, uniqueness, championship, commitment and sincerity.

Intelligence is required to foresee the future. Honesty, sincerity and commitment are key ingredients that inspire followers participate in the movement with full commitment. Integrity, uniqueness and championship focus the leadership as a single icon meant for the purpose of the vision and further build confidence in the leadership.

There is no doubt that these characteristics are globally accepted. However, they seem to be irrelevant to the context of India. Until people's attitude towards the leadership is changed, one cannot expect our leaders to have inherited these characteristics. However, it is important for the Indian people to first learn 'who are not leaders'.

An Indian leader has value?

Right from morning until bedtime, these leaders often show up that they are busy. Few people with folded hands waiting before the leader's residence is a usual scene. Some waiting for orders, some waiting to hear the verdict on their personal problems and some for other obligations. Very few who are engaged full time with the personal affairs of the leader will have the privilege to get entry into all corners of the house of the leader. Nobody knows what their roles are but one can notice them moving here and there within the house and not failing to show their face once a while to assuage the mass waiting impatiently waiting outside and updating them with the time of the appearance of the leader. What does the whole scenario show about except that the leader is busy with several matters? Is it true? Inside, the leader may relaxely be enjoying his/her morning coffee or newspapers or breakfast or chatting with his friends on unimportant issues without having a sense of people waiting outside. Sometimes it is the leader's wish that people must wait for the leaders. Most often people are made to repeatedly visit the leader's premise to get solved their problems. This is intentional to make the people realise the value of availing the service of the leader. The value of the leader is normally assessed by his/her vision and accomplishments but to Indian leaders the value is largely estimated by the number of heads waiting at his/her premise just to get a glimpse of the leader. This is a small thing that the leader can relinquish. Will the Indian leader do it? He/she will not is the immediate answer, because, he survives by this show. People has only one option in this case that they should not estimate the value of the leader by this show but by his/her vision, action and characters and deeds.

Blackguard Circle and Sheep Circle

It is not hard to notice a few tens of people always encircles the leader closely, which is the inner circle without whose permission not even a bee can approach the leader. This circle will closely monitor and engage the personal affairs of the leader and simultaneously act as the leader's own security guard. This circle will do anything and everything to just please the leader. On this aspect, this circle can be called as a Blackguard Circle. This circle functions as an osmo-membrane such that no information from or to the leader can pass by without this membrane. Due to the presence of this membrane the leader is gradually detached from the people and isolated from the views of the public. Most often this circle is the culprit for the leader not properly attending his/her day-to-day affairs. All malpractices, bribery and murders in the interest of the leader are executed by this circle, for which this circle gets compensation with large sums. Is it not a small thing that the leader must give up? There are several benefits of course the leader will have in return; as such the leader will have up to date information on his/her mass as he/she has direct access to them, misunderstanding or misconception can be avoided, and the followers-fold can be extended wider. Of course, a committed leader would certainly do so but for the self-centred and corrupt leaderships this Blackguard Circle is an essential one that they cannot afford to loose it.

On the other hand, there is a Sheep Circle, which is the outer circle, which will never have a chance to get closer to the leader on any account except having a glimpse of the leader for a second occasionally. The shepherd of this circle is the leader; the followers are the sheeps that will blindly follow the shepherd or who have been made to blindly follow the shepherd. This is the most disadvantaged circle that will never ever get benefited by the leader. This circle will be used timely when there is a need to show the strength of the leader. Very often the composition of this circle are millions of people who starve for their daily bread. The shepherd will neither be able to cater them with daily bread nor will he/she direct them on the right path towards alleviating their sufferings. So, where are the people being led? Let the leader enjoy the mass to show of his/her strength to his/her rival but at least as a smallest of small things why not he/she avoid misleading the poor sheeps with imaginary grass field if he/she could not provide them with real grass fields for them to graze. It is not so difficult for these small leaders to give up these small things. Since these leaders by their virtue are very small, they will not give up such small things but only people should be aware to be away from these leaders.

To lead or destruct?

The term 'lead' is not synonymous with Indian leadership as it means destruction within the Indian context. Once a person is able to destruct public properties and stumble the whole nation using the aforesaid Sheep-Circle under the able instructions and guidance offered by the Blackguard-Circle then that person is a fit person to become a leader. Such destructions will be based on the premise of negligible and lame causes with nil benefit to the Sheep-Circle that in fact activates those destructions. The destructions will be covered widely by the media and thus the shepherd will get attention of those in the power structure. Then what else is needed for the shepherd to bargain with the power structure for his/her own welfare? Sometimes the destruction will be carried out for the sake of caste prejudice, social inequality, freedom, economic problems, labour-wage problems but the hidden agenda is to keep the destruction on going until their personal demands are fulfilled. Instead, to achieve the same personal agenda, why not the so-called leaders take constructive non-violent approaches? Is it not easy to at least give up the approach of destruction-for-personal growth and take up constructive-lead-for-personal growth? As the end objective, i.e. personal benefit, is unaltered, it should not be a problem for the smallest of the small leaders to give up this cheapest of the cheap attitudes. But the suggested alternate approach seeks a little knowledge of the so-called leaders. Unfortunately, they lack that knowledge. Therefore, it is again the mass to change itself and avoid these shepherds.

People's role

One should not construe that the foregoing description of Indian leaderships has been written out of frustration and helplessness. No, it is the reflection of a common Indian man but pens like mine have to bring this small - but destructive and more powerful than a hydrogen bomb - leaders into the light. The real leadership character has been touched a little, as a wealth of literature dictates who the real leader is and what the real leadership is. Does it matter to Indian leaderships? Certainly, not. Does it bring any relevance to Indian leaders? Certainly, not. Until people are aware of and choose the right leaderships, all they can do is to minimise the impact of these shepherds by highlighting the small small things of their coward leadership tactics and force them to relinquish their tactics. By relinquishing such small things, the public will not be benefited but at least the destructions can be avoided while the leader's wealth can still grow like Egyptian pyramid at the cost of reduced destructions. What else can you expect of these leaders other than these, as they are indeed misleaders. All you can expect are only small small things that will help you being not disturbed with your day-to-day affairs. If you indeed need to learn what the real leadership is and free the nation from the trap of these small leaders, these small things are not worth to consider. But you must learn first how to identify the real leaders. At least, for your personal benefit if not in the interest of the nation or community, why not offer a small effort to make aware yourself on the real face of the Indian leaders and keep yourself away from them? Is it not a small thing on your part to get ride of these small leaders from misusing the mass?

However, for the ordinary people mass, it would be somewhat difficult to assess and identify the best leadership. One best way for them to identify the best ones is by omitting the wrong ones. The wrong ones have been exposed well in the foregoing sections. It is also simple to identify the wrong ones as the conditions and characters that reveal the wrong ones are already evident and prevailing in the society. It is a matter of people's intention to free themselves away from leadership worship and blind faith, as this attitude prevents them from retrospecting the leaderships.

On the other hand, communal politics could not be eliminated as long as the non-depressed communities decline to acknowledge and follow the able and good leaderships that emerge from the depressed community. Should they permit their conventional thoughts such as caste superiority and untouchability in choosing their leaderships, communal politics will remain flourish. Since independence, the depressed and backward communities had blindly followed the uppercaste based political parties. These communities were so loyal that they nearly worshipped the uppercaste leaderships. In return, they never had been benefited but only betrayed. Nor had they been given representation in their party politics. To them, the depressed were a mere vote bank. Had the uppercaste parties shown a little gesture in permitting the depressed communities to have their say in their party politics, they would have stuck with them and there would have been no communal parties emerging from the depressed communities. Now, almost all major communities have their political base and respective leaderships. This is an unhealthy environment in the long run but has become inevitable to the depressed communities as they were dumbed by the uppercaste parties for centuries. Should the trend ought to be changed, the non-depressed communities should have the courage to follow good leaderships that emerge from the depressed communities.

On the part of the depressed communities, they should show maturity in choosing their leaderships. They must be aware of that poorer they are with their attitudes and assertion poorer would be their leaderships in liberating from their sufferings. They must also understand that leadership from their own communities should not necessarily guarantee their liberation. This is evident from the ongoing current trend. This logic is applied to not only the depressed but also all communities. The depressed will have a legitimate right to appeal the non-depressed communities to accept their leaderships if they could identify and project a visionary, honest and committed leadership. Logically, one cannot expect the non-depressed communities to follow the leadership of the depressed ones if such leaderships are not different from the conventional, corrupt, uppercaste leaderships. It is the responsibility of the depressed communities to educate themselves so that they can better identify the right leadership. On the part of the leaderships, they must educate their mass to have them obtained sufficient knowledge and awareness so that they will follow them. The mass must be enlightened not only to choose the right visionary leaderships but also to reject and eliminate the corrupt leaderships. Their political agenda should have a broad spectrum that does not confine only to their own interests. It must show enough maturity and represent the well being of the majority. It will show a sign of change among the depressed communities and their capability and preparedness to take the lead of the nation. This is the only final thing that is left with the depressed community as a last resolve to both liberate themselves from their age old sufferings and lead the entire society. Having tried every other initiative and subsequently failed, it would not be so hard for the depressed community to change itself as a model community and lead every other community along the path of development. However, the majority communities taking active role in the future politics of India will be irresistible and inevitable naturally as will be warranted by the persistent social problems.