Divisive Politics and Indian Leaders

Before speaking for or against the divisive politics in the country one must find out the reason as to why Divisive politics in India is a favorite tool for the Politicians to create their niche in politics.

Our politics today is totally identity based and is divisive. In the early years after Independence, we used to cast our votes in elections. These days, we vote for a caste. This growth of identity-based politics has been promoted by two factors, or so the experts say.

The first was formation of states based on language or linguistic States which gave a boost to linguistic identities and led to a certain extent to the erosion of a national identity. The second was that our democracy was reduced to a quota based country. And this increased and is increasing to grounds such as caste, community, religion, etc.

Before Independence the society was divided on the basis of four “Varnas” and some people in this country still believe that they have upper hand if they belong to one or two particular “Varnas”. This segregation of society was practiced throughout the country without any protest and the people accepted this as part of their culture.

India, the very formation of the country was based on divisive politics when Pandit Nehru and Lord Mountbatten agreed in consent with Jinnah to divide the country to form two separate states i.e. India and Pakistan. This very formation of the two states was the root cause that gave birth to the idea of divisive politics.

Both the national and regional parties in the country used this tool of divisive politics to enhance their support base in the country and further divided the people on caste and religious basis.

We all are people living in separate states rather then living in a single country. Democracy is raped by politicians every single day in Bihar and UP in the name of caste and society; Andhra has 80% reservation for the local people; to get a taxi permit in Chennai, Tamil is a must; and yet no one has ever bothered to raise their voice against this division.

Instances like Sikh riots in Delhi after the brutal killing of the former Prime Minister from Congress had shown that the very ruling party which is today vocal in protesting against Shiv Sena and MNS was responsible for killing of hundreds of innocent Sikhs.

The main opposition party of this country was responsible for the grave divide between Hindus and Muslims just to take political mileage. Leaders like Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler, Narendra Modi, LK Advani and HKL Bhagat were never booked by the law.

The Law and Judiciary should book all the people responsible for divisive Politics in the country. The law should be equal for all the leaders and political parties and there is no point in only focusing on Balasaheb or Raj or single out Maharashtra. There is not a single instance in this country where any leader was brought to justice for using divisive politics and Balasaheb is not going to be an exception.