Of nation and politics

Many times I’ve wondered why our politicians do things the way they do. Like plastering every visible wall with their party leader posters, flag culture (we can have a whole big blog dedicated to this one), addressing the electoral mandate as “ruling”, calling themselves as leaders when in reality they just represent a bunch of people and the concept of cutouts and arches. To me everything resonates with the way things would’ve been during the times of kings and queens, where in if a royal visits a particular place, the citizens of that area may celebrate the royal darshan in similar form. The concept of having flags, is very much symbolic with this fact along with everything else. The intention with which every party is formed in theory may be on some principle or other. But the moment a leader is anointed, it becomes a family affair and hereditary. Like royal lineage, it’s the leader, his kith and kin, who form the succession line to the party leadership throne. And curiously the top post of every political party is called a throne. And even the very place where our legislative assembly resides being a fort couldn’t just be mere happenstance. Though it’s the national flag that get hoisted, its as if a king of smaller landmass (kurunila mannan for want of better terms) saluting the bigger one in acknowledgement. Funnily all these are called “thriving” features of democracy when every aspect of it aligns with royalty. The way people bend over backwards for ministers, traffic of general public being halted for CM and his GOM, temples giving royal welcome whenever they come visiting, guess we’ve literally pasted democracy over royalty and have been fooling ourselves. Is this how the system works world over ? Shouldn’t it be the power to serve, the slogan of everyone, rather than the power to rule? If the salaries of serving ministers are cut, giving them free food and other allowances are stopped, making all their properties as state owned till the time they are holding to their posts, then automatically things will change I guess. If not we are better off reverting to royalty. At least that way we wouldn’t be fooling ourselves that we have power vested with us. I seriously believe, as one of the youngest nations on this planet, that is carved out of so many warring kingdoms prior, we’ve managed to survive 7 decades as an union is an achievement in itself. Wonder how long this concept will sustain !!