The Politics of Ideas

“Great Minds Discuss Ideas,

Average Minds Discuss Events,

Small Minds Discuss People”

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Indian Politics works on the fundamentals of sovereignism, secularism and socialism set by the Constitution of India. These principles of governing, aspired to make the nation a welfare state, a place where government plays the key role in the social and economic upliftment of its people. A state where the leaders don’t work for themselves but the people whom they represent. Such ideality and purity in leadership was expected by the Constitution of India, when it became the sole guiding force of the world’s largest democracy back in the year 1950. After over 68 years of independence, it is high time that we review the condition and find out how close are we to ‘the ideal’?

There are large numbers of incidences that occur in India that tell us that some of our politicians have not accepted this notion of united India.Though their election speeches begin with the slogan of ‘Unity in Diversity’, what follows is politics based on religion, caste and regionalism. There have been instances where such hate speeches and arousals have led to violence which incurred huge losses to general people.

Now, the question that arises here is, what has led to this situation? Is it the politicians that are responsible, or is the people who are to be blame? The fact to be considered while answering this question is that the politicians must be using such vote bank tactics recurrently only because it was working for them. That means that it not only the politicians who are responsible for this situation. All of us, in some form or the other get influenced by factors that don’t really matter if general good of the people is our prime concern.

The solution to this problem is what can be called as the politics of ideas. The people must vote only for those who don’t focus on past events or actions of other people but have ideas to solve the current problems. It doesn't mean that we shall not learn from past events and actions of other people but it’s important that after learning from those we must deliberate on the learnings and not on the events or people. While this idea has been present in the hypothetical guidebook of voting since ages, the enlightened youth of India have the capacity to make this a reality.

It can’t be denied that some of our leaders are already working on this principle and are putting in huge efforts to make India prosper, it is high time that the people of India (especially the youth) create the ambience that this changes from being a rare quality to a general norm for our politicians.

1949 AND 1950: IN THE HISTORY OF INDIA

After the independence movement and the post- independence troubles of partition, it was time for India to build a nation where people remain in power, where the government is run by the people and for the people. It was also necessary for the political leaders to ensure that the basic principles of democracy are not compromised either by the present government or by the governments that came in future. It was the time for the birth of the soul of Indian democracy in the name of the Indian Constitution.

1949 saw the nationalization of Reserve Bank of India, an important player in India’s financial matters. Tripura became a part of the Indian State and India became a part of the Commonwealth of Nation in the same. Apart from this, a big leap was taken forward by the birth of the Constitution of India. The Indian Constitution was adopted by the Indian Constituent Assembly, an indirectly elected constituent body meant to draft the Constitution of India, on 26^th November, 1949. Two months later, on 26^th January, 1950, the constitution came to force replacing the Government of India Act, 1935 as the governing document of the Indian Territory. In the same year, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the iron man of India, died on 15^th December, 1950

Indian Constitution

The Indian Constitution forms the bases of the Republic of India. The constitution came to force on 26^th January, 1950 as a remembrance to the Purna Swaraj Declaration of 1930. The constitution of India was drafted by a constituent assembly composed of the prominent men in the Indian Independence Struggle.  It represented every part of the country and every section of the Indian Society, a step which was important to draft the constitution in awareness of the ground realities.

With the coming of Indian Constitution, Dr. Rajendra Prasad became the first president of India and Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru the first Prime Minister.