“Bharat Ane Nenu” (meaning ‘I, Bharat’) is an upcoming Telugu movie starring Mahesh Babu. This film is a political thriller about a young and educated protagonist’s journey to becoming the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. The title itself represents the first words spoken while swearing the oath to become CM.
The trailer of this movie was outstanding. This song especially gave me goosebumps.
Movies like these start a conversation about the importance of the youth’s involvement in politics. Watching the trailer, I thought of writing about the issue of the under-representation of educated youngsters in Indian politics. Especially during this election season, it’s important to have an open discussion on this topic. Ironically, just when I was about to pen down my thoughts, the following news broke out.
The BJP government in Madhya Pradesh accorded the Minister of State (MoS) status to five Hindu religious leaders with no proper formal education or experience of political leadership. The most famous among them is ‘Computer Baba’; the rest are – Narmadanand Maharaj, Hariharanand Maharaj, Bhaiyyu Maharaj and Pandit Yogendra Mahant.
To make sense of this move, one could say that if the BJP could make a chief minister out of a yogi (Yogi Adityanath), why can’t these babas become state ministers? If this decision was taken purely on the basis of their capability to become competent ministers, then there would be no questions asked at all. But the actual reason for awarding these babas the ‘minister’ designation is quite dubious.
Historically, the ‘computer baba‘ has had a bitter relationship with the BJP. In 2014, he contacted the Aam Aadmi Party for a ticket to contest in the Madhya Pradesh elections, But he was not given the chance. During this time, he also blasted the BJP, saying that they only exploit the religious sadhus for political benefits. He clearly stated that he didn’t want to collaborate with them.
Most recently, he became vocal about the Madhya Pradesh government’s incapability to address the issues related to the Narmada. On March 31 this year, ‘computer baba‘, along with other religious leaders, was plotting a protest against the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government. Their intention was to expose the corruption that happened in the midst of the conservation initiatives on the Narmada river. There is even a video of ‘computer baba‘ and Yogendra Mahant calling people to join this protest against the BJP government.
But now, this unprecedented move of joining the very government he was criticising has left so many supporters shocked and confused. As Arnab Goswami has said in his debate, it’s like Manmohan Singh offering a Cabinet seat to the whistleblower of the 2G scam to snub out the accusations. This clearly exposes the desperation of Shivraj Singh Chouhan to win over opponents by whatever means possible. Now, after becoming a minister, when he was questioned whether his ‘Narmada Scam Yatra’ would still take place as planned, the response from ‘computer baba‘ was very obscure. His tone towards the BJP has softened, and he has also harboured a complacent attitude towards the Narmada river issues he had once raised.
‘Election gimmick’ and ‘political appeasement’ are the only interpretations of this situation.
In my view, to be a minister, one must be an elected politician. Rare exceptions can be made for someone with extraordinary capability and intention to serve the public, or for people who can prove that they deserve to be a minister even though they did not win the electoral mandate. But, when it comes to these babas, this is not the case.
During the discussion around unemployment crisis and job creation, the BJP leaders preached to the youth to sell pakoras for a living. Now, I wonder, how can they shamelessly employ disqualified babas in reputed government positions? Don’t they even bother about the negative message it sends to the unemployed youth? At the end of the day, is it all about political gain and not the people’s welfare?
These questions should be contemplated by everyone before the next general election. We have to pay close attention to the way party tickets and positions are offered. The principles preached by different parties and politicians to empower the youth by increasing their political representation should be practised in reality during the upcoming elections.