The following is a request from a common person to the people who claim to be capable of ruling them.
The ‘blame game’ is a very ‘natural’ phenomenon when it comes to people. It is not exactly god-given, but I would say that it’s a trait to be found in almost every individual.
Unfortunately, this ‘blame game’ takes a magnanimous form when it comes to politicians and politics as a whole. In most cases where a party leader speaks up, it’s only to shift the blame of whatever’s happening in the country on the other party – a perfect emergency exit, so to say.
After monarchy lost its existence in our country’s political scenario, the masses received a great power backed by the equally great responsibility to choose their leader, keeping in mind their qualities, virtues, weaknesses and strengths – something which we now refer to as a democracy. If used wisely and intellectually, it has the power to change the face of a society in any country.
As we all know, in a democracy, the candidates try their level best to convince the public (in other words, voters) who they consider to be the best among all others. They do this mainly by explaining how their election will benefit the public in the long run. The already-intelligent public weighs the candidates against the benchmarks of righteousness and the qualities they would expect their leader to possess. Then they choose one of them by voting.
The scenario looks rather convincing, and some may even consider it to be the best option available to us. But all is not as it seems, because the confusion of the ‘blame game’ overpowers every other judgement and/or decision.
To start with, blame game (in a political context) is the phenomenon through which politicians blame other candidates profusely – to the extent that the public feels that there is no body better than their own selves.
I did not understood these things previously, because I had little interest in politics. But my focus shifted drastically when Arvind Kejriwal came like a fresh breath of air and seemingly changed the face of politics in the country. He was righteous, intelligent, knowledgeable – and it seemed that he was a good leader as well.
He convinced the voters about his numerous virtues, and they believed in him because he missed one basic ingredients among the voter-persuasion tricks – that is, indulging in a vicious blame game. Being new to the industry, he considered that his virtues would be enough to convince the voters to vote for him. This is what exactly happened shortly after. He won the Delhi elections by a large margin.
But after his first win, he became a conventional politician (following the age-old adage of ‘birds of a feather flock together’). It would seem that he was not able to bear the brunt of being a different leader who is loved by everyone. He ultimately came to accept the famous political philosophy of ‘doing nothing and blaming everyone’.
His rallies and public speeches also followed a similar mould. In these speeches, he used to mention all the things his government had done very briefly, while the majority of the time was spent in analysing, describing and criticising the hundreds of things the Opposition parties hadn’t done. He had entered the club of blame-game politics.
It is surprising to see that even top leaders at the highest echelons of the political system like PM Modi and Congress President Rahul Gandhi do not hesitate to attack the other leaders of the country.
With time, this tendency has accelerated manifold. If nothing else, it is just shameful that the leader who are asking for votes for their candidature may have no confidence in their capabilities. And therefore, they take the help of such cheap tactics to win over the public.
‘Blame game’, a term which I think is appropriate in this context, has become a termite eating away the whole political system.
Only if this phenomenon is abandoned by the political leaders will it be easier for the public to choose the right person to lead the society.