भिडियो हेर्न तलको विज्ञापनलाई हटाउनुहोस
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AB Bardhan, a respected leader of the Communist Party of India passed away last week. A rare leader, Bardhan is different from the icons the mainline polity is familiar with today. He was simple and therefore honest. Leaders like him are only remembered for their simplicity in personal life and probity in public life. Many political leaders had lived and died, some of them most powerful and popular. Yet, only a few are remembered for probity. Whether it is Sardar Patel or Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri or Kamaraj, Ram Manohar Lohia or Deendayal Upadhyaya, Jayaprakash Narayan or Achyut Patwardhan, AK Gopalan or Acharya Kripalani, Morarji Desai or Nanaji Deshmukh, Kushabhau Thakre or Inderjit Gupta, Namboodiripad or Madhu Dandavate — to mention only a few names cutting across all political parties — they are all recalled for their probity first. Many of them stood equally for truth. I recall with gratitude that when the Indian Express was raided and I was arrested in March 1987 on false charges, it was the CPI leader Inderjit Gupta who defended me in Parliament against the powerful Ambanis and government!But whenever such honest leaders pass away, they seem to leave an enlarging vacuum behind with steadily declining number of people like them — committed and honest. The malady, which began in politics, gradually extended to media barons and journalists, academics and professionals and even bureaucrats and judges — particularly in Delhi where from the nation is governed. And there are no courageous media owners like Ramnath Goenka or Cushroo Irani now. No Mulgaonkar or George Verghese in journalism today. Many successful journalists own properties and farms which will be businessmen’s envy. The despicable practices of some media owners, which includes laundering bribes into their coffers, will dwarf the adventures of the most seasoned buccaneers in business. Yet, these perfidious media men claim the sacred constitutional rights for which men like Goenka fought at the cost of the viability of their own papers.How did a nation which won freedom by the sacrifices of hundreds of thousands of nationalists, who cast aside their life and even destroyed their families in nation’s cause, so quickly descend to such low, post-independence? Where did the rot begin? It all began after the advent of Indira Gandhi in the late 1960s. She changed the paradigm of politics based on ethics and probity to the paradigm of power and success. She asserted her raw power first by defeating her own party candidate whose nomination she had signed just weeks earlier, demonstrating the importance of success and irrelevance of ethics. She is remembered for the power she wielded for 16 long years. -
भिडियो हेर्न तलको विज्ञापनलाई हटाउनुहोस
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