Politicians too need retirement

 Shiban Khaibri
One of the top most electoral reforms needed in our country is to determine the age of retirement of a politician after it is fully conceded that politicians too need retirement. The limitations and constraints of a human body are demanding rest from hectic, busy, strenuous, and challenging and performance oriented working or job on attaining a particular age. Politicians too in senior age are susceptible to wear, tear, fatigue diminishing reflexes, descending stress management and consequential decision taking processes. We, however, have been watching that politicians in our country very rarely come forward to say that the time to hang their boots had arrived and they should seek voluntary retirement from “Jana sewa” or serving the public. Generally it has been observed that  it is only when the physical condition does not warrant due to some “staying in ailment” or meeting the inevitable, most of the political leaders otherwise keep on “serving ” the people.
We feel some times envious of the Presidents and Prime Ministers of many countries, mostly developed, heading their countries young, keeping themselves smart, fit and “hearty”. Worth mentioning are  the cases of ex-President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy or his successor Hollande or the Russian President Vladimir Putin or the youngest David Cameron becoming Prime Minister of England at the age of 43 or even Barrack Obama, the American President or the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and now recently elected Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif and many such leaders. We too had Rajiv Gandhi as the first ever youngest Prime Minister to govern this country.
Sticking to the positions in the political parties and in  public  offices beyond a particular age and then expecting things to move in a particular direction , at times, repugnant to the majority opinion generates avoidable spats, misgivings and controversies. We have been seeing the same going on in the second largest political party of India, the BJP. The party patriarch L. K. Advani could not make it to the Prime Minister’s post both in 2004 and 2009 elections and many a time, became the point of pun from no less a person than the “weakest” Dr. Manmohan Singh, the alias with which Avani had introduced him before the electorate while campaigning for his party for building which he claims to have toiled a lot.
The octogenarian Advani wondered how the octogenarian in the Congress party could make it both the times and now it dawned that he was  nursing  the ambition to give it a third trial which, however,  could not get through as most  activists , workers and leaders in the party saw  and felt the hurricane of Gujarat Chief Minister Naraindra Bhai Modi blowing across the country and as per sample survey conducted by many leading TV Channels , more than 65% of the people , especially the youth wanted him to lead the country to take it  out of the morass of bad governance, corruption and rising inflation. A small elevation, if it be so called, in the form of making Modi as head of the election campaign committee  for 2014 elections could not be digested by the “Bhishma Pitameh” of the party. He could have shown his reservations or disapproval in a proper way as is wont for a leader of a party “with a difference” and could have raised the issue within the party’s fora but he chose to show his sulkiness openly and not only abstained from attending the Party’s national executive meet at Goa but offered his resignation from three posts in the party and again made that letter public. Like this, he made his intentions of “if not I, then no one else” known to all. Also that he preferred his personal gains as a remuneration of “building “the party.  He, however, withdrew his resignation within 36 hours but not without shortening his tall position in and outside the party and damaging it in a calculated but less effective way.
The country has more than 66% of youth in its population. That is what Modi floats before the youth mostly unemployed and dejected due to faulty policies of the present dispensation and what is the risk if a comparatively younger and energetic leader with mass appeal is given a chance to put in his mite towards the development of this country? It is for the leaders and policy planners to translate the demographic picture of the youth into a boon and not a curse. We should emulate the efforts of China which did so with its younger population and made the economic boom possible largely because of the involvement of its youth. That speaks as to why China is having nearly 10% annual growth as against India striving for a mere 5%. We want poverty to flourish here to keep it as a permanent vote bank for feeding them with tailored schemes like MGNREGA and now Food Security Bill and other “discoveries” to seek and demand votes . It is another thing as to where from a whooping Rs.2lac crores shall come from to give a start to distribute food among “the poor” both rural and urban and where shall we keep nearly 80 million tons of food stocked to distribute the same. What, if food production does not match the massive demand? It is learnt that in that case we shall import food to put life into the proposed bill to claim “eternal” authorship and in turn demand votes.  Those who are searching various whips to beat Modi with, whether on their brand of secularism or whatever, must retrospect and think which way the country is being led. If food is not available under the proposed food bill, then cash will be paid in lieu thereof. The question is that why should we not eradicate poverty and inequalities so as to render such schemes of largesse and populism irrelevant and useless or not required at all? Modi appears to have understood the nitty gritty of governance and good economics. Why should he be pilloried on assumed and exaggerated “crimes” to render him ineligible to perform a bigger role at the national level? The rhetoric of parroting of secularism with different interpretations at different occasions for different meanings and calculated political harvesting appears to have over stood its age and lost its perverted usage.  The dream of Federal Front or Third Front can prove a political blunder by its protagonists and as such an experiment of   disaster. That would mean Congress rule in disguised form as no front or Morcha or any such arrangement can survive without the support of either Congress or the BJP. That “secularists” like Nitish, Lalu, Mulayam , Mamta and the Left cannot “afford” even outside support of “communal forces” , it is imperative that only Congress can step in to support and claim its pound of flesh  in turn.
The day is not far when the issue of age , as to when should the politicians  retire to pave the way for the younger generation , shall become the focal point of debate and bench mark of the age of retirement of the judges of the Supreme Court, ie  65 years shall be made applicable in all political parties in the country. It is better if it is done and blessed gracefully by the elders before the younger ones do it in vigorous youthful way.

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