My Mission for a Grand Vision

Each time I sit with my friends or colleagues for a long discussion, we never end the discussion without discussing about our future plans. One after the other, each one starts expressing their distinct ambitions and goals. Whenever my turn comes, I say that politics is something that I am passionate about. The moment I express my interest in politics, a series of questions comes on to my way. The first and the very common question they ask is why politics?

Then I start giving my usual answer. Politics is something that’s inseparable from our daily lives and politics is something that has an impact on almost every aspect of our lives. It is the outcome of politics and political decisions that affect the lives of most people around us. But as a fact we know that the impact depends on what kind of politics we are involved in and for what. Politics when practiced in a good manner can bring a great awakening among the citizens and provide them a happy and a prosperous life and foster a value based society while when it’s practiced for selfish purposes, it has the worst possible impact on the society. It’s time for such great political awakening among everyone specifically among intelligentsia and spiritual people. If politics and politicians of the generation before us have degraded, then it is time for a change in our attitudes towards politics. People who are educated and full of fresh ideas are certainly needed to pull this off.

Having understood this and having seen the ground realities from my childhood and having got inspired by Swami Vievkananda’s ideology for a stronger India, I have decided to pursue politics as an instrument for a better society. I share Swami Vivekananda’s ideology on almost all the aspects of life and society and that itself is a guiding force to me throughout my way.

A stronger India needs good governance to people with a pride in our past and a hope for future. Good governance wouldn’t be possible if a Chief Minister or Prime Minister alone practice good politics and follow good administrative approaches. But it is possible only when even the public representatives at the lowest unit of our country like a gram panchayat sarpanch follow certain good governance principles. Following are the 13 simple ways which I thought of which can help a public representative in providing good governance to his or her electorate.

1. Being accessible and approachable
2. Understanding problems of people of different walks of life, understanding their priorities, interests and their aspirations
3. Developing vision documents for each village, each locality, each section of the society and each sector of the industry in your constituency
4. Strategizing the vision with time bound programs, approaching the Government, inviting non governmental agencies, enterprises and getting the required grants/permissions/projects
5. Creating an atmosphere of inspiration for people to move towards peace, progress and development
6. Making sure that the strategy is implemented without any flaws
7. Being accountable
8. Being transparent
9. Effectively Communicating of your vision, strategy, achievements and challenges to people on a time to time basis
10. Making information of the Government and my own programs available to every single citizen of your constituency
11. Making sure that the Government policies are reaching the right people at right time
12. Taking regular feedback and constantly working on feedback
13. Ensuring that a conducive atmosphere is created for those who want to do anything good to your people

I firmly believe that the above 13 points are basics for good governance. But just listing down the above 13 points doesn’t help unless good strategies are devised to make sure that each of them is perfectly put into implementation. For example, for one to be accessible to people and to be approachable, one needs to plan different ways by which one can do so. May be he needs to set up a full fledged constituency development office in his constituency listening to grievances of people or may be one needs to have a website where people can just login and raise their concerns or may be one needs to spend at least 10 hours in his office listening to concerns of people. In this way, proper strategies are needed to make sure that the above 13 points are put into implementation and thus to make sure that a good governance is offered to people.

For past few weeks, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about these strategies, discussing with many people and referring different ways or policies which different politicians have already adopted. It has been a great learning exercise for me. I kindly request you all to let me know your thoughts on how each of the above 13 can be put into implementation or if there is a 14th or a 15th point which you want to suggest. Integrating my own thoughts and all your good suggestions and different references, I would like to come up with a blue print for good governance by a public representative and would like to follow the same once I enter full time politics.

Let us bind every soul with the thread of love
Let us fill every mind with self-esteem
Let the whole nation march on the path of progress
Let the victory of Bharat reverberate in the entire world
Let the world overcome darkness and be full of light

Jai Hind