The following note is reproduced with permission by the author, Tarun Malaviya.
I fully subscribe to this point of view.
Sadly a lot of the reaction to the Mumbai terror attack has been emotional (and at times simply naive). That is understandable. But it serves little purpose to condemn all politicians. That only ends up undermining democracy.
My belief is that democracy offers the best mechanism to make meaningful change. And it is quite simple. One, we must resolve to vote. Two, we must find the best candidate to vote for in our constituency.
The idea seems too simple & simplistic to work. But, it isn’t so.
Firstly it is not simple - voting for the cleanest candidate means voting across party lines, across regional, cast and religious divide. That would mean a leap for most people. Also, it would require some work to figure out who the honest, diligent candidates are.
The idea is not simplistic either - no matter how cleverly the candidates have worked out the electoral math, a one percentage point votes added or taken away from a candidate can make all the difference (actually even single vote can do it). More importantly since we are dealing with not just a case of security lapse but a rotten system, we must start by fixing it from the top. And there are many more things to fix in India than just the security apparatus.
If you find this idea sensible please send this mail to as many people as you can. If you are enthused by the idea spread the word further. And if you are charged up to really make a difference gather the information on the best candidate in your constituency and spread the information around (emails, blogs and networking sites are simple ways to do this).
The more honest people we can get into the parliament the sooner we might see the change we so desperately need.
One election may just change the course of history for our nation and the world.
-tarun.
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