The best quality for a political entity
Is nothing but honesty and integrity.
The wayward path of duping and corruption
Will then be shunned and require no correction.
Politics is a very dangerous battle-field;
To all kinds of pressures you have to yield.
Courage of conviction at a heavy cost-
That is what you need to the utmost.
To politicians power is a gift;
Let them make pelf by shift.
If there is permanence of power,
They will soon reach the tower.
Leadership requires intelligence and trustworthiness;
It also needs humaneness, courage and sternness.
These qualities are essential for a political leader,
If he is to shine as an exemplary ruler.
In democracy one party tries to prove
That the other party cannot improve
The people’s lot and therefore must quit
Leaving power to the other outfit.
Law has little effect in a world
Where crooked men have a hold
On levers of power and can manipulate
Ruler s whose greed they can stimulate.
Men in power have their sycophants
Who may try to become their chairs’ occupants.
Thus the ruler may become the ruled,
This is a law that cannot be ridiculed.
Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind;
This exactly is what we find
When politicians unleash communal forces
For making electoral gains from all sources.
Unity in diversity is a very good proposition,
But unity without discipline is an untenable proposition,
Be it a matter of a political community
Or be it a matter of any other community.
Better dwell in the hearts of men
Than rule over the heads of men.
This is what rulers must learn
If peoples’ esteem they want to earn.
On monsoon depends India’s ‘feel-good factor’
Of which God alone is the creator.
Why should politicians take pride in it
And make a shameless buzz-word of it?
If you want to root out corruption from politics
You will have to sound the death-knell of politics.
Politics and corruption go hand in hand;
There can be no exception in our own hand.
Social issues cannot be put on the back burner
If a politician wants to be vote-earner.
People want to improve their social status;
Between the rich and the poor there should be no hiatus.
India is said to have a ‘feel-good’ factor
For which one party claims to be the main actor;
But this is purely an elusive factor
For which there can be no real actor.
Gandhiji suffered much in the struggle for freedom
And he ended up in his glorious martyrdom:
Both of them will remain in the annals of history,
But some people make of them a different story.
Politics was a field where the gentry wanted no entry;
Now it is different in any part of the country,
The high brow and the well-heeled come into the field
Because it promises a very good yield.
Politicians are corrupt is a generalisation,
But it makes of democracy a trivialization.
Politics is a field any rogue can access,
But good politicians make democracy a success.
Politicians are notorious for duplicity;
They do what suits the opportunity.
They will have something to say
Which the next moment they gainsay.