“Our masters have not heard the people’s voice for generations and it is much, much louder than they care to remember.” ― Alan Moore
I wrote about the power and working of the political class in a column in September 2018 when I was working to push the idea of Dhan Vapasi:
The leaders of the political parties have all the power and control. They choose who is going to represent us. We the people have no say in who will represent us. We are only allowed to press a button in the voting booth. And the political parties spend enormous amounts in bribing people to vote for them. Too many people fall for this scam every election and we get bad governance.
With our votes we give them the power to rule us. They gain massive wealth and unquestioned power. India’s democracy exists in name only – we are voting for the masters who make us work like their slaves, and force us to dutifully pay whatever taxes they impose on us.
India has become less of a democracy and more of a kakistocracy — a system in which the governments are run by the least qualified and the most corrupt.
We cannot expect those who benefit so unfairly from the power they have to make any change that reduces their power.
We have to use our power to change the system so that it becomes more accountable, more transparent, and a relationship of equals instead of a master-slave relationship. We have to use our vote to change the system.
We need to change the old way of politics –we need to replace old power by new power.
Old Power is held by a few, is pushed down, is commanded, is closed and is transactional. Using Old Power, political parties have stolen our freedom and our wealth.
New Power is made by many, pulled in, shared, open and based on relationships. New Power does not need a political party, it needs a technology platform to connect us all together.
With New Power, we can make political parties irrelevant.
Until this political system is uprooted, no change is possible. The solution does not consist of replacing one party with another — because once in power, they will do exactly what their predecessors did once in power. We need to bypass the political parties and return power genuinely where it belongs – to the people. This is the first phase of the revolution India needs. And it is not as impossible as it seems.
Tomorrow: Part 9
