Jayaprakash Narayan: Truly New Politics!

"The silence of good men is more dangerous than the brutality of bad men"       -    Martin Luther King

The above quote flashes quite tellingly on Lok Satta's website. Jaiprakash Narayan (JP) decided he was silent enough till 1996 when he resigned from the I.A.S. He found his calling in an NGO Loksatta which campaigned for reforms in governance. Loksatta, now a political party, found its bearings today when JP won with a decent margin from Kukatpally trouncing rivals with money and muscle power. This is an inspiring victory in an otherwise lacklustre election where all parties competed in offering freebies to the voters.

There were quite a few, some said to be active sponsers, who criticised JP when he relaunched LokSatta as a political party. They must have thought about avoiding the dirt in politics by remaining away and just talking about reforms in governance. But JP did the more challenging thing of entering the fray and proving today that with honesty and persistence, a diligent candidate can turn the intelligent voter in his favour, without any muscle and money power. Kudos to him. I strongly believe this is only the beginning and people of his ilk will rise and challenge the rules of the game presently underway in our politics. He clearly showed us the way. And its high time media and our aam janta lend our ear now and then to some issue based discussions of organizations like LokSatta rather than despondently hand our fate to indifferent politicians. If we believe we can do this, we will do this. Its proven today in Kukatpally.

As JP said, the citizens are ready for change and open to accept honest policymaking, but are there leaders ready to bring in the change. Just for once, lets stop blaming the voters for electing bad leadership. They simply had no option.