Existing system - political party

The system of running a government, the laws, people's practices and democratic practices..... this all should be optimized for the new age. We need to run the government as efficiently and transparently as possible.

When I look at the elements as listed in http://evolvingfromdemocracy.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-democracy-is-working-now.html
We have these things:

1. politicians
2. political parties
3. voting
4. democracy process authorities

I do see that the element 'political party' have got a lot of responsibilities, which was not called for.
The system was designed around it, so there are a lot of 'rituals' that we have to carry out at various processes.

The symptoms that show the problems with the system:

1. No political party is able to get the clear majority, causing unnecessary instability
2. Political parties forge various groups that tread with each other and forster malpractices
3. Political parties forming their diplomacy based on wrong policies (may be 'enemy of the enemy is a friend' or to keep their major competitor away from the power)
4. No responsibility borne by the political parties for their misbehavior.
5. Increased complexity in the democratic processes and overheads for managing party leadership, party discipline, informal group-ism
6. Lack of transparency in the party operations
7. Individual candidates not able to relate their policies of the local issues with the party policies, sometimes, failing to manage the conflict

These are only the problems and overheads we have to take the burden of. The disadvantages are many

1. Governments with different parties not collaborating with eachother
2. Government changing its policies implemented by earlier governments led by competing parties, just for the sake of rivalry and showing them as failure.
3. Use of influence on the independent authorities e.g. president, governors, police or other forces, to trouble other governments led by competing parties.
4. Candidates taking incorrect approaches to impress the party leadership to seek advantages.
5. Sometimes, fostering corruption under the name of party integrity or discipline.

Some advantages I am able to think of:

1. Focused development, if the party leadership is competent and honest, and the government is a single party majority one. This has a few points helped (for good or bad) in the initial years of the independence.
2. Support for the new candidates.

So, surely the disadvantages are over-weighing the advantages. Also the people have learned ways to manipulate the system. The democratic system is not able to address such issues due to lack of the responsibilities attached to the parties.
The political parties are given undue importance in the democratic processes. We could have better arranged the system around policies much more tightly, rather than giving the parties the freedom to work irresponsibly.

Who can be pioneers

The concept will require a lot of focused effort initially, when the base is not concrete, there is no brand value to the concept and people may see it a risky in terms of whether it will succeed or not. The most important thing is that it must be developed very transparently and people should be very much convinced about the honesty of the people towards the project.

This will be possible if we can get the people who really are motivated about the subject. To find out such people, I need to know that one wants to volunteer for this cause.

How do I know who can contribute......
This is a very difficult question, and there can be many right ways to proceed. But I am taking the way that I believe in and know that I could find many people.
That way is THE reason, why I am bothered about all this. I owe the community a lot. e.g. I was involved with a national educational institute that is extremely respected for the intelligent people it attracts, generate huge knowledge and skill, and lead the world by using it. So if I hold the relationship with such brand value, I also owe something to the society.

If you feel the same, and know what I am talking about, please do write to me.

Once we have made a good progress, we can easily attract all the experts in the various area, get the public view, discuss it with media, and the people and the politicians will easily identify the usefulness and try to improve the system.

Please feel free to write to me, even if you do not agree.

The approach

I want to do this taking a positive approach. There could be a lot of apprehensions about whether people would like to work on this, whether we'll be able to reach to all the people, whether the politicians having indecent intentions would support it. But I guess it's us who need to vote for the people who should support the constructive work. There could be a lot of hurdles, we may or may not be able to think of, beforehand. How to overcome all these, well that's why we are here for.

The most promising things I can see are increasing awareness among the people, all the new age tools available to the mankind, increased skills in arranging things in a better way, building highly collaborative and trusted communities, willingness to set and conform to the standards, and most important, the people.

So people, please do not be let down by any of the problems. It's our system and we have all the right things to take it to the next level. We just need to better arrange it and take disciplined approach towards our goal.

It's the time to wake up

We have been seeing the democracy working in India since more than 60 years now. We have experienced how it feels, what is its advantages and disadvantages. We can discuss what went wrong and and what went right. (Maybe more heated discussions on the 'wrong' part)

However, let's not forget we started from. How the people of India poured their heart and soul to get the freedom and learned to work it out.... and still learning.

Being able to learn will not help us much, unless there is action taken accordingly. However, to decide it, we cannot rely on few politicians or social organizations. It has to be taken up by us people.

'Along with great power, comes great responsibilities'. These responsibilities are for each and every eligible civilian of India. The most important of which is to vote for the right candidates to oversee the democratic processes, governing systems, regulations and people, etc.

Now there are many organizations that are working on awareness towards this right and the responsibility. I fully support such initiatives and hope to see a good awareness now on. We know that all over the world, the democracies are facing challenges with the people participation. But as a part of continuous improvement of the civilizations, it is time to do it a lot better and take it to the next level.

see http://evolvingfromdemocracy.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-are-we-here-for-better-system.html

I am going to post my honest thoughts on various points and hoping to see a good participation from you.