Community or Party? What do we chose in elections 2009?

As elections 2009 take command in the nation of over a billion people, India faces one of the most communal elections in the history of the government. Godhra riots of 2004, Sikh riots of 1984, Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar’s election ticket and Varun Gandhi’s ‘eternal love’ for Muslims have all taken away the limelight from other important and growth oriented agendas of the country.

The Indian voter has no option but to become a silent spectator who sees what each party has to offer. The scene becomes even uglier as the ‘aam aadmi’ is still thinking if he is given a choice for communities or parties. This is a nation where during an election campaign, our political leaders promise to build structures like Ram temple. This is a nation, where our politicians make statements about killing a person who acts against the Hindu community.

The India of twentieth century where the citizens have started understanding the concept of ‘unity’ we have ‘netas’ still trying to fill their vote banks in the name of communities.

And this is not the only facet of the present Indian political race. They talk of community and unity at the same time, but do they really care?

When the Godhra victims got justice, Sudheendra Kulkarni of BJP, very lightly, defending his party or, in literal terms, proving his party better than the other one, commented during an interview with a television news channel that, “It took ‘just seven years’ for Godhra victims to get justice.” A long seven years’ wait of the victims became ‘just seven years’ for our very own ‘netaji’.

Varun Gandhi, in his speech disgraced the whole Muslim community, made fun of Muslim names and even said that he’ll sword off the heads of anyone who acts against the Hindu community. From then to now, his party has left all agendas behind and their most important agenda has become ‘defending Varun’.

That was about one party. Congress is not far behind. They did not cancel the tickets of Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar (both have charges against them for inciting Sikh riots in 1984) until Jarnail Singh of Dainik Jagran hurled a shoe on our very own Home Minister P. Chidambaram, for CBI giving a clean chit to Tytler. What an ironical situation it is. A person was not wrong until there were ‘shoes’ all set to hit the party hard.

Such is our political Tamasha. An Indian citizen stands helpless. He has to choose a better option from the worse of options. He is trying to figure out if he is electing a political party or a community as his nation’s leader. The question boggles his mind: Party or Community?