The One

Recently one movie was released, named “Eak-The power of one”. I didn’t watch this nor I am encouraging anyone to go and watch that movie, I can never mean harm to anyone. But, the only interesting part of this movie was its tagline, the power of one. If we look back at the history of modern world it has always been a single person who made all the difference, be it Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Lenin, Mahatma Gandhi or even Hitler, he may not have done some good deeds but he was responsible for a huge change in the world history which led to so many events and even scripted the story of modern world in many cases. We all believe that an able leader is the difference between the success and failure of a team, be it politics, sports or life. We are very convinced that one single person has power to influence hundreds and thousands of people, be it Bhagat Singh, Nehru or even Sachin Tendulkar. Very rarely you will find mention of a group of people who were responsible for some major change or shift mostly it will be a single person to whom the success will be attributed, it is always said that Kapil Dev’s team won the World cup in 1983, I think I have made myself very clear here. Now, the question is that if we are so convinced about the power of a single person and acknowledge that too, why we never accept it.

Ever hard someone saying that “a single person can’t change much in this society/politics/system” I bet you must have, I also heard the same some days back. Given the election season and a very motivated Indian population because of the recent terrorist attacks, we are hearing a lot about how our one vote can make all the difference. There is some truth in this statement but there is something more too. I said in the beginning that a single man can make a lot of difference and now I am saying that a single man’s vote can make a difference but not a lot of it. Its not that suddenly during the course of writing this I realized that I was wrong, No that’s not the case, but I think when my friend made that statement “a single person can’t change much…” she was actually right in some sense.

Our country got independence about 62 years back, since then “We, the people” have made sure that we are known as one of the most corrupt nation, not to mention the dirty politics, regionalism etc. We were happy and have learnt to live with all this over the years, which made one community happier and more prosperous, that community was of politicians. They have exploited us, robbed us and made our lives hell sometime. But, we only complained, never did anything, because we never believed in the power of one. We were always thinking that its ok if I am not voting, it won’t make much of a difference. These politicians strengthened this thought because they knew that the moment we realized our power, their end is near. This has gone on for about 62 years. Then suddenly we saw an increase in the threat to our lives when terrorists started attacking us. Till about 2000, terrorism was mostly Kashmir’s problem and mainstream India had very little to do with it apart from reading about it in Newspaper with its hot cuppa daily morning and shaking its head in helplessness before going to office and forgetting about it till next morning. In 2001, they attacked our parliament; still it was a problem of politicians because they didn’t attack the civilians at that time. But after that we saw an increase in the bombings etc. not only in the capital, but in almost all parts of the country and this reached its pinnacle with attack on Taj Hotel recently, terrorists were on our roads and attacking us directly. This suddenly made us realize that these politicians have done nothing in last 62 years to safeguard our lives. We are still at the mercy of some gun wielding Psychos although we have nuclear bombs in our kitty. So, this realization led to what I can call “the power of one” revolution, which we are witnessing now days. Going back to the comment made by my friend, is it true that one person can’t make any difference, well personally I feel Yes, s/he can, but there is a catch in the situation I explained above. We as a citizen of India have right to choose our government, since last 60 years or so we have chosen most of the wrong people if not all. These people led us to a state where now, in a very big mess. The problem now is that we want to change all this with these elections in 2009, so we are urging each other to vote for the right person/party hoping that if we vote thing will change. I am sorry to say they won’t, not completely at least. We are trying to clean a huge pile of garbage which has accumulated over the years with a small broom, which is capable of cleaning a house but not the whole country. I am not undermining the awareness which has suddenly become very evident in us, it’s a good sign but we should note that there has to be a systematic way in which we can expect to change things, and something which has taken 62 years to rot will not be made fine in one election or in 5 years, it will take time, a long time.

We can start with the metros and big cities, because we know a lot of educated young people are living there, vote for person instead of a party, if a party has given ticket to a corrupt person, make sure you don’t vote for him even though he is from a party you would like to see in power, because one corrupt MP means one more problem to deal with for 5 years at least. Don’t vote for people who are employing the services of Film stars to attract crowd, if a person have worked for the welfare of people s/he doesn’t need gimmicks. Make sure you give vote to the person who is educated and has progressive mind rather than a person who just comes and promises water & electricity. If we can make sure that at least 2-3 capable persons are elected from each Metro & some big cities in this year’s election, it will mean that at least 15 capable people reach the parliament which is a good number to start with, gradually we can increase awareness and also this number too, this won’t happen in 5-10 years but will take at least one generation because it has taken one generation to make our country what it is today, the key is not to lose hope and always believe in the power of one. ----(Dedicated to my friend who made that statement :))