An appeal

Dear One,

I am truly glad that you chose to read this appeal.  Please read through the complete communication and then take a decision.

Many of us are currently experiencing a kind of euphoria at the possibility of getting a leader who stands for good governance and development in a no-nonsense manner.  However we must remind ourselves the sense of despair that we collectively went through when scam after scam were unearthed.  There was an uprising against total lack of values in the political system.  Any holier-than-thou mantle that BJP may have pretended to wear was found to be like the emperor's mythical  invisible clothes.  This was the time when the nation collectively realized that the ruling class, the politicians, were strongly united in their pursuit of power and pelf even as they divided the electorate along innumerable lines of caste, creed, region et al.  Remember how we desperately looked for an alternative only to be reminded again and again that there was none.  Any dim hopes that arose from Anna Hazare's movement were extinguished by Anna's firm refusal to enter politics.  We felt like a rudderless ship surrounded by rapacious pirates.

In my humble opinion the situation has not changed since then.  Congress remains firm in its pursuit of audacious and immoral politics.  BJP which was equally embarrassed by various exposes has fortuitously found a tall leader and allowed him to ride roughshod over power starved seniors and in the process make the public forget about startling similarities between it and Congress.

Many of us feel that if Narendra Modi comes to power, it may mark the beginning of a phase for the better as was the case under Atal Bihari Bajpayee's regime.  However it will be recalled that once Atalji was gone from the scene, the usual sickly tendencies sprung back with a vengeance.  Also there is a section of skeptics who think that things have gone so far downhill that the entrenched parties are incapable of delivering even with a strong and well-intentioned leader.  And who knows better than us Indians that such a leader has become the rarest of the rare commodity; and hence the euphoria over NaMo.

Whichever group you belong to and whatever may be your current affiliations, you will agree that there is an urgent, very urgent need to nurture any movement in politics that is for the explicit purpose of bringing about a change and turning the tide in favor of a clean, honest and committed government.  We have been praying and looking for such a movement to take shape, but in vain.  It seemed as if there was not one person who had the courage of his convictions and was committed enough to undertake the task.  And this is not to deny that the task is mammoth indeed.  Even an exceptional leader like Narendra Modi has to ride on the back of his party for achieving his goals.

It is wondrous that all the agitation and churning amongst the public at large has thrown up a leader like Arvind Kejriwal who has demonstrated his organizational and leadership capabilities by doing the nearly impossible task of setting up a party that doesn't draw its sustenance from funds and manpower of dubious origins.  Even stalwarts in politics never thought that he will be able to do it.  That is why they heaved a sigh of relief when he accepted their challenge to enter politics and bring about the change that we all desired.  They were sure that he will never succeed.  And yet Arvind has done it.  This reminds me of a famous quote from Pearl S Buck.  It goes like this - "The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation."

Arvind seems fully committed to running his party on clean funds only and is asking for donations.  In my opinion all of us who crave for a change in this country must rise to the call and contribute our mite.  Let us ensure that the commendable cleaning up task that Arvind Kejriwal has undertaken does not suffer for want of clean funds.

Dear reader, it is possible that you may not be a staunch supporter of AAP party.  And yet you must contribute to it so that it is up and running by the time the need for such a party becomes desperately obvious.  If you ask why, here is my reply.  We all know that genetic diversity is an absolute must for any species to survive diverse threats that it constantly faces.  The same is true of any system including our political system.  Here unfortunately the diversity in terms of ideologies, principles and commitments are totally gone.  All the parties are essentially alike with the same set of weaknesses.  This is the reason that the system falls an easy prey to viruses of corruption, misgovernance and apathy to national concerns.  We have to help AAP to grow for the simple reason that it is different and will bring back some of the badly needed diversity in the political system.

I urge you to do your bit and contribute here: https://donate.aamaadmiparty.org/.  I have already done so.

Regards,

Anil Kumar Upadhyaya