One gloomy evening as my head was buried in my books I suddenly saw my mobile screen blinking and the jarring vibration caught my attention. I had promised myself that I’ll not touch the phone till I finish studying the intended portion. Temptation prevailed; I saw a Facebook notification and below that there was a notification from a WhatsApp group, it was a forward of a news channel image.
Almost every day I spend more than an hour reading or watching news and this is my major distraction, I couldn’t control myself thus I gave-in and read. It was a news and survey brought out by a local Goan news channel about education of the MLA’s. Many leaders were interviewed and most opined that more than formal education; zeal to work for the people and experience in politics is needed for a person to be termed as a good politician. I totally agree with this, no doubts absolutely. Say few years from now, just because a few farmers have done studies in agriculture, we can’t make it a norm for all the farmers. We cannot be asking them to qualify themselves in order to grow a field. I know, I sound like a politician with a perfect analogy. I too felt the same and the corner of my lips almost touched my ears due to my self-appreciating grin.
No! I can’t stop here, after a little deeper thinking and probing my mind to do better I had a ‘eureka’ moment. I feel we need to have a CET (common entrance exam) for politicians. What?… Yes! You heard it right. Anyone who wants to contest elections should have a 3 months or shorter (weekend classes only) crash course in politics and governance. Some subjects that I feel should be part of the syllabus are Basic English, Hindi, Konkani for languages; Political ethics along with Etiquette and Communication skills should be treated as important; other optional subjects could be Formation of Policies, Culture and Surrounding, Sociology and History of the state. At the end of the course there should be an aptitude test, which will help the candidate to choose wisely. There should be a personality identification test too; the whole journey could be concluded by the candidates signing a moral commitment. And weeks before the parties declare their candidates there should be a Common Entrance Exam. In this group of people there may be those who are unable to write due to whatsoever reason, they must be given option for oral mode of examination in their own mother tongue.
The government has been spending so much money from the tax-payers’ pockets to pay the salaries of the politicians, this money should be instead channelized to create good politicians. People may have various opinions about this and once again going back to my ‘farmers analogy’ I want to make another point. The farmer learns from others and while he does so he doesn’t put anyone at risk after all he is dealing with plants. But when it comes to politicians they cannot be experimenting their skills with people and their wellbeing for 5 years.
This may not solve the problem directly but it will at least set a standard, it will make us realize that to achieve anything in life we need to work hard. Even a peon in the school or other office needs some basic qualification, so why not politicians who rule us. We aren’t asking for the moon, it’s just the minimum, we haven’t asked for a degree in political science from some top notch university.
Who am I to ask for something like this? Why do I bother? Why does it matter to me? I am someone as ordinary as a farmer in the field, as simple as a waiter in a small hotel, as meek as the lady who cleans your house, as familiar as the guy at the grocery store, as humble as the workers collecting garbage, I am a Goan, I am a voter! I guess that’s enough reason for me to ask for something as futile as this. Things may not change but I can at least tell myself and my God that I tried, I used the blessings given by God himself to ask something, something very basic for his people.
