The more loosely a word is used in common parlance is an indication of its misuse and that too primarily for wrong reasons. Democracies run in the name of people, who actually derive very little out it. Public life as a jargon is used vociferously to push in lieu of experience, expertise, knowledge or competency. Experience in public life is meant to be the sine qua non of democratic life and that too for political persons, who keep eyeing for political positions from a petty member of the Gram Panchayat to the position of the Prime Minister. What it actually means nobody has been able to decipher so far in this country?

Presumably, the political fraternity understands it and accordingly measures the stature of his brethren and in its own unique way, either rewards or lets the person rot. Conventions need not establish any worthwhile traditions but are often referred to as wrong precedents worthy of being repeated for personal gains. Does public life lead to the creation of a public mind? Do the two gel? Having a public mind means the capability of understanding the common citizen in their entirety, have immense empathy and simultaneously the capability to make the system run in their favour. Living some part of your life in the citizens shoes and relentlessly deliver can be a live demonstration of a public mind. How much of it have we witnessed in public life?

How public mind operates or can be manipulated during the election is an art persons have been trying to perfect since the conduct of the first general elections in this country? Unfortunately, public mind has become more like that adage, Customer is the King, whereas in reality he is siphoned off in a manner most difficult to realise. It is like the data ownership seamlessly being transferred to the IT behemoths, even without we users getting the faintest inkling of it. On the other way round, we feel that free service is being provided to us. In the case of the political class and also the permanent public servants, we can find the same analogy. You can look for an equivalent of what these companies claim of, providing an enriched customer experience.

Public mind has been mortgaged and the legal document is used for multifarious gains by the powers that be. The enrichment story certainly has a country cousin here. Understanding public mind is primarily the manipulation of it. We have reached a level where it does not impact us, whether it might be the Migrants Dandi March or battle for the CM’s gaddi, being played out in Rajasthan, spreading the muck till Manesar and through the electronic / social media across India and beyond. Even a life threatening pandemic is forgotten. The common man’s agony is of the tune that he has forgotten his own mind. The battle left is of only his tummy. His mind has anyway been hijacked and sabotaged.

ON THE STRENGTH OF THE PUBLIC MIND DEPENDS THE HEALTH OF A DEMOCRACY.
Sanjay Sahay

Slips ups mean disaster.