Professing a political ideology and sticking to ideological principles in political behaviour are quite different things.It is easier to claim that a political party or leader stands for serving specific principles and bringing about social and economic changes for the good of the people but it is quite difficult to make strenuous efforts to achieve such objectives. Claims are generally made to hoodwink the gullible masses and serve own interests in the name of serving the society.
Names of political parties may, thus , be misleading. Names may portend that a political party stands for high political standards but in practice its leaders might be involved in serving very narrow interests. They may claim to follow the ideals of some great leader but in practice may be doing just the opposite. Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Laloo Prasad Yadav or only two examples.
Samajwai Party claims to stand for the socialist ideology of Dr ram Manohar Lohia. But its behaviour never reflects that it has to do anything to achieve what Dr Lohia wanted to. Socialism of Dr Lohia meant annihilation of the caste system to build a society based on justice and equality.Samajwadi Party , on the contrary, has blatantly strengthened casteism to serve the interests of kinsmen of its leader.Dr Ram Manohar Lohia condemned with equal vehemence communalism of all kinds.For the Samajwadi Party the bogey of communalism is raised only selectively with the objective of polarising votes during elections.
Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad Yadav again professes to work for the uplift of the backward classes.But in practice it serves the interests of one clan.Its secularism is also no different from the secularism of the Samajwad Party.
So long as this gap between political pretension and practice persists, there seems little hope for the people.
