By IANS,
New Delhi : Personal success and achievement are being given importance nowadays by growing sections of the people, including the political class and even the judiciary, while public service is being ignored, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee said here Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, over the years, growing sections, representing practically all walks of life, more so the political class and most worrisomely even some associated with the other vital institutions like the judiciary, have begun to think that values and principles are dispensable attributes, giving primacy only to personal successes and achievements,” Chatterjee said.
Delivering a speech at the plenary session on ‘New National Order Grounded on Values’, the speaker said: “Public service, including politics and other society-oriented vocations, are no longer seen as noble activities for the benefit of the people.”
“Politics, in particular, today is seen as all about the ‘art of the possible’, which signifies that neither the means nor the end matters,” Chatterjee said.
“The country is overtaken by intolerance, divisiveness, corruption, violence, conflict and disrespect for democratic dissent, which are seriously vitiating our political life, as well as social cohesion.”
“Such confrontational politics has made caste, creed, language, region and religion divisive issues, seeking to mould public opinion around them, and sections of our political spectrum are depending on the same to get political advantage by emphasizing on issues that divide the people than what unite them.”
“Leadership based on such dangerously divisive factors seems to be oblivious to our most cherished national values such as secularism, socialism, respect for pluralism, inclusiveness, tolerance and co-existence.”
Without referring to the recent attacks against Hindi speaking people in Maharashtra and the Orissa violence, the speaker said: “Several recent incidents in our country have exhibited politicians, and even so-called cultural organisations, taking recourse to violent and unethical means, which essentially depended on crime and rabid anti-social elements.”
Referring to the cash for queries scandal, Chatterjee said, “The malady of money power has become so deep rooted that it has even begun to intervene directly with the functioning of our core democratic institutions.”
Politics and other concerned areas of national life, including business community and even a section of the judiciary, which is also under cloud today, should be infused with moral values.
Supreme Court Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan also addressed the session.