Monday, January 23, 2006

PARITRANA- Is this finally the true long awaited "For the people,by the people and of the people"?

I was a bit shocked when I read the news a group a 5 IITians have floated a political party called Paritrana in Jodhpur. The first thing that came to my mind was “Are these guys out of their minds?” and don’t blame my line of thinking, each one of them has enough credentials to earn a big pay packet and pass the rest of their life like us (complaining about the way the situation in India is but not really bothering to do anything). But if you think deeply enough its just not the comfortable pay packet that they have given up… its much more than that. It’s a life time of pointing fingers at others which they have given up which if u ask me is the most difficult thing to do in our society as it stands.

Paritrana is made up of:

Tanmay Rajpurohit (National President)
B. Tech (Aerospace) IIT Bombay, MS (Aerospace) Georgia Tech. USA, MA (Economics)NewYork, USA.

Ajit Ashwalayan Shukla (National Vice-President)
B. Tech (Mechanical) IIT Bombay, M. Tech. (Mechanical) IIT Bombay.

Amit Beesen (National Vice-President)
B. Tech (Mechanical) IIT Bombay.

Santhanagopalan Vasudev (Chief Advisor)
B.S. (Physics) Kansas, USA, M.A.(Economics) UIUC, USA.

Chandrashekhar (National Treasurer)
B. Tech. (Computer Sc.) IIT Kanpur.

Dheeraj Kumbhat (National General Secretary)

Clearly having an array of degrees after your name does not necessarily make the political party the best but it definitely paves a ray of hope that something different and something concrete could happen here. It sounds,looks and feels like straight out of the movie "Yuva" .

The whole concept is idealistic and a highly audacious move in a country like ours where an IIM graduate was murdered for thinking straight.

It stands a risk of sounding more like a dream, but I hope this is where their motto “May you be as tough as rock” from the Rig Veda comes into the picture. I for one hope that this party succeeds in making a mark on the country unlike the others.

The guys are proposing to tour a few cities in India. Only time will tell whether these rocks can withstand the slow erosion in the nature of our current political set up.