"Congratulations, Mr...., for your entry into politics as a novice! Welcome if you intend to represent the future voters and your future constituency's gentry with a sincere heart and an open mind. Remember, you are treading a possibly unfamiliar path, which may be winding and tortuous, demanding sacrifices and sanctions, and even brickbats, more than bouquets!

One more thing: if you ever get tempted to slip into murky politics and itch to do fence-jumping or party-hopping or want to take shelter in washing machines, such folly will be your nemesis. It would then be more honourable to save your honour, forget about your political career, rewind, and rush home with an honest face."

These were the welcome words with which I greeted a friend and a young tribal gentleman who announced his candidature for a vacant assembly seat. A newcomer with lots of aspirations in his newly acquired political kit, he has an MBA and a PhD and just retired from RBI banking service. He also has a good interest in social activism.

Today we need good gentlemen and ladies in the political arena. There is much poverty of committed men and women in our national and state politics. We need educated and talented people who can creatively think and act to steer the nation to peace and prosperity.

We have seen much, heard much and felt much about our politicians. Since our nation won independence and became a Republic, we have had many men of integrity, grit, and calibre, coupled with their commitment and dedication. They used politics as an instrument to bring prosperity and development and not as a tool for their self-glory. To such men and women of honour and valour, personal integrity mattered the most. The good of the nation came above hearth and home!

But, sadly, things have changed over the decades. We have had and still have politicians with ambitions for power and self-glory. Politics is their favourite business. To quite many, a family business! Service to the nation or commitment to the electorate or the general public takes a back seat in their agenda. They have made politics nauseatingly vulgar. They act as windbags, promising much and delivering little. Often, they are experts in 'jumlas' and adept in hoodwinking the public.

Corruption is their trademark by consorting with unholy elements, cunning contractors and fawning business lobby. They care little when bridges collapse like a house of cards, when tunnels give way, or when train accidents kill thousands. They have no qualms about selling national assets to cronies and crooks for a pittance as if those assets are disposable waste. When the housewife gets caught in the vortex of price rise, they will deliver their 'milk of human kindness' by saying, we don't eat onion, so why bother; leave onion alone!

We have also seen how agenda-based politicians stir the communal cauldron to gather political windfall. Priests and pujaris, sadhus and sadhwins strut on the political stage, spewing communal venom, wanting to pit one religion against another.

One of the most distressing trends we notice among our politicians, across parties, is crossing to other parties, like changing their underclothes. They show no shame in stabbing the voters in the back. The voters voted for him or her as a politician of a particular party. But, the crumb-grabbing politicians or disgruntled quirks leave their party and join another party. This trend is noticed very often just before elections. Not getting a ticket for oneself or one's daughter or wife, one hop-steps into another party. Later, disillusioned, they limp back to the parent party.

Some rush to the washing machine to get cleaned and sanitised from all their criminal perversions. Such party-jumping should be treated as a criminal operation, and its exercitants should be banned for life. Let them take political sanyasas and go home to expend their breath to cool their cup of tea. Under no circumstance should a party-changing politician be pardoned and accommodated in any other party. He has lost his ideology, character and integrity. He has prostituted his allegiance to the voters to savour the vulgar pleasure of dastardly and salacious politics.

Our political arena is suffused with insincerity, backstabbing, stinking corruption, self-aggrandisement, and the like. How do we tolerate such political parasites and social misfits? We are told to wait with bated breath for the next election, only to be fooled and dragged into despair.

That is why I instructed the young political hopeful to be cautious about the murky politics which he may be tempted to indulge in as time passes.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton's succinct message is a reminder that people can get drunk with power, and once that happens, there is no turning back. This is so true in the lives of many of our politicians. The potion of politics makes them thirst for more. Then they turn out to be political scoundrels, fundamentalist diehards, hate-spewing communal criminals or bulldozer-operating goons. Anyone, even an illiterate or social misfit, can get elected and can become a CM or PM. That is the most unfortunate part of our party politics. Such elements, without ideology or integrity, will take the electorate and even the nation for a ride.

It is time for young, talented, and committed youngsters to enter politics and bring about a sea change in the political space. We have a few, but we need more! We need daring men and women who can gently push aside politicians who are deteriorating with senility or are corrupt to the core but holding on to the chair as if it is the only source of bread and butter. We look for politicians who can call a spade a spade and prove that quality service has space in India.