182. Question Paper for Political Statement Making

Question paper for the examination of Paper V (Political Statement Making), Party Politics Course

Answer any five. Each question carries ten marks.

1. Write a letter for a magazine accusing the opposition party of not adhering to democracy. Argue how they are fundamentally autocratic. Conclude the letter by explaining why all opposition should be abolished to save democracy.

2. You are a member of the legislative assembly and your youngest son has died of drug overdose. Prepare three statements for the media with the following three goals:

(i) To garner public sympathy

(ii) To establish yourself as a martyr for the country

(iii) To divert public attention away from your son.

3. Describe the various forms and uses of propaganda in electoral democracy.

4. (i) Choose any religious community and prepare a short speech to hurt its sentiments.

(ii) Write a scathing reply on behalf of that community.

5. Write a report on your local football match in the language of a violent demonstration.

6. Write a 200 words article for a journal to explain why people should care for political ideologies when all they want are better roads and 24 hours water supply.

165. Syllabus for Ideology, Blindness and Righteousness

Part of the syllabus of Paper IV (Ideology, Blindness and Righteousness), Party Politics Course

1. The Greater Common Good and the Insignificant Individual. Today’s pain, the day after the day after tomorrow’s inflation adjusted, non-taxable, encashable in coins gain. Definitions: progress, development, sustainability, nationalism, democratic process, honourable minister.

(…)

3. The One Leader system. How to accept a person’s greatness without any proof. How to reject everybody else with passion. The concept of one person restoring the nation’s lost glory. Simple analysis of why that glory got lost in the first place and if there was actually any glory to start with. Fellowship under One Leader. Important terminology related to the performance and policy making capability of One Leader: long term benefit, derailed, stalled, shortsighted opposition, unforseen events, mass demonstration, biased media, fight against something, revolution against something, protection of something and something about employment or some other thing.

4. Basics of self-righteousness: there are 7 billion people on earth, but what I think is always right. Self-defined patriotism. How to judge people. The Reverse-Sherlock method: forming a judgement, then finding evidence. (…)

5. Failure of an ideology. When the One Leader loses the election. Changing political views in three hours. How to befriend people from opposition party. Quick adoption of another One Leader. How to develop absolute faith in the new One Leader and declare the same in public.

151. Syllabus for Introduction to Daily Politics

Part of the syllabus of Paper III (Introduction to Daily Politics), Party Politics Course

(…)

2. Appearance: according to rank, hierarchy, season and obesity. Accessories. How to convert black money into accessories. Basic western wear for grassroot functionaries and classical Indian wear for leaders. Suitable clothing for the following appearances: veteran, menacing, energetic, liberal, conservative, left wing, right wing, guerrilla, leader of the poor, descendant of a princely state etc.

3. Body Language: walking, standing, sitting and looking at people. How to get in and get out of a car. How to hide rotten upbringing and deplorable education standards. Study of movement of eyebrows. Standing next to a powerful leader: behind or beside. Expressing grateful delight in presence of a powerful leader, subtle highhandedness towards non-political childhood friends, self assurance and confidence in front of the police and holier-than-thou attitude in front of opposition. How to walk like one who wields immense power.

(…)

6. Aggression: threats, warnings, final warnings. Failure of subjects to comprehend warning. How to make false threats look real. How to make real threats in subtle ways. How to scare people by clenching feasts, messaging the neck and having bloodshot eyes. Study of human anatomy. Study of gorillas.

139. A Financial Spectacle

From the introduction of The Largest Democracy by Suneel Goel (Suggested Reading, Party Politics, Paper II – Elections)

Among all the tested and untested political systems, democracy is the most profitable one for India. Democracy calls a large number of parties into existence and automatically sets a common and simple goal for each– to win elections.

These political parties employ a great number of functionaries in order to achieve the electoral goal and as a collateral also provide livelihood and meaning of life to many.

These functionaries are paid by party funds which are generated by donations, corruptions and extortions, among others. However, none of these can be effective while the said party is not in power. 

And since there are multiple parties, it is of existential importance that every party gets to spend some time in the government. Or else, millions of party functionaries and their various dependents will starve.

The mechanism that guarantees that each party goes through such rotational earning phases is called an election. Elections see to it that every party can feed its cadres, even if intermittently.

This particular function of the electoral system indicates that election is the largest financial process in modern India and the Election Commission the most important financial establishment.

135. Syllabus for Elections

Part of the syllabus of Paper II (Elections), Party Politics Course

1. Democracy and elections – The Five Year Contract. Purposes of elections: constituting a government, creating political awareness among people, rotation of corruption, bringing leaders down to earth, protection from tyranny and dictatorship, keeping the media in business etc. (…)

(…)

3. Budget for campaigning. Funding and sources of funding. Confidentiality Act between Sponsor and Candidate. Structure, function and laws of the Underworld. Protocols of approaching the mafia for funding. Return of favours once election is won. Contractual death threats at failure to perform. (…)

4. Election campaigning – Dehydration, gastritis and fatigue. Clothing, accessories and helping lads. One month’s pain, five years’ gain. Campaigning by foot, car and via media. Silent campaigning. Loud and obnoxious campaigning. Campaigning in media. Reaction to opposition and public questions. Immunity against: insults, logic, reason, pleading, duty, blame and humiliation. (…)

(…)

7. Conducting elections – The dual nature of election turnout. (…). Despotic, tyrannical and one party elections. Case study: elections conducted by Adolph Hitler, Saddam Hussain and Kim Jung-un. 

(…)

134. Despotic Elections

Classnotes (Case Study, Party Politics)

Despotic Election

A despotic election is one in which one or all of the following conditions are met:

i) The opposition party gets less than 3% of total votes.

ii) The entire campaigning budget for the opposition party is less than 50$.

iii) The candidate of the opposition party doubles as the chief campaign manager of the ruling party.

iv) Total turn out for the election is more than 98%.

v) The Election Commission is set up only during the election.

vi) The opposition party has no headquarters, no registered members and no clear political agenda.

vii) The opposition party had come to existence only after the current ruling party had come into power.

viii) Any other party that had existed earlier are not present in any form.

123. Notice for Party Politics Course Students

Workshop for Students of Party Politics Course 

A workshop on Writing Political Graffiti will be held at the NILS on Wednesday, 31^st October, 2018.

The workshop will cover areas such as types of walls, types of paints, stenciling, drawing party symbols, night time painting, torch light painting etc.

This workshop is free for Party Politics students and chargeable (Rs.100/-) for other students of NILS.

120. Checklist for Local Political Leaders

Handout given in class (Party Politics, Paper III – Introduction to Daily Politics)

Checklist for local male political 

leaders/functionaries/power seekers in India :

- 40 inch waist

- Three mobile phones

- An old motorcycle not used anymore, but lent for free to assistants, helping hands etc.

- Metal frame watch, preferably golden

- White sports shoes

- A towel handkerchief

- Unending supply of Indian clothes

- Ability to talk in a slow tempo with a loud voice

- Refusing sweets in the name of diet or diabetes

- Young and unemployed party helpers waiting in front of the house whole day

- SUV (never drive, but sit in front)

113. Important and Very Important

A male student from Party Politics course and a female student from Social Media Usage course are talking in the canteen during break.

Girl: How do you start gaining power?

Boy: By working out (winks).

Girl: Very smart. Political power, not Batman power.

Boy (seriously): By knowing people who are more powerful than you. That is the foundation of power.

Girl: I know who is the president of India. But that does not make me anybody special.

Boy: No, then billions of people would be very powerful. It is not only about you knowing them, it is also about them knowing you and…

Girl: But that number will be small. Most of such powerful people will not bother to remember me, because as per your logic, they will also try to know people who are more powerful than they themselves are. I am unimportant to them.

Boy: I did not finish my explanation. I had stopped with an ‘and’.

Girl: Then please continue.

Boy: So, it is about them knowing you, and more precisely, them allowing you to make direct contact with them.

Girl: Allow you to talk to them?

Boy: To be pragmatic, allow you to call them in their mobile. The more personal mobiles numbers of political leaders you can have at your disposal, the more powerful you are. Power is all about contacts.

Girl: So, if you break a traffic rule, you can call such a person and get out of jail free.

Boy: That might be possible, yes. But to get such access to such a person, you need to spend a lot of time with the people involved in politics. You need both time and effort. Breaking the law is not as easy as you think.

Girl: Mmm…you are learning to be diplomatic already. Are you collecting important mobile numbers already?

Boy: Yes, just started with it. We were given a task of collecting at least five such important numbers.

Girl: How many have you got?

Boy: Two important and one very important.

Girl: Very important? Whose number is that? The Governor’s?

Boy: No, it is your number.

104. Copy-Paste Politics

Class Activity (Party Politics, Paper V – Political Statement Making)

Teacher: “Today we work on copy-paste statements. The topic for discussion today is high taxation imposed by the government. Half of you will speak as opposition and half as supporters.

“Here is a bunch of newspapers from the last week. Distribute them among yourselves. Go through them, find sentences that are suitable for the topic and cut them out of the papers. Scissors are kept here on my table. Try to get about 8-10 sentences.

“Once you have them, arrange them in an orderly fashion and stick them on a sheet of paper. Glue sticks are also kept on my table.

“Now read the text that you have just created by pasting the cut-out sentences. The text will feel artificial and at times quite incoherent.

“Incoherent is not a problem. That is normal. However, we will need to work on making them sound authentic. To do that we will need to open a thesaurus, which is a book of synonyms, and replace as many words as possible with their synonyms.

"Then the finished product will be a political statement on taxation, which is copy pasted from newspapers, but modiefied enough to sound authentic."

94. A Truck Runs Over a Child

From Spoken Politics by L. Sheshadri and N. K. Muthurangam (Suggested Reading, Party Politics, Paper III – Ideology, Blindness and Righteousness)

Situation 2: A child has been run over by a truck while playing on a highway in the morning. You are a local politician. Prepare your arguments from a right, centre and left point of view.

Hints: If you are from a right party, argue in the line of schools being filled up by children whose parents have come from other states or areas of the country. As a result local kids have no chance of education. Hence they end up roaming around unsupervised and get run over. Demand separate reservation of seats and special treatment for local people speaking the local language.

If you are from a centre party, spend some hours with the family of the unfortunate child. Donate some taxpayers’ money to his/her father. Argue, that you are helpless to provide justice because the truck driver has left the country. Demand resignation of some minister.

If you are from a left party, argue in the line of industrialists setting up factories in such areas that trucks carrying materials have to ply through residential areas. Talk about the indifference and cruelty of a capitalist business owner. Demand jobs in that factory for twenty local labourers.

82. Paper I Project Titles

Students have submitted their projects for the first papers of each course. Some of the titles are given below.

First Papers:

Social Media Usage: Principles of Profiles

Party Politics: Political Systems and Parties

Family Management: Joint and Nuclear Family

Office Dynamics: Work Environment and Colleagues

Time Management: Task-Time Relations

Project Titles:

Nosy Brother or Nosy Neighbour – Privacy in Joint and Nuclear Families (Family Management)

Party Colours – A Worldwide Survey (Party Politics)

Radial and Parallel Multitasking (Time Management)

Lies, Damn Lies and Facebook Profiles (Social Media Usage)

Projecting Ambition through Social Media (Social Media Usage)

Work from Home – Advantage, Disadvantage, Abuse and Misuse (Office Dynamics)

The Religious Communists (Party Politics)

A Voyeuristic Survey on Romance in My Workplace (Office Dynamics)

Joint Family – Symbol of Indian Tradition, Harmony and 

Television Industry (Family Management)

A Brief Mistry of Time (Time Management)

79. Not For The People

From a student’s notebook (Application Session, Party Politcs)

Left	Centre	Right
Hide personal wealth	Show personal wealth	Hide personal wealth but show family wealth
Speak in regional language	Speak in English	Speak in Hindi
People are more important than nation	Nothing really matters	Nation is more important than people
Wear cheap clothes	Wear expensive clothes	Wear traditional clothes, irrespective of price
Follow what the party says	Follow what a leader says	Follow what interpretations of scriptures say
Election: Poison	Election: Most important	Election: Needed to come to power. Then poison.
Be male	Be cunning	Be male
Committee	Parlament	Training Ground
Of the people	By the people	Of the people

78. On the Boards in Classrooms

On The Boards

Social Media Usage – Paper III, Basic Writing Skills

Homework: Write a “Share to 20 people in 10 minutes” text on war casualties.

Party Politics – Paper III, Introduction to Daily Politics

(Nothing on the board)

Family Management – Paper III, Core and Extended Family

The teacher is drawing two pairs of circles on the board. One pair is concentric and the other one is overlapping.

English for Chatting – Paper II, English Writing

it, you, they

its, your, their

it’s, you’re, they’re

Office Dynamics – Paper III, Working in Team

What are the different types of colleagues in a team?

Time Management – Paper III, Goal Setting

Today’s Topic:

Obstacles – demolish or climb?

Work-Life Balancing – Paper II, Space and Time

Survey: Are you happy with your allocated space at work?

Yes	No

66. The Seven Political Systems

From One For The Cabinet by Samuel Duval (Suggested Reading, Party Politics, Paper I – Political Systems and Parties)

The political parties can be divided into seven spatial categories based on their ideologies.

The LEFT parties stand behind the have-nots and aim to form a mandatory brotherhood by forcefully demolishing national boundaries, cultural traditions and colourful buildings.

The RIGHT parties stand behind the have-pride-but-no-jobs and aim to form associations of violent volunteers in various different magnitudes.

The CENTRE parties do not care for any of the above or pretty much anything as long as people vote and industrialists donate.

The FRONT parties feel embarrassed by the past, neglect the present and hope for a dreamlike future. Random unplanned oppression is usually explained as The Greater Common Good.

The BEHIND parties feel it is their ultimate calling to reestablish a long gone, half-forgotten and mostly mythical realm or kingdom instead of whatever is present now.

The UP parties believe in the natural superiority of the born-rich and claim that ruling is a job for the elite just as coal mining is a job for the poor.

The DOWN parties are formed by the racially and economically downtrodden people. They believe that one day a hero will come and deliver them from their misery. And once the hero has drained the party funds to make his own fortune, they wait for the next hero to come and deliver them from the same misery.  

63. Five Different Courses

Venue: National Institute of Life Skills. Time: 7 pm.

Social Media Usage:

The teacher is explaining a home assignment: “Ask your friends and family members about what type of personal information they have shared lately on social media. Then find out where they shared it - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, WhatsApp or some other platform? Bring your survey to class next Friday for a discussion.”

Party Politics:

The students are learning how to create tentative budgets for election campaigns.

Family Management

On the board:

Today’s Question: What type of compromises are expected from a newlywed husband or wife?

Office Dynamics

Participants are playing a game to practice spreading rumour more effectively. The rules are written on the board.

(On the board)

1. Ask another person about three important events of her/his life. 

2. Make up a fourth fictitious event.

3. Tell others all four and ask them to guess which is false.

4. For every correct guess you get -1.

Time Management

The students are seeing a video about the symptoms, treatment and preventive measures for Lastminutepanicosis.