For any nation to be strong, people at the last mile needs to be empowered. Politically and theoretically this is not rocketing science and the slogan Roti, kapra aur makan (food, clothing, and shelter) is going on from the day we got our independence.

The question is how long this slogan of the political class will continue? Why are we not able to go to the next phase of upliftment? Why during an election every five years we get the same copy-paste manifesto with the central theme of garibi hatao! (Remove poverty).   

Well, the poverty eradication programme is good on papers, statistics are available in Parliament and Government departments, but has it reached out to the people or are there pilferages? Well, the problem had been debated in a number of platforms and I do not want to get into the details here. What are the solutions available to the nation at large?

Before we touch upon key road maps let us understand what benefit the nation will derive by empowering its people who are standing at the end of the queue.

Nation cannot take the burden of an illiterate, unhealthy and unproductive population.

We need education, skills, nutrition to reach the last man-the common man so that he can be made to work and thus contribute to the productivity of the nation.

The social evil of communalism, extortion, terrorism, ethnic and regional divides shall not make a healthy environment for our next generation. What we sow today, our next generation shall reap tomorrow.

The question is what quality of seeds we want to sow today? We definitely want a better society to emerge where opportunities are more, and threats are limited.

We need to create opportunities for all otherwise there shall remain a tug of war between the haves and have nots. The rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer is not a healthy index in any parlance.

Gone are the days when you can appear after five years with your big slogans and convince the common man. The common man is demanding results. This is very much evident from the voting pattern where no one is sure who is going to come to power. This is a good sign to keep the political class on their toes and increase accountability.

The implementation process is dependent on Government machinery and here the role of bureaucrat plays vital and if the political masters are sincere the implementation is bound to happen.

We need grass-roots activism where the benefits of infrastructure such as roads, power, and health services are reaching the last mile; technology facilitating efficient monitoring, an administration functioning with milestone base targets, political class showing the sincere leadership of creating social impacts.

A big nation like ours should be a confident one and if all the stakeholders can synchronise themselves, it is possible to create a big difference.

There are no alternatives but to usher in empowerment to the last man, the political class has tried every trick for the last seventy-plus years but now the time has come where the goalpost has to be changed.

Today, politics cannot be done sitting at the Parliament and from the corridor of power, today one has to face the man standing at the last mile. He is the common man. Let’s connect him!