Politics needs educated professionals, explains Shashi Tharoor, head of AIPC

“Many Indians shy away from politics as a profession because of the belief that the scope for professionals is limited. The creation of the Professionals’ Congress shows that this is changing. My hope is therefore that, by the 2020s, there will be many more educated, professional middle-class Indians in politics – and that they will do better than I have managed to do so far,” says Shashi Tharoor, a senior Lok Sabha leader, who will be heading All India Professionals’ Congress(AIPC), an initiative set up by the All India Congress Committee(AICC) to rope in professionals from different backgrounds.

Stressing that India needs professionals in politics, he further says, “Around the world, the educated taxpaying professional classes are normally the ones who bring values and convictions to a country’s politics, and who have the most direct stake in questions of what a government can and cannot do. But often members of the educated taxpaying professional class abstain from the process, and all too often look at it with contempt. They don’t show up to vote in large numbers; whereas the poor in India do vote, the middle-class disempowers itself by its disdain.”

“It’s striking that while 12 of the last 16 American Presidential nominees of the two major US political parties were graduates of either Harvard or Yale, the products of our best educational institutions rarely venture into politics,” he says, and points out that “In India, the kids who “conquer our most exclusive universities” would for the most part consider it beneath themselves to step into the muck and mire of our country's politics.”

An initiative like the Professionals’ Congress will ensure that more professionals with skills and qualifications, but no political background, come into politics,” he says, adding that when you think about the future of India, think also of getting involved in politics. The nation needs you.

“Are you a talented professional interested in politics? Professionals’ Congress or AIPC, a newly-formed department of the Congress Party, is your platform to contribute to the advancement of progressive politics in India! If you have leadership, organisational, technological or management skills and if you believe in democratic values of liberty, plurality, equality and social justice, we want you!” This is how AIPC gives its introduction on the website, adding that all the work on the AIPC platform will directly feed into supporting the Congress Party’s political goals and objectives.

“The idea of AIPC germinated from the assessment that professionals in today’s India are disconnected from politics, a starkly different situation from the first couple of decades after Indian independence. The fundamental purpose of AIPC’s existence is to build an ecosystem centred around connecting our Fellows to the political domain,” reads a description on AIPC’s website.

It adds: “Our fellows will help promote AIPC’s core tenets of liberty, equality, plurality and social justice and work to achieving these political goals for themselves and millions of fellow Indians.”