WHITHER INDIA?Part-2
Dr. Yerneni VenkateswaraRao
Retired Principle
Akkineni NageswaraRao College
Guduvada -A.P
If the legislative branch of the government
has thus become totally corrupt, thoroughly immoral and highly self centred,
the executive branch has not lagged far behind. Each, unfortunately has been
vying with the other all these years, in doing its damnedest by the country and
setting ever lower standards of misconduct, depravity and degradation with no
compunction in flouting every democratic decency and norm and has almost
succeeded in touching the nadir. Transfer of power from the British to Indian
hands resulted in the change of government without a corresponding change in
the ‘steel frame’ and the tone and tenor of the administration. The colonial
character and elite orientation of the administration with built –in mistrust
of and cultivated aloofness from the people continued unabated without yielding
place to democratic ethos and people friendly approach to suit the altered
reality. Thus the only conspicuous change that seemed to have taken place
following the transfer of power was in the colour of the skin of the top brass
among bureaucrats and that of the rulers of the country with everything else
remaining unaltered including the style and substance of the colonial
governance with all its vicious characteristics and none of its redeeming
features. We only succeeded in decolonizing our country but not our minds.
Easier perhaps it is to be liberated from alien rule but far more difficult to
be liberated from the colonial mind-set.
Worse, involvement of the bureaucracy in
the country’s planned developmental process, which had started in a small way
initially has come to acquire with the passage of time an octopus like spread
touching every aspect of the life of the people in the form of a maze of state
controls, licences , permits, quotas and regulations with the inevitable result
that governance of the country has become so thoroughly enmeshed in
bureaucratic stranglehold that it has come to a virtual stand-still. In this
environment of regulatory repression the phenomenon of small time bureaucratic
corruption and extortion , a low- risk and high profit business, though
undoubtedly a carry over from the days of the British raj has become broadened
and deepened so enormously as to assume its present day monstrous proportions
touching on every facet of our national life and today , we have another
dubious distinction of being the seventh most corrupt nation in the world.
Unless urgent steps are initiated to ensure
probity in public life and observance of moral standards among the bureaucrats
and the governing elite, corruption with its cancerous proclivities will soon
ruin the country by crippling the economy, fouling up social norms and
paralysing democratic and constitutional institutions. The phenomenon of
corrupting institutions first started with the clamping of emergency on that
fateful midnight of June 26, 1975 soon culminated into the far more pernicious
peril of institutionalising corruption, and the situation today evokes not only
disgust but also fury and indignation. The loathsome fact is that out of 85
countries, India’s rank is 66 in the Corruption Perception Index 1998 as
prepared by the German NGO, Transparency International, Berlin. Any further
delay in the matter means losing our only opportunity to steer the country out
of certain disaster before it escalates into a major catastrophe which the
country can ill afford
Over 40 years of Nehruvian Socialism
ensuring as it did the extension of the deadening hand of government into every
sphere of this nation’s life has put the citizens of the world’s largest
democracy at the mercy of the Babus of the world’s largest bureaucracy for
everything—a veritable case of paving the way to hell with good intentions. The
government, in its over ambitious bid to do everything, has started handling
many affairs it should not have handled, could not handle or could not handle
well and inevitably ended up messing everything up. The government was
overactive in areas of control and licensing, which was reflected by the so
called ‘License Raj’ where it was counter-productive, and underactive or
inactive in fields of education, health care , child nutrition, social security
and land reforms in which government activity could be positive as rightly
pointed out by Prof Amartya Sen , Nobel Laureate. Many well-meaning initiatives
were soon turned into bureaucratic nightmares.
Power corrupts but excessive power apparently breeds contempt too. How
else can one understand the most appalling ways of misgovernance which has
overtaken us if not as eloquent testimony to the contempt in which our state
holds its citizens. Thus, in short, the state and the civil society instead of
relating to each other in terms of expectations , obligations and societal well
being have come to treat one another apathetically , if not downright
adversarially. The state and the civil society have drifted apart, the corrupt
political state hijacking democracy by
arrogating to itself totalitarian authority in the garb of democracy. The
alienation between the two is so total as to merit their characterization as
‘democratic kings/queens’ and ‘social beneficiaries’. ‘Might’ and
‘self-interest’ and not ‘right’ and ‘public interest’ have come to occupy the
centre stage in independent India’s governance.
Now for a change, before closing this
account, it is both appropriate and necessary to turn the search light on the
intellectuals among us as a class and ask if we have covered ourselves with
glory by our omissions and commissions during the last fifty years. I’m afraid
the answer will necessarily have to be in the negative. We seemed to have
almost forgotten that in a democracy, those that provide manpower to take on
the public roles are as important as those that man the professions and
institutions--educational, cultural and social—or, those that opt for the bar
and the bench or go into the services and the executive branch, especially the
higher echelons of it or plump for the corporate and media sectors. We have
gradually withdrawn from the former and have begun concentrating more and more
on the latter opting for the safety of the seclusion behind the fortified /
heavily barred doors of our citadels in the shape of our chosen occupations,
nay, preoccupations in preference to the rough and tumble of the political
arena. So deeply have we become engrossed in doing our own thing that we fail
to see our withdrawal from public life for what it really is; a detraction from
the proposition that politics is a serious business not to be left to be looked
after by anybody and everybody. What is more, we have tacitly assumed that we
have a right not only to enjoy all the perquisites of wealth and privilege in
the safety of our self-imposed seclusion but also to decide that those in
public life undertaking demanding and essential tasks in a democracy should
settle for a saintly lifestyle. This is of course , based on the expectation of
high standards of public life set by the leaders of the freedom struggle most
of whom were drawn from the intellectual class—a fact often shoved aside or
forgotten altogether.
But the unfortunate fact is that the
political space vacated by the intellectuals has been taken over by all sorts
of people with questionable character , dubious credentials and doubtful
motivations with the single minded objective of sharing or better still,
capturing power and cornering the loaves and fishes of office. Now to expect
them to live by the standards of life prescribed by us in the way of simplicity
, courage, honesty and industry is the height of absurdity if not downright
naivety. Nevertheless, we plunge into despondency and desperation whenever
there is deviation from those standards which unfortunately, is almost always,
and indulge in the by now intellectually fashionable and creatively as well as
morally satisfying hobby of abusing the politicians, that too with an easy
conscience of one doing one’s duty. Is it not hypocrisy of the highest order?
Should we not have known in the first
instance that in every age and claim, the society naturally looks up for
guidance and inspiration to its intellectuals? Now what is it that we in India
have done to our society by way of response to such expectations and
aspirations? We have let it down badly first by abdicating our right to lead it
and secondly, by disowning our fundamental obligation nad moral responsibility
to ensure that politics continues to be a sphere of selfless service as it used
to be during the pre independence days instead of degenerating into the state
of crass commerce as it is today. Next should we have forgotten that when the
best retire yielding place to the worst , the latter will get worse and worse
leading to the demise of virtue in society, and that the society that has
forgotten virtue is doomed to perish? Finally, should we be reminded of the
patent fact that unless and until we brace ourselves up and return to public life in a big way and
play our due role as society’s conscience keepers and show the way to others by
living up to the high hopes and aspirations of the society, which we now expect others to do and despair of when they
fall short of those expectations, we will be failing in our duty to our
motherland. Our preference for the defensive and the reactive rather than for
the offensive and the pro-active or the pre-emptive naturally leaves the
initiative in the hands of others and inevitably robs us of our moral stature
and ethical wholesomeness.
Instead of doing the obvious, we indulge in
a lot of carping criticism of others.
The only consequence of such an indulgence
has been our alienation from the vast masses of the people who, for lack of a
better alternative, have started reposing their confidence in the very same
people who happen to be the targets of our stinging tirades and diatribes. And
what is still worse, some of us intellectuals, depend on the government manned
by the very politicians, whom we run down indiscriminately as a matter of
course, and demand support from it for our/their lifestyle by way of funding
for research, travel grants, membership of this or that committee etc. etc. as
a matter of right; a few even fawn upon the political leadership to achieve
their narrow selfish ends thereby tarnishing the self-image of the
intellectuals as a class.
Finally, how many of us, who consider it
our misfortune to be governed by the less knowledgeable and least deserving
current crop of politicians who are debauching our democratic system on a daily
basis, stir out of our self-built cocoon of cosy comfort to vote in the
elections? Do we have to be told that a casual, indifferent and self-centred
citizen is a danger to democracy? We are never tired of declaiming against
corruption, dishonesty, insincerity and irresponsibility of our politicians and
elected representatives and routinely demand that they observe ethical and
moral standards in their functioning as public servants. But can we honestly
claim the right to question and criticize them if we do not even care to
exercise our franchise let alone contest in elections/ an elementary gesture
expected of a responsible citizen in a democracy? Is this any way to prove that
our commitment to good governance is genuine and our criticism of the present
ruling elite sincere? If people tend to be sceptical of our intentions and
concerns about commonweal and public goo, who should be blamed? Is it not a
prime example of good people paving the way for bad governments by their apathy
and complacency?
Suspected by the masses on the one hand and
shunned by the political leadership on the other, our marginalization from
public life and political process has become total. When, in Yeats words,
The best lack all conviction, while the
worst
Are full of passionate intensity
(How) can things be otherwise?
The glaring disconnect between us and the
vast majority of the people must be ended immediately.
Doesn’t all this add up to a matter of
national shame and sorrow?
Utterly revolting as this is, this drama
has gone on for far too long generating in the process a ground swell of
popular contempt for and scepticism about both the venal politicians and the
malfeasant bureaucrats, and cynicism and despair about the country’s future so
much so that our very nationhood is in peril today.
Can there ever be an end to this barely
managed chaos, this theatre of the absurd, this macabre spectacle? Yes, maybe;
of late certain positive intimations have started coming in. In an effort to
stem the rot in the body politic by putting paid to the cruel joke on the
people to which the democratic process has been reduced by the machinations of
the unscrupulous and the unprincipled, the institutional checks and balances ,
our constitution makers have so wisely incorporated in it, have at last begun
to assert themselves. The Election Commission and the Judiciary largely
adhering to the path of probity and integrity have become more and more assertive
in checking the many malpractices and criminal conduct, both in elections and
public life and in restoring a semblance of governance to the country.
The Election Commission, besides conducting
several recent elections in the country, in a credible and creditable way, has
rightly set about the task of regulating the activities and restoring inner
party democracy of political parties by insisting on organizational elections
as per the respective party constitutions as a first step towards ensuring a
truly democratic functioning of the government.
That there is a crying need for revamping the political party system in
the country by making it better structured, ideology based and democratically
run is so brilliantly patent as not to need any elucidation/reiteration. After
all , what can be more reasonable than expecting that a political party aspiring to come to power in
a democracy should itself be a democratic body? And happily, the self-styled
champions of democracy who have, for all practical purposes, strangulated and
subverted it in their own parties through unaccountable and undemocratic
practices and who have for long been accustomed to dictating from the top like
medieval potentates in the name of ‘democratic centralism’, consensus or some
such euphemism for authoritarianism have been rudely shaken out of their
complacency and scurrying about to comply with its mandate. Similarly, the
steps taken by the Election Commission to check money power in elections,
particularly its insistence on strict observance of limits on election
expenditure, by candidates and parties have begun yielding fruits in the shape
of less ostentatious campaigns in recent elections, which is another equally
commendable development.
Yet another laudable step that the EC has
taken through its recent directive barring convicted persons from contesting
elections goes a long way in curbing the scourge of criminalization of politics
and politicisation of crime by breaking the unlawful nexus between criminals
and politicians which has reduced the country to the level of a fief of
politicians in power and power broker. This action of the EC has been hailed on
the one hand by the people at large and supplemented on the other by the
judiciary’s prodding of the government to act more decisively n the
recommendations of the Vora committee’s report on the growing menace of
criminal-politician-bureaucrat nexus. The EC and the judiciary, by their
various acts, are fast emerging as impartial custodians and efficient watchdogs
of democracy and its processes.
The judiciary has even taken the unusual
step of monitoring the cases of the Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) by
directly supervising its functioning-the country’s premier investigative agency
has been unfairly used all these years by whosoever was in power at the time
largely as a weapon to settle scores with their political rivals or as an
instrument for witch-hunting inconvenient opponents- besides ensuring that law
not only takes its own course , however high and mighty the persons involved may be, in accordance with the
dictum ‘No one- be he ever so high- is
above the law’ but it also appears to do so by indicting or handing down severe
sentences to powerful politicians and top bureaucrats making them quake in
their fur lined boots. What is even more significant is its order quashing the
single directive of the department of Personnel , which insulates decision
making officers above certain ranks in the government , PSUs and nationalized
banks from being probed without the clearance of the ministry concerned,
thereby removing the biggest stumbling block in the way of the central
investigative agencies like the CBI and Enforcement Directorate( ED) probing
corruption in high places. Sadly however, this directive has been restored
recently (Sept ’03) with statutory sanction ostensibly to protect decision
makers and civil servants against frivolous complaints. That this ‘inbuilt
immunity’ to bureaucrats cuts at the root of the CBI’s autonomy and freedom of
action and encourages an unholy bureaucrat-politician nexus is undeniable.
And to think that all these major cases of
corruption – scams, rackets and kickbacks- have seen the light of the day
through the effective use of what looked initially like an innocuous and
innocent instrument in the hands of the poor and the resourceless - public
interest litigation- fills one with an exhilarating sense of satisfaction and
relief that people at last have found a powerful weapon to fight against the arbitrary
exercise of state power by the capricious and corrupt politicians and the
callous and covetous bureaucrats on the one hand, and to protect themselves
from the mindless excesses of the ambitious and the avaricious in exploiting
nature’s bounties leading to irreparable damage
to the biosphere through environmental degradation on the other. This
happy but unexpected turn of events augurs well for the future of the country
and its nationhood which has been put in jeopardy owing to the near total loss
of peoples’ confidence in politicians as a class principally because of their
patently opportunistic and short sighted thinking and blatantly corrupt and
egregious behaviour, and as a consequence, glimmerings of hope and faith are
swelling up in the hearts of all the right thinking people about the future of
this great country of ours. One cannot but agree that in countries like ours
which is notorious for its over-legislation and
under-administration/implementation of laws, there is ample scope for judicial
remedies like public interest litigation to ensure and enlarge the observance
of human rights as is evident from what it has already accomplished in this
regard.
( To be continued)
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