Let us think and Act with an open mind
to
Develop a Vibrant Democracy – Article 21
SRB
Introduction: Articles 1 to 20 had focused on thirty obstacles which caused a
distorted and ineffective democracy and suggested possible solutions for these.
The present article reiterates some
important aspects in earlier articles to provide back ground for formulating
necessary changes in democracy. Constitution
provided some checks and balances to ensure proper functioning of democracy. To
what extent these were effective is also included in this back ground. I am
constrained to focus on all unpleasant negative findings which need correction
because we have to be fully conscious of these if we want to improve matters.
Large
proportions of voters make mockery of democracy by either not making independent choice (being
influenced by caste, religion, intimidation etc.) or by “selling”
votes (Article 2). This “mocked approval” has
resulted in the incongruity that political parties were supported only by
a negligible minority who had honestly voted without being
influenced by extraneous considerations (Article 20). Another
mockery is that during last 50 years, number of women left out
from electoral roll increased fourfold from already large 15 millions to 68
millions, showing gross and increasing
undervaluation
of right of women to vote (Article 2).
Out of 543 MPs elected in 2009, vast majority
of 78% had even mocked approval of only less than half of the
electorate and did
not qualify to be representatives. Even after spectacular success of BJP in 2014 elections, it had even mocked
approval of only 31% of
electorate!!
Thus, its claim of being representative of
people is outright hollow.
Constitution had put a bar on criminals getting registered as voters or becoming MPs / MLAs. Shockingly, 162 Lok Sabha members
and 1,268 MLAs, with declared criminal records might have violated this bar
(Article 2). It is likely that present Parliament also has this defect. This large
scale suspected violation of Constitution casts doubt on legitimacy of Parliament.
Moreover, 30% of ministers in present central
government had filed affidavits that they had criminal cases against them
(Deccan Chronicle dated 08-06-15). This casts doubt about legality of this
government.
All
these raise three important questions. Knowing that Constitution had put a
bar on criminals getting registered as voters or becoming MPs / MLAs: (1) why
have our government, legal experts and hon’ble judges not fulfilled their moral responsibility to clear the doubts and
ensure that there is no illegal Parliament and government? (2)
why were these suspected criminals not keen to prove that they are innocent
by taking prior/quick action? (3) why are we so dumb and callous that we tolerate
being governed by suspected criminals, justifying the remark
that “A nation of sheep gets a government of wolves”
An MP or MLA has to perform important functions of
governance. The
expectation that voters have knowledge and expertise to select persons who can
perform these functions efficiently is a fundamental
fault of election system (Article 14). This shows that most
elected persons not only did not have even mocked majority approval but also
may not have the required capacity because of being selected by laymen,
that too mainly on extraneous
considerations.
With five-yearly elections, even efficient
representatives are compulsorily weeded out along with inefficient and tainted ones, unlike management machinery which has continuity.
This lack of continuity in top levels leads to avoidable
distortions and distractions in governance. A flexible
election system guided solely by need to weed out only inefficient and tainted representatives
to improve governance can avoid these (Article 3).
Sole purpose of election is to give voice to people. But, election system could not give voice
to majority of people. A better method for giving voice to people, not
once in five years as an ineffective ritual as at present, but more frequently
and effectively is needed (Article 4).
Method
of government formation led to subtle and
concealed dictatorship rather than democracy (Article 5). This also
resulted in dictatorial attitude that listening to others is a weakness.
It has not been realized
that real strength of democracy lies in its ability to (1) listen to people,
(2) accept useful ideas and (3) act on these with vision and commitment (Article
6).
Attitude of not acting on important information
provided by even a constitutional authority (CAG) is another instance of dictatorial approach and a serious blow to
democracy.
Government is obsessed with
GDP growth and revenue collection. It
becomes upset if GDP growth falls but is not bothered if people suffer. The
fact that higher GDP has only resulted in widening
gap between the rich and the poor is not its concern.
Successful governance requires qualified
professionals to be in charge of various activities which can be properly
handled by them only. But most technical departments are headed by Indian Administration
Service (IAS) officers. This illogical positioning allows
professionals to be supervised by non-professionals and thereby hinders progress and accountability.
Faced with problems of faulty governance, strategy
of escapism and buying time is chosen by referring to Commissions, Standing
Committees of Parliament etc. Findings of these top bodies are seldom acted
upon.
During last 10 years government broke its promise to
Parliament 1,024 times as reported by Ministry of
Parliamentary Affairs (Article 6). Surprisingly, this shocking information did
not cause even ripples!! (Article 15). This speaks volumes about government’s
lack of credibility and respect for
Parliament.
Management infrastructure, consisting
of ministers and government officials, has some basic faults. (Article 7) They lack uniform perceptions about (a) democracy,
(b) different aspects of management of democracy and (c) a mind set to comply
with democratic principles. Therefore,
it is not
functioning as a well-knit unit with full focus on democracy.
When senior officers, after thorough study based on
their long experience, submit “proposals” to minster, quite often these are modified
or rejected by minster in a dictatorial
manner to serve party interests or selfish interests or vested interests.
These obviously dishonest
and dictatorial practices not only score over merit of proposals but also destroy belief of
officers in honest functioning, in addition to belittling their expertise and longer
experience compared to those of minister. Therefore, many of them lose
their sense of commitment and / or become cynical - both detrimental to
efficient functioning. Even worse, some of them are tempted or forced to
form a nexus with minster for undemocratic and non-transparent activities.
These result in misgovernance and scams.
When
tackling any problem faced by people, an arrogant and negative attitude of denial of help to
people has been all pervasive in a government intended for people!!
Avoiding
effective actions to punish dishonesty are quite common. Moreover, honest
officers are frequently transferred as punishment, with some officers
being transferred 40 times or more!!
Police have earned a reputation of being corrupt in dealing with problems
faced by people. (Article 8) Most people are afraid to complain to
police. Filing of FIR is subject to whims of police or pressures they face.
Burking of crime is so common that every year about
60 lakh cases are not registered.
Most people are unhappy with police who are “criminals in uniform” and “armed
militia of politicians”, as stated by a former police commissioner.
There are only 106 policemen for one lakh people, which is less
than half of the recommended 222. Even
worse, available policemen are frequently misused or deputed for
non-governmental activities. Consequently, there are at least three policemen for every VIP and just one for every 8,000 people!!
MPs and MLAs often close their eyes to dreadful
realities and allow matters to drift.
Besides
corruption being rampant, mega scams have been exposed with alarming frequency (Article 9). Punishment
of culprits is dragging on and causing concern and cynicism among people.
Central
Vigilance Commission (CVC) has grossly inadequate staff and resources to investigate
corruption in more than 1500 central government ministries and departments. CVC can
investigate corruption against government officials only after government
permits it!! Government is not confident that there is
nothing to hide and prefers a toothless CVC.
Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) regularly
reports deficiencies observed and system failures and suggests improvements. But
hardly any worthwhile action was taken even on serious matters.
In 2009,
CAG requested government to amend Audit Act 1971 to bring all private-public
partnerships (PPP), Panchayti Raj Institutions and societies getting government
funds within the ambit of CAG and to enhance CAG’s powers to access information
because almost 30% of documents demanded by CAG were denied. Though projects worth millions of
rupees are executed under PPP model, these projects are not audited by CAG. About
65% of government spending does not come under scrutiny of CAG!! But
government has not cared to amend the Act even after six years. Thus, the
very purpose of having this authority to provide checks has been callously
defeated.
Government control on appointments to CBI at all
levels is a travesty. CBI,
being dependent on many government departments for staff etc., has
innate problems in investigating government actions. Despite repeated court
orders, CBI continues to be hampered and cannot function independently. A former director and joint director of CBI exposed
government for engaging in nepotism, wrongful prosecution and corruption. CBI has not been able to make a dent on rampant
corruption all over the country.
Creation of Lokpal to probe
complaints against top level public functionaries was pending for 44 years!!
A bill for this was passed in Lok Sabha in 1969, but rejected nine times
up to 2008 by Rajya Sabha.
Giving equal importance to direct and indirect representatives of people is
questionable, particularly when functioning of important checks and
balances are involved.
Subsequently, the bill was revived
several times. Each time, after introduction in Parliament, it was stalled
using devious methods. These repeated impediments show lack of interest
in passing such an important bill.
At last, a bill was passed and approved by President. Considering the series of
obstacles in passing the bill, it is reasonable to believe that implementation
of the bill also will have to face lot of obstacles which will cause long
delays.
In 1966, Administrative
Reforms Commission recommended
setting up of “Lok Ayukta” in all states for redressal of citizens' grievances.
Despite a long interval of 49 years, 10 states do not have Lok Ayuktas.
Even in states with Lok Ayukta, proper action was not taken against persons
charged with corruption by it. It has no power to take independent action to
penalize those found guilty. Its capacity has been further downgraded by not providing
adequate staff and other facilities. Evidently state governments want to
avoid checks on dishonest activities.
Right
to Information Act 2005 (RTI) provides
access to information under control of public authorities in order to promote
transparency and accountability. Even during limited use by people,
many government departments either delayed or refused to give information.
Moreover, government wanted to make changes in the Act to curtail its use. When
Chief Information Commissioner ruled that political parties are answerable
under the Act about public funds given to them, government planned to introduce
an amendment to the Act to nullify this.
Many RTI activists have been harassed and some
even murdered. Government has not taken any worthwhile
action to protect RTI activists. This confirms callous approach of government
towards this important check on its functioning by people.
Multiple instances of threat and
harassment of whistleblowers and even some murders have occurred.
Whistleblowers' Protection Bill, 2011
was passed by Lok Sabha but is pending in Rajya Sabha!! This is another instance
of “indirectly elected representatives” blocking an important bill
passed by “directly elected representatives” of people – a blow to democracy!!
These examples of inaction for many problems show that peoples’
representatives do not care to set things right because of lopsided
preferences.
Article 10 pointed out two atrocious
facts. (1) On
an average every year, about
90,000 people had complained to NHRC about violation of human rights and (2) NHRC had no qualms in refusing to examine
about two-thirds of these complaints. NHRC did not amend an obsolete Regulation, which stood
in its way, using its statutory powers to regulate its own procedure for
disposal of complaints. NHRC had failed miserably to have a check on human rights
violations. Thus even
the last channel of hope has been cruelly cut off for lakhs of possible
sufferers from human rights violations.
Cases have been pending in courts and delaying
justice for many years to lakhs of people (Article 11). In 2009, India had the largest backlog of cases in the world. Roughly,
more than 30 million cases are pending now. Yet, serious attempts were not made to remove shortage of judges. Judges enjoyed the exceptional privilege of vacations
regularly, unlike many officers who even worked overtime!! Judges did not
apply their mind to remove archaic procedures which cause delay. Because of
high cost it is almost impossible for most people to get justice. Neither
Parliament nor government nor judges sincerely applied their mind to provide
quick affordable justice.
While
government claims lack of resources for appointing more judges, there are
innumerable instances of wastage. This shows that meager allocations made are
due to low priority and not lack of resources.
Transparency
of courts is increasingly questioned by people. When a complainant sought file
“notings” and reason for judgment, Supreme Court stated that it does not
maintain any such records and nobody has
right to question its judgments. The former shows that SC functions in an
unsystematic manner without keeping proper records!! The latter shows a deplorable attitude
that people have no right to ask for grounds for judgment. This is anti-democratic
and an act
of contempt of people who are masters in a democracy.
National
integration is essential to develop best possible democracy for whole country (Article
12). This needs planning and
implementation of multiple innovative approaches with determination and sense
of commitment. One approach is to encourage (1) inter state migration, (2)
Inter caste, inter religious and inter state marriages, (3) “know your country”
education trips for school children and college students and (4) national
script for all languages.
Article
13 emphasized that democracy
will function better if the country is divided into small states of optimum
size. It suggested setting up another States Reorganization
Commission with instructions to ascertain optimum size of state to have
successful democracy in different demographic situations and carve out small
compact states which can satisfy needs and aspirations of different identity
groups to maximum extent possible.
Article
14 pointed out three fundamental weaknesses of present system:
(1)
People with out required knowledge and expertise are asked to elect efficient
persons with qualifications and experience to enact laws, make policies and
govern the country.
(2)
Politicians who usurped power from qualified professionals under the claim that
they were elected by people often have even mocked support of less than 35% of
people in their constituencies!!
(3)
There is no system to assess efficiency of performance of political leaders involved
in governance every year, unlike for officials.
To
overcome these, Article 14 stressed the need to (a) consider an alternative for election system,
(b) train elected representatives before they start functioning, (c) assess efficiency
of elected representatives every year and (d) thoroughly overhaul the system
using a professional approach which is badly needed.
The
country faced many
shameful situations covering almost all crucial sectors (Article
15). Parliament did not care to rectify any of these shameful situations.
Moreover, it lacked guts to punish government for breaking promises
thousands of times and spinelessly tolerated disrespect from government
thousands of times, without dignity expected from the august supreme body.
In
previous Parliament, 86% of Rajya Sabha members and 58% of Lok Sabha members
were crorepatis. With this highly imbalanced and unhealthy representation
of people, it favoured the rich against the poor.
Significantly, most dismal
failures of democracy were contributed by Parliament and Assemblies
which did not exercise supreme power bestowed on them to ensure checks.
We
should ask ourselves: why do we spent lakhs of crores of public money to
maintain a Parliament which lacks accountability, ethics of care for aam admi, dignity
and guts to punish government for braking promises thousands of times? Why should we
not try another system which is cheaper and can uphold voice of people more
efficiently and gracefully? If a way cannot be found to avoid
mostly crorepatis being elected to Parliament, abolition of Parliament with
such distorted and unhealthy representation of people is further justified.
Effective
functioning of democracy requires an alert media with broad vision which
functions as watch dog for providing feed back to government for corrective
action, informs people about state of affairs and provides platform for public
debate. Media needs to improve its functioning in all these aspects (Article
16).
Article
15 listed number of deplorable situations which are shameful for the country.
Media did not adequately question government, MPs and MLAs about these and
insist on corrective measures.
Printed
media did not adequately encourage journalists and social activists to publish
articles which discuss need and suggestions for improving democracy.
Media’s value system
needs review.
For example, media gives more importance to one death from terror attack than
to about 10,000 deaths from accidents. It has not realized that terrorists
themselves know that they are incapable of doing any harm on a large scale and plan only
isolated instances to create scare and publicity only. By
splashing such emotional news media has helped them exceedingly well to achieve
their aim!! Innovative
ideas are essential to tackle this situation cleverly and spoil their aim.
One
way is to completely suppress news of terrorist attacks in public interest and
confidentially take up with government the need to ensure proper preventive
steps. Such a blackout of news will make terrorists frustrated, exasperated
and miserable.
Another
problem is lopsided priorities. Important aspects of governance and
peoples’ welfare do not receive adequate attention. Lot of space / TV time is
used for inter and intra political party disputes. Space for proper news is
often displaced by photos of VIPs and gossip about their activities!!
Often,
front page of newspapers which should get priority for main news has given way
to advertisements, even full page, which fetch enormous amounts of money. This
is in addition to space for advertisements far outstretching space for news.
Our
President had expressed concern over “aberrations” like “paid news” and
“sensationalism” in stead of objective assessment and truthful reporting.
Media
has a short memory even for important matters, which is exploited by government. It should develop a system of persistent
follow up of all serious matters till government action produces desired
results.
Thinking
out of the box is a rare phenomenon.
Introspection
on all aspects mentioned in Article 16 is essential. This should be undertaken by
colleges teaching journalism, media establishments, working journalists and
organizations like Press Council, Editors’ Guild, newspaper associations etc.
They ought to evolve
a code of ethics to guide their activities.
Before
independence, the country had leaders who sacrificed a lot to fight for
independence (Article 17). Later on, some politicians acquired many
disqualifications for a leader of democracy (Article 19). Our President
expressed concern and disappointment at “eroding commitment among the legislators
who are expected to be custodians of public interests and rights”.
Most
survivors among freedom fighters became cynical and disgruntled and suffer from
a defeatist mentality. Younger generations of potential upholders of democracy
are confused without proper leadership. To overcome this, both groups should dare to think
and act and organize themselves to save democracy. For a
start, they should create awareness among people, mobilize their support and
provide them leadership to fight for a truly vibrant democracy.
We,
the people, have failed in our responsibility to elect representatives who
have qualifications and experience needed for fulfilling responsibilities
of governance and will to commit themselves to fulfill these responsibilities.
(Article 18)
Another
major failure is that after voting once in five years, we sit back and allow
our representatives and the government they form to govern as they like. We are
not alert enough to question when they do not act for welfare of people
and repeatedly act ignoring principles of democracy and promises made at
election time.
We
should insist that once in six months our MLA and our MP should report
their achievements as well as problems faced and future plans to overcome these,
in a meeting of all groups of people (without any exceptions and including local leaders). These six-monthly
review meetings should also be made use of to give a feed back about the
extent to which government has met needs and aspirations of people and to make wise
selection of efficient leaders, out of elected and local leaders who attend
these meetings. We have to play dual roles of partners in democracy and watch
dogs to detect deficiencies in democracy.
Another
major failure is misconception that government alone can provide good
governance. This resulted in totally negative and callous view about
cooperating with government efforts and supplementing these. Even worse, we
often create problems because of narrow selfish interests and intolerance of
others.
A fundamental mistake
is to consider that democracy is needed only for good governance. Many more
aspects e.g., those relating to religion, culture, entertainment, recreation,
sports etc., have influence on quality of life – may be even more than
governance. To enjoy a happy life these require careful attention and proper
direction, which are lacking at present. These cannot and should not be taken
up by government. We also have responsibility to organize ourselves to ensure
happy and peaceful surroundings which are not subjected to hatred and fear.
We should develop a sense of discipline to help to reduce problems and to avoid
creating other problems.
All
these show that we, the people, have some wrong perceptions which hinder
development and maintenance of vibrant democracy leading to a happy life. To overcome these
we have to change our mindset.
In
addition to lack of qualification in the art or science of governance,
many political leaders have acquired at least some disqualifications (Article
19).
Because
of other interests political leaders not only lacked professional approach but also
curbed professionals in their work.
Moreover,
by creating a politician-cum-bureaucrat nexus and regularly harassing those who
did not fall in line, politicians destroyed the innate strength of our
system of governance, without realizing the serious harm
they have done to the back bone of our democracy.
Qualifications,
experience, duties and responsibilities have been prescribed for each position,
except for
elected representatives even though MPs and MLAs have to hold
more highly responsible positions. This impropriety becomes more glaring
because they have to exercise control over activities carried out by
qualified and experienced professionals in different fields.
Article
19 also describes five ways in which politicians became enemies of democracy.
Because of this, the
worst attack Parliament has been facing is from within and it has eminently
qualified itself for self destruction.
Political
parties have created large armies of workers with conflicting ideologies and
party interests only and without any vision about national interests
(Article 20). They often start inter party disputes and
quarrels. Resort to violence is quite common and even murders have occurred. Another
problem is that their hero worship has led to many unfortunate situations.
Similarly,
they have diverted attention of college students from studies and a positive attitude to
peoples’ problems to a negative one of raving and fighting for party interests.
When these young minds grow up in this background
they will imbibe some
undesirable traits. Because of misdirected party interests, many
of them may become faction leaders, manipulators and traders of hatred.
This deplorable situation can lead to many undesirable possibilities for the
future!!
Using
their large army of grass root level workers, political parties cleverly manipulate creation of caste, linguistic, religious and
other group conflicts as well
as cliques, crimes
and other situations to safeguard
their selfish interests. Thus, political parties
are responsible for many crimes and creation of hatred and violence in many
parts of the country.
Another
serious drawback of having political parties is creation
of duel power centres (multiple in case of coalition
governments) which lead to obstacles and delays in decision making.
Article
19 showed that politicians became enemies of democracy. Party system is the main cause for this.
Abolition
of political parties will free police from malignant and suffocating political
control and improve law and order situation in the country by leaps and bounds.
Main
reason for having political parties is to have a check on misgovernance by
party in power. But, these articles show that they have in stead become
root cause of misgovernance!!
While
advantage of
having party system has not materialized, abolishing it will have 17 advantages
(Article 20). Evidently, there is absolutely no doubt that
party system should be abolished.
These
articles also show that all checks and balances envisaged in Constitution
have failed in one way or the other. To overcome this situation, a Commission
should be constituted to regularly review working of all checks and balances.
(Please keep all these articles within easy reach
for referring back till the series is completed.)
Note:
You can help to save our sinking
democracy by making as many
people as possible aware of these obstacles and possible solutions, through
personal group discussions, newspaper articles, e-mail and social media like
face book and twitter so that we can have healthy
debates and arrive at some innovative ideas to save our sinking democracy.
Comments (especially those which point
out errors or deficiencies, if any, in this article and thereby help to improve
it) are welcome. Please send these to StartRemovingBlocks@outlook.com. I shall make use of all befitting suggestions to
modify the outline of the revised system of democracy (Article 24).