The Institutions that failed the Republic

 

 

 

 

Indian Republic Day

The Institutions that failed the Republic

On the eve of 71^st anniversary of Indian Republic, what we see is a dismal picture of how the democratic institutions have failed to live up to the people’s expectations. The institutions which are expected to safeguard the constitutional principles found wanting at a time when democracy is under assault, with the rise of authoritarianism, stifling individual freedom and democratic values 

The institutions that failed the Republic:

Parliament: Parliament is the soul of democracy. The soul is bruised and hurt deeply. The ruling party with brute majority in Lok Sabha has systematically flouted the democratic norms and parliamentary rules and procedures. When India became free and announced that she would be a Parliamentary Democracy, many leading intellectuals in the Western Countries, particularly in the UK and the US ridiculed the notion, describing it as the ‘romantic vision’ of Pandit Nehru.  But his faith in democracy and in the Indian people made the experiment a remarkable success.

Many important Bills, including the Constitutional Amendment Bills, having far reaching national ramifications, are introduced and passed in great haste without discussions, debate and even scrutiny by the Parliamentary Committees. The manner in which the government bulldozed the opposition and got,among others, the Jammu and Kashmir State Reorganization Bill, the Citizenship Amendment Bill, and the three farm Bills passed- the Deputy Chairman Rajya Saba Harivansh Narayan Singh not even allowing the division of vote in the House where the ruling alliance is in minority- demonstrates how the Parliament –the temple of democracy- is reduced to a rubber stamp, weak and ineffective, unable to censure the government. The farmers have been protesting for more than two months demanding repeal of the farm laws. It indicates how ill-conceived the farm laws are. The Parliamentary sessions held, under the dark shadows of the pandemic of Corona virus, have clearly manifested the fault lines of our democracy. Political immorality and lack of democratic culture have deeply penetrated into the system of governance, where the Parliament as a core institution has failed to mirror the aims and aspirations of the people, so critical for a healthy democracy.

Judiciary: The ingredients of an effective judiciary are: independence, integrity and impartiality. The establishment of an effective justice system that safeguards human rights, facilitates access to all and provides transparent and objective recourse to law, enabling all manner of disputes to be resolved within a structured and orderly framework, is a core value upheld the world over. A judiciary which operates without regard to professional ethical standards will not be able to build and retain public trust in the fairness of justice system.

In recent times, the Indian judiciary has failed to live up to its constitutional task. The issue of constitutional validity of the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status is pending before a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court for 18 months. The Court has not shown any urgency to hear the numerous petitions challenging, inter alia, the unilateral and arbitrary abrogation of the special status. In the meantime, the Centre is going ahead with all the changes it intends to bring about in the State. And what would happen to them, if the apex court subsequently rules the amendment of Art.370 and the bifurcation of the State ultra vires of the constitution? Similarly, several petitions challenging the constitutionality of the Citizenship Amendment Act, because it discriminates the citizenship on religious ground, are pending in the Supreme Court. The people look to judiciary to deliver timely justice when the executive branch of the government abuses power. With the State getting increasingly aggressive and using the sedition charges and invoking the draconian UAPA to suppress the dissent and intimidate the dissenters, practically in every sphere of activity, the judiciary is expected to be proactive in protecting freedom of expression and the right to life. As Justice Surya Kant rightly says, “judicial review provides the remedy to prevent any abuse when harsh measures become necessary to deal with extraordinary situations.” To Martin Luther King Jr.”Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” And justice delayed is justice denied.

In order to preserve the constitutional independence of judiciary, it is important to ban the retired SC and HC judges taking up government appointments. Former Chief Justices of India- P.Sathasivam and Tarun Gogoi- have lowered the dignity of the judiciary by accepting the government’s offer of a Governorship and Rajya Sabha membership, when the government is the biggest litigant.

Bureaucracy: Independent India inherited the best administrative machinery among the developing nations, along with a highly moral and dedicated public service. But today, corruption and immorality engulf the administrative apparatus, resulting in misuse of constitutional and legal mechanisms, impacting seriously the body politic.

The IAS and IPS Officers and the investigating agencies like IT, ED, NIA, CBI and Police have been abusing their authority to appease their political masters to derive pecuniary personal benefits. Their selective application of law is causing irreparable damage to the institutions they represent. The people are arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned without trial. The assumption that the lawfulness of prosecution can be taken up after the trial, if the accused is acquitted, is erroneous as the acquittal comes far too late, and the accused spends years in jail. 

The bureaucrats have found a new mechanism to weaken the transparency law – The RTI Act.  The Act is diluted, making it a toothless tiger and ineffective. Public Information Officers refuse to share vital information on one pretext or the other. The Section 8(1) (b) of the RTI Act is wrongly invoked to deny the information- whether it is PMCARES Fund or law relating to electoral bonds or the farm laws - on the ground the information sought is outside the purview of the RTI Act, making a mockery of the law.  Consequently, transparency and accountability in the apparatus of public administration has gone for a toss. The retired IAS and IPS officers should be banned accepting positions in the government or joining politics at least for three years, so that they remain politically neutral and non-partisan while in service.

Media: The credibility of media has eroded.  The media is controlled by big business houses, with the editors losing the freedom to decide the editorial policy. There is hardly any investigating journalism, committed to truth and justice. What we read and hear on the electronic media is colored and toxic news, highly opinionated, judgmental and partisan. The profession of journalism has become highly commercialized, acquiring the character of a capitalist enterprise. We heard the shocking news of TV channels manipulating TRPs to knock out the professional rivals to make money through unethical and illegal means, and doing bidding for the ruling party. And paid news and fake news are engineered to target the people. Democracy to be successful needs a vibrant and fearless media that could contribute to informed public opinion 

Opposition:  The opposition is a lifeline of parliamentary democracy. However, the present ruling dispensation does not give due recognition and importance to the opposition. Winning elections by hook or cook has become an end in itself. Look at how the election rallies are held in the midst of the pandemic, months before the election dates are announced, with every election turning into a battlefield, resulting in spending enormous amount of money and misuse of state machinery.

The opposition governments are dislodged. The investigating agencies are unleashed to raid the opposition leaders, to intimidate and silence. The defections are engineered in the rival parties, through inducement of money and power, to prevent the opposition forming governments and to dislodge the elected governments, as  happened in Goa, Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, making a mockery of electoral verdict, reducing the elections to a farcical number game. It is high time the MLAs and MPs who defect are debarred from contesting the elections again, to save democracy and ensure some semblance of morality in politics.

The opposition seems to be in a deep coma.  It doesn’t have any concerted strategy to counter the misdeeds and acts of omission and commission of the government. The grand old national party – the Congress- is busy in fighting its internal squabbles- rather than focusing on confronting the Modi-Shah juggernaut.  The CPI- once the main opposition in the Parliament- and the CPM are not focused either to take on the Modi government. There are so many issues that could galvanize the opposition parties, but they have failed to take advantage. The regional parties are more interested in promoting provincialism and linguistic chauvinism.  A weak and fragmented opposition cannot fight a formidable political adversary.

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