The weave of India
IT'S time we look at ourselves. India is entering the 60th year of its becoming a sovereign republic. All citizens were promised justice, liberty and fraternity. It is a long story of failure in many ways.
True, India is a democracy in the sense that elections are held on time, freely and independently. But money and muscle have reduced fairness at polls. Caste and sub-caste are factors that influence voters. The current political leadership is stuck in narrow loyalties of caste, language and religion. Democracy faces danger from sectional and sectarian identities.
Criminals constitute one-fifth of the parliament and state assemblies. One criminal was brought to the House last year to vote for the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) facing a no-confidence motion. A candidate or an elected member is not disqualified until he or she is convicted. The charge-sheet is not considered adequate.
Corruption knows no bounds, and the nexus between politicians and the dishonest is firmer than before. The Rs. 7,000-crore scandal in an information technology firm, Satyam, is partly the fallout of deals which the Andhra Pradesh government gave it.
The lead may stretch up to New Delhi. Two sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh also got the largesse, which has been transferred to a company close to the apprehended owner B. Ramalinga Raju.
One state chief minister who has been repeatedly accused of corruption is UP's Mayawati, a dalit leader. A week ago, her MLA killed an engineer for refusing to give money for the Bahujan Samaj Party she heads. She is reportedly converting black money into white through donations during her birthday celebrations.
Justice, figuring at the top of the preamble of the Constitution, is far from the people. When there are millions of cases pending in law courts, many for more than a decade, justice is almost denied. Then, the judges are not above-board. A former chief justice has said that 15% of the judiciary is corrupt. Investigation agencies are processing cases in which even a Supreme Court judge is involved.
A retired chief justice has kept quiet. His sons had used even the official residence for their property business. The government has expressed its helplessness in the case. He should personally volunteer a probe to save the judiciary from ignominy.
The process of impeachment is so cumbersome that the government is considering an amendment to the Constitution. The earlier proposal to set up a National Judicial Commission would have laid down a concrete procedure to deal with dishonest judges. But the Supreme Court does not favour such a body.
Justice also means "social justice." The Supreme Court defines it as elimination of inequality of income, status and standard of life, and the providing of a decent standard of life to the working people (Nakara Vs Union of India). Yet, two-thirds of India's population lives in poverty.
The financial meltdown has pulled down the lower half still further. Even the verdict on social justice has not decreased the distance between the top, cited in Forbes among the rich in the world, and the low who wallow in denial and drudgery of nothingness.
However, one positive step by the centre is the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. It guarantees work to anyone who is willing to do manual labour at the statutory minimum wage. One member of a household can get a job at local public works for 100 days. But this does not take them out of the maelstrom of poverty in which they have been stuck for centuries.
Liberty is being restricted every now and then. To an array of oppressive laws, a new law has been added after the attack on Mumbai. If terrorists are out of reach, then why make the citizens pay for the failure of the government? The new act puts the onus of proving innocence on the person arrested. It is the government that has detained him, and it should furnish the ground to the court.
In fact, the ruling UPA government has brought POTA back through the backdoor. Home Minister P. Chidambaram promised a "fair balance" between human rights and tough laws. He should prove it by precedent.
Dr. Binayak Sen, a member of the People's Union for Civil Liberties, has been under detention for 19 months. He should be released immediately. He was detained on the ground that he was carrying messages from Naxalites to their sympathisers. Even if this is true, the crime is that of ideological difference.
Where the republic has failed the most is in the domain of pluralism. Muslims want to join the mainstream but they are kept away. The narrow-mindedness of the Hindu community is at fault. It is the duty and responsibility of the majority to win over the minorities to make them feel a sense of solidarity with others.
What India represents is what Yehudi Menuhin, the famous violinist, wrote to Nehru: "To me India means the villages, the noble learning of the people, the aesthetic harmony of their life; I think of Gandhi, of Buddha, of the temples of gentleness combined with power, or patience matched by persistence, of innocence allied to wisdom, and of the luxuriance of life from the oxen and the monkeys to flame trees and mangoes; I think of the innate dignity and tolerance of the Hindu and his tradition."
How far India has strayed from that path! What makes our rulers more answerable is that people forgive them for their mistakes and expect them to do better when they return next time. Yet, no political party has learnt any lesson.
Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.
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