Delivering the first Zorawar Singh Memorial Lecture at Jammu University in April 2004, the then Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Lieutenant-General SK Sinha (retd) concluded by identifying the four pillars supporting the edifice of democracy in India — free elections, free press, independent judiciary and an apolitical army. “None of these pillars,” the General said, “should be allowed to be corroded or unhinged for that will spell the doom of democracy.”
Sixteen long years later, signs of decay and deterioration around the pillars are evident. The irony is that the General was principally addressing the role of the military in a democracy, but today, of the four, it is the military pillar that shows the least signs of corrosion.
There was a time till the 1980s when rigging in elections was not uncommon, especially in the badlands of the Hindi-speaking belt, West Bengal or Jammu and Kashmir. The man who cleaned up things, Chief Election Commissioner TN Seshan (1990-96) was able to do it because the authority of the dominant ruling part of the time, the Congress, had visibly declined. Massive security and multi-phase elections became the norm as did a massive crackdown on visible election expenditure.
With a new dominant party in control, the story of today can perhaps be simply summed up by the efforts of the government, returned to power with a clear majority last year, to harass Ashok Lavasa, one of the three election commissioners. His stance, sometimes at variance with those of his two other colleagues, has irked. But his real ‘crime’ was to refuse the clean chit to the BJP’s top leaders in relation to some of their controversial election speeches. Income tax investigations were initiated within months of the new government taking power against five members of his family, including his wife. As per the norms, Lavasa is on track to be the Chief Election Commissioner when the current incumbent retires.
There is, of course, another story to be told about the electoral bonds scheme. Created to deal with black money, it has proved to be the legal channel ostensibly through which the ruling BJP has received massive funds from individuals and corporates.
The decline in the quality of journalism has been most manifest in these years. But the ruling BJP is only partly responsible for it. The blame must fall on the media itself, which, to paraphrase LK Advani’s memorable description of the press during the Emergency, is crawling, when it has been merely asked to bend.
It is not as if there is no good journalism or scoops today. The problem is that the social media, along with a number of noisy TV channels, drown out the impact of a major revelation, sometimes simply by using fake news. Media entities close to the ruling party are known to generate fake news on an industrial scale to swamp readers and viewers. They work along their own version of Gresham’s Law where shoddy news drives out the good.
The third pillar is the Indian judiciary. There was a time when the common belief was that the higher judiciary in the country made up for the infirmities of the lower one. Today, there are signs that like fish, the judiciary may be rotting from the head.
The signs of this were evident in the unprecedented press conference of four Supreme Court sitting judges held two years ago, raising questions about the integrity of the institution.
Since then, things have gone from bad to worse. The apex court has adopted a seemingly casual approach to the burning issues of the day, such as that of Kashmir or the anti-CAA violence and some of its judgments border on the bizarre.
In the case of Kashmir, a state of the Union has been bifurcated, demoted, and an Article of the Constitution relating to its autonomy removed through legal sleight of hand. Yet, the court is still in the process of hearing the petitions five months later while the new UT remains in a state of lockdown.
Speaking at a university function in Nagpur recently, Chief Justice of India SA Bobde echoed Prime Minister Modi’s call that citizenship is not just about rights, but also about ‘duties towards society.’ What the citizens are looking for from the court is a sharp attention to the protection of their rights, rather than homilies on their duties.
Of all the four pillars, the one that remains the least eroded till now is the armed forces, but not for the want of trying. Some military officers have not hesitated to be part of the process through which the military has been used to burnish the political credentials of the ruling party.
There could be more trouble ahead. Over the years, the country had developed a system where politicians and the military men stayed confined to their respective spheres. The politicians, with the help of bureaucrats, gave broad policy directions, approved promotions and sanctioned expenditure, while the military focused on its operational role. An important element of this compact was that promotion at the seniormost level was by seniority. All this went out with the appointment of General Bipin Rawat as the Army Chief, where two senior and highly regarded officers were superseded.
That the Indian democracy is under severe stress is now widely accepted around the world. Things do not look good as the ruling party pushes a majoritarian agenda with a view to polarise the electorate. Every country’s fate eventually rests in the hands of its citizens. It remains to be seen how the good people of India deal with what is most certainly an existential challenge.
Tribune February 4, 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment