Indian demo’CRAZY’

- Hari

August fifteen: The very mention of this date immediately brings the joy of (a) Public holiday (b) Television special programs (c) Discounts on our favorite outlets. Give us 2 more minutes, and we will realize that its Independence day within the stipulated time. We celebrate this day because our country became democratic after centuries of colonial rule. More than six decades since independence, I use to think, whether we are enjoying the fruits of democracy in the right way?

India became the largest democratic country, as the definition goes the government of the people, for the people and BY the people. Nehru travelled across country educating people that they had to choose their own leader. Dr Ambedkar drafted the constitution, which best suited the country at that time. The constitution allowed even the illiterates to contest elections since the majority of the country's population was uneducated. This yielded the desired result since most of our current politicians/leaders are uneducated while the majority of the country's population is educated, atleast in terms of average literacy level.

Our leaders post independence had a vision on how to make the country progressive when the majority of the population was clueless. Today, the reverse has happened.
Democracy allowed every citizen the right to follow his own religion, faith, language. Today we have innumerable religions, caste, sub-caste thus requiring the need for caste based census after six decades of independence (!). The growth of number of castes, linguistic politics might have surpassed the growth of the GDP of this country itself.

Dr Ambedkar spent several thousand hours in drafting the constitution of this country. Today, we have several laws, which if indexed can run more than the constitution of this country. Yet none of the law is implementable in its true spirit since abiding a law defeats the very purpose of democracy.

Six decades of self ruling, we still have problems of illiteracy, social inequality, poverty, unemployment. Though the change is happening, this transition process is very slow.
Some of the reasons that are plaguing India which I could think of:

Politicians & political system:

Indian politicians are known for corruption and unethical practices. Politicians shift parties, loot public money, encourages short sighted policies, woo voters with freebies and most importantly fool the people. Our politicians are always in corruption spree & famous in spreading corruption in all the fields without any discrimination. Some of the famous scams are Coffin box scam, cattle feed scam, Bofors Scam, Spectrum scam & the list goes on.

The political system does not allow the common man to take public cause easily. One has to join a public party & by the time one gets elevated as minister or nominated for ministership, he/she gets soaked in the old age surpassing the retirement age. Running the political party is as costly as running the country itself & naturally the first job is to reap returns from the investments already made. The complete lack of accountability from the politicians is something which irks the fellow citizens more than the corruption. Nobody takes responsibility for any manmade disasters like terrorism.

There is company law which regulate companies, there is SEBI which regulates the market. Why don't we have an independent governing body to regulate the political system & politicians?
We should lay down professional ethics to be followed by the politicians while in power. In this way, those who throw mikes can be thrown out of power for the indiscipline act. There should be a training academy which trains & certifies the aspiring politicians. A person can contest election only after being certified in this academy. Minimum education qualification like arts or science degree should be stipulated. One should possess adequate knowledge for planning & to convert plan to action.

Babus:

The Hindi speaking clerk who has little knowledge in english is known as Babus. In Indian context, we refer Government employees as Babus. When British was ruling India, the creamy layer of the population who were given education in English medium was offered Government jobs, which ensured high pay package (comparatively)! The British framed several rules which were bureaucratic and used it to suppress Indians. The same bureaucratic rules are even now used by our Babus & they continue to suppress our fellow people. Many countries in the world has reformed the way government works but India sadly remain in the stone-age era. Several foreign investors have been highlighting the 'Red Tapism' issue but any attempt of reformation leads to flash strike in the name of democracy jeopardizing the entire government.

A visit to any government office & one can see half or full bald clerk, sitting on a teakwood table, with loads & loads of file completely engulfed in the dust coming out from those decade old files. Their punctuality & productivity were duly rewarded by promotions, which are based on seniority. The periodic Dearness allowances is given for their 'Dearless' behavior.

There are several people friendly policies which has gone haywire, credits to our babus. The present government's flagship program 'National rural employment Guarantee' (NREG) scheme was declared success since the wastage in this scheme was only between 20 to 40% (On the estimated $8b spending on rural schemes, 20% would mean Rs. 7200 crores. Wow!) The total wastage in PDS scheme (Public distribution scheme) was astounding 73%, which must be an unofficial Guiness book of world records.

It's tempting to write so many ideas, well, nothing is going to happen in our democratic country.

Judicial system:

Over 3 million cases are pending in India's 21 high courts, and an astounding 26.3 million cases are pending in subordinate courts across the country. At the same time, there are almost a 250,000 under-trials languishing in jails across the country. Of these, some 2,069 have been in jail for more than five years, even as their guilt or innocence is yet to be ascertained. This has been revealed by home ministry's department of justice, under a Right to Information Act. While this is the scenario, our Lords and My Lords goes for a summer vacation. (Wow!) These cases were pending not because of shortage of lawyers. More the duration of cases, the more the money they make.

Justice delayed is Justice denied. The judgment for the Bhopal Gas disaster which killed around 25000 people was delivered in June 2010, nearly 25 years after the tragedy at the ratio of 3 deaths per day. By delivering judgment imprisoning the culprits for 2 years, the court has done the unjust.

Why don't the governments insist deadlines for closure of cases & give ceiling on number of adjournments? The judgments can be fed into the computer and most of the regular cases can be disposed by using artificial intelligence. Why not e-judgment?

India has strong moral values and was once considered as the land of 'dharma'. The justice is not a synonym of dharma since the justice is based on a particular law. In most of the cases, the justice is a mere pronouncement of the underlying law & if the law itself is unjustifiable, the judgment does not deliver the 'dharma'. Most of our laws are obsolete and needs to be rewritten based on changing times. Recently, the criminal law on 'Rape' was suitably amended in order to remove the gender bias. But this has to be done more proactively.

People:

All the politicians, Babus, are not made. They are from the people. Our tolerance & carelessness is also responsible for their actions. Evading tax, Vote for Money, offering bribe are some of the serious blunders while disposing the garbage on the streets/roads, disseminating religious information in public places, causing pollution, driving recklessly or drunken driving, damaging public properties, encouraging child labor in domestic help etc are some of the common mistake which we never realize as mistakes.

Democracy is the government by the people. It is THE PEOPLE who is responsible for the success of democracy. It should not go the saying in Tamil 'Kurangu Kayil Poo Malai' If we act as a responsible citizen considering the national interest it WILL make the difference. Won't they?

- Hariraam