With the Congress on
the downslide and the experiment of Arvind Kejrival on ethical and corruption
free governance based on alternate politics fading away, fascist tendencies are
mounting attack on democracy itself. As Narendra Modi marches on to have a
Congress free ‘Bharat’, new grounds are set with a complete go bye by ‘the
party with a difference’.
In their endeavor to wipe out Congress from
the political map, what happened in Utttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh a year
back shall find place in the text books of the Constitution of India in case
independent authors are permitted to have their say. Post 2017 election
scenario in Goa and Manipur has dumped constitutional niceties into a deeper
pit.
Take the Goa case -
we are told the largest party leadership slept while the minority worked
overtime at midnight in fixing the ‘deal’. Pamella Philipose has rightly summed
up the present scenario, “an active lie needs a passive recipient. The credibility
of the piece of information is in direct proportion to the willingness of the
people to invest it with credibility..”.
The Goa governor laid
to rest a convention well entrenched in India – that the single largest party
gets the first invitation. Who reached the gates of Raj Bhavan first mattered
the most. Congress ‘waited for an invite’ while the BJP ‘claimed an invite’. If
Governments are formed that way, God save our democracy! The English convention
that the ruling party losing majority cannot get the first shot at ministry making
did not get the Governor’s approval. The people’s mandate was destroyed by
subverting the will of the people and the midnight ‘deal’ became nocturnal
smartness displayed as political virtue, worth being emulated by the generation
next as political shrewdness. The way this nocturnal smartness was portrayed in
the Rajya Sabha is actually an insult to the Goa psyche. The electorate was taken
for a ride by the midnight ‘deal’.
In Manipur the
politically smart took some time to lure 2 MLAs elected on a congress ticket to
shift to ‘the party with a difference’ to give Manipur a BJP government.
Changing party affiliations may be justified as a need to keep in tune with
changing times. Vishvajeet Rane has done it in Goa but is it highly
unacceptable that MLAs elected on a party ticket immediately shifts to the
other side after elections. Same principle shall apply to the party
brought into being to drive out the BJP
(as Congress was accused of incapable of that!).
Democracy is all
about numbers and in a numbers game, it may look legitimate to get the numbers
of the opponent depleted, but such maneuvering is not morally legitimate. But who
is bothered about morals? Issues like principles, morals, ideology are to be
reserved only for TV studios and of course edit pages. Goa had its own ups and
downs in it’s democratic foray. In the 90s of the last century we were infamous
for having very ‘brittle’ governments that collapsed for money and power. When late
Wilfred D’ Souza marched to Raj Bhavan with Ratnakar Chopdekar and Shankar
Bandekar both from MGP, despite MGP having majority, it was thought that the
anti-defection law would take care of such deviant behaviour, but we made mince
meat of the law.
The return of the rejected
in 2017 is now explained away as political necessity. Political compulsion is
the main disease afflicting the Indian political system much more that
corruption in the body polity and administration. Dr. Ambedkar had referred to
constitutional morality as “a paramount reverence for the forms of Constitution,
enforcing obedience to the authority, acting under and with a habit of open
speech, of action subject only through legal control”. A political party
functions with certain shared beliefs and collective conscience. At election
time the people get their chance to put their seal of approval/disapproval on
those beliefs. Government formation must reflect those shared beliefs on which
the people lay their trust. Manipulating public will is be a clear case of
breach of trust, disloyalty undermining the very survival of cherish values of
constitutionalism.
It may look stupid to
talk of political morality in present times. Lal Bahadur Shastri’s times were
over many decades back. What about propriety? Issues like majority and
government formation have become play things in the hands of those who get
elected. The deviant have changed the democratic fabric at their whims and
fancies. It is the indecent pursuit of power that does not allow them maintain
any semblance of propriety. Sacrifice is no long the rule of politics, it is
self and the only aim is to be on the ruling side by whatever methods. It is
wealth and power that has to be collected to be used at the next elections and
for generation next.
They have been succeeding for too long a time
and have exploited the short public memory as a weapon to deal with public anger.
They believe that the electorate can be managed by some small favours like
arranging a job for someone or grant of a contract out of turn or may be help someone get out of
police clutches. In case you cannot manage that way, dazzle them with mega
projects like a second bridge or a third one. If nothing works, buy them out!
Our tolerance to such deviant behavior only confirms the decline of political
standards and that has its own fallouts. We can never think of becoming a great
state or a great country with such behavior by our elected. Democratic credibility depends upon how
democracy is practiced. Fascism gets
breeding ground when democratic institutions and democratic practices are at a low
ebb.
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