Events & Issues
New
Delhi, 17 April 2019
Warning
Signals
THROTTLING
DEMOCRACTIC FREEDOM?
By
Dhurjati Mukherjee
In recent days there
have been voices of protest from a cross section of society against the
policies of the present government. Even BJP veteran, L.K. Advani, who has been
sidelined in the party, has talked of the need for freedom of expression and
the controversy centreing around what is really Indian nationalism. As he aptly
pointed out: “The party has been committed to freedom of choice of every
citizen at the personal as well as political level”. Advani clearly stated that
“we never regarded those who disagree with us politically as ‘anti national.
Before Advani’s post,
theatre figures issued a joint statement in 12 languages which stated that the
Constitution is under threat. “The institutions that have to nurture argument,
debate and debate have been suffocated. To question, to call out lies, to speak
the truth is branded ‘anti national’. The seeds of hatred have entered our
food, prayers and festivals”. The statement regretted that the ways hatred has
seeped into our daily fabric are ‘alarming’ and it has to stop. The appeal
clearly urged the people to “vote bigotry, hatred and apathy out of power” and
named the BJP and its allies,
Even a group of 150 scientists
from top academic institutions recently observed the need to protect the most
fundamental guarantees of the Constitution, including the rights of faith,
personal liberty and freedom of expression. “To defend these rights, we must
reject those who lunch or assault people, those who discriminate against people
because of religion, caste, gender, language or region”. They further pointed
out “we cannot endorse politics that divides us, creates fears, marginalises a
large fraction of our society – women, dalits, adivasis, religious minorities,
persons with disabilities or the poor”.
It may be pertinent
here to mention that scientists from across the country had over the past three
years or so expressed concern at what they viewed as poor governance of
scientific institutions, lack of autonomy in these institutions and retreat
from evidence based policies to growth of lumpen populism. In fact, some
political leaders of the ruling party have referred to mythology to negate
proven scientific achievements and substantiate India’s role in this regard.
Though there has been no open criticism, the international scientific community
has made a mockery of such claims.
Finally, some retired
bureaucrats in 15 open letters have stated of attempts to weaken the constitutional
framework and frequent departures from the rule of law. This collective that
goes by the name of Constitutional Conduct first sent out an open letter to
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in June 2017 articulating their deep discontent
over religious intolerance, particularly targeting Muslims.
Elections have
already started at such a critical and unprecedented situation. There are two
clear indications of the present state of things – one, that every individual
who matters and also every organization cannot retain its independence and has
to toe the government line and second, the secular fabric of the country would
not be allowed to continue. These
clearly reflect strands of autocracy and fascism creeping into political
fabric. In fact, the ‘State of Democracy in the World 2018’ titled Me Too? Political Participation, Protest and
Democracy made news last year when India slipped 10 straight positions from
32 to 42, ranking below Latvia and South Africa.
The centralised
manner in which the government has been functioning would thus continue if the
party in power is re-elected. Moreover, even educational institutions run by
the government would have very little or virtually no autonomy not to speak of
institutions like the Reserve Bank of India, CBI etc. The control will be at
the top in the hands of one or two persons who would dictate matters. Obviously
this would not improve governance and efficiency which would mean the bottom
segments of society would suffer.
The centralisation of
power is manifest in most political parties. The decision making is centralised
at the apex level amongst a very few leaders, may be two to four or even less.
These leaders are the face of the party and are also involved in extensive
campaigning. While these parties swear in the name of Mahatma Gandhi, whose 150th
birth celebrations are under way, people’s power is completely absent in their
functioning. How can decentralisation of political and economic power become a
reality in the country, when the major political forces do not themselves
practice this?
The other tricky
problem of religious fanaticism, which has been ushered in by the ruling party,
is to show how ardently they follow Hinduism. Only the illiterate or the
half-educated believe in the so-called devotion of the party towards Hinduism;
not the educated ones. Moreover, those from Bengal and most parts of South
India, who are proponents of Swami Vivekananda’s school of thinking, believe in
the unity of religions and not imposing one’s religion and religious practices
on the other.
The ruling
dispensation is interested in furthering its own interest in being in power at
any cost. As their working clearly shows, they have very little regard for
democratic values and cannot tolerate any form of dissent. This trend is
dangerous for a country like India where diverse forms of interest persist and
where there is a sizeable section of minorities.
In the economic
front, the same strategy of controlling every institution like the NSSO has
been amply manifest. The autocratic manner in which demonetization was
announced not only affected small traders but had an overall a negative effect
on the economy. There have been allegations of the government’s pro rich
attitude and ignoring the interests of the poor, specially the rural
impoverished and the farming community.
Delving into the
problem, one finds that the government lacks an effective plan to generate
employment and very little encouragement has been given to labour-intensive
sectors. Also though much hype was generated on ‘Made in India’ programme, but
due to various factors, manufacturing activities did not pick up. It needs to
be mentioned here that there was need to give a boost to set up small and micro
industries, specially in the rural and semi urban areas but this was not on the
government’s agenda. The government’s focus was on modernizing airports,
building expressways, starting bullet trains all of which did not benefit the
common man nor generate jobs.
But though these may
be failures that could be rectified, the social fabric suffered with the
government encouraging division on the basis of religion, caste etc. Democratic
values were being thrown to the winds and secular outlook that bind Indian
society were getting loosened. Due to all of this apprehensions have been
expressed about the threat to the Constitution and the government’s fascist
tendencies which may get aggravated if voted to power once again.---INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature
Alliance)
|