We need political reforms too1
To make the distribution of wealth and also to create equal opportunities.
The National Election Waft is a body of a thousand and odd NGOs started as an election monitoring body which itself was started by the Association for Democratic Reforms(ADR).This body filed a PIL before the Supreme Court in 2003 which decreed that every Lok Sabha candidate must disclose his or her full financial ,criminal and education background.
That is how; we now get to know the very background of our hon’ble members of parliament.
Now, the information assessed and computed by the NW is very interesting.We find a greater number of MPs with criminal background and also with an increasing assets tag!
From where do these MPs get their increased assets?
It is here the EC’s many efforts to control and monitor the expenditure of the election expenses seem to be ineffective.The average asset of an MP from Haryana is Rs. 18 crores and the average assets of 42 MPs from AP is an astounding Rs.15 crores!
So, there is a nexus between money power and the prospects of getting elected to the Lok Sabha.
There are other issues like MPs having committed serious crimes like promoting communal passions; enmities between communities…Even forgery against one Kerala MP, culpable homicide not amounting to murder against one from Indian National Congress!
So, what we are going to do?
Chief Election Commissioner Mr. Navin Chawla says there is urgent need for electoral reforms.A subject talked for long but short of action.
Another important political reform is to take up the Constitution Reforms Review report.Will the government takes it up?
There is the police reforms, including giving the CBI an independent role and also the state police.Justice Verma, among others, has given many such reform proposals.
Also, not to make senior members of the judiciary and the EC to become politicians!
There are other more sensitive issues, to make our democracy a more genuine one.
Then, there is the grave issue of political corruption, party reforms, to make the party funding more transparent.
Unless we take the political and electoral reforms, we will continue to have the disabilities of the present arbitrary exercise of power as a dominant feature of our polity.
The new law minister Mr.Moily says he would make the rule of law the dominant feature of our polity.Fine.But can he do it? That is the question.
He knows well or he must be making a declaration knowing fully well that he cant do anything about the current practices and the sort of tacit understanding between or among the stakeholders(read the corporate power and the vested interests within the dominant party,namely,the Congress)not to disturb the status quo.
So, just to harp on economic reforms, as our innocent-looking (sure he is not) PM is saying day in and day out, is only a cosy arrangement just to keep the poor where they are and allowing our corporate and vested interests to go on in a merry-making criminal and power-grabbing habits, is just to mock at the people who trust this government and voted it to power again.
We also just don’t forget that the voting percentage in this election is dismally low.As in South Mumbai and also in Delhi and elsewhere.
There must be some deeper explanation rather than some lame excuses.
There is a need for the way we change the voting system, deploy the IT tools so that people vote from their comfort of their homes.At least talk about the need for some such reforms openly.
Keeping mum is no excuse.Nor to go on doing just the routine things, as if the business of government is just to do things in a routine way, is not a good business for this government either.
It is the bureaucratic face of this government,so newly elected and yet you run for the same old tired faces,you rescue people from their due retirement and you just don’t even look out and see the abundance of proven talent from diverse fields.From the IT world to corporate world,from Narayana murthy to Deepak Parekh and Kiran Karnik,we have so much dedicated public men of so much selfless and impeccable character,these are the people any government must just invite,given them more challenging assignment,send them out as ambassadors to the USA and UK and elsewhere.
Let them talk and let them come out and come back with new ideas,let our talented Indians go to Iran and talk of the energy and gas pipeline,strategic partnership.
How does the government imagine that a retired bureaucrat would better safeguard the national interest?
Than men like Parekh and Karnik or Narayana murthy?
There is a vast pool of talent inside India and outside, in the USA and elsewhere.
They are all willing to come back and give their best to the country.
Please, we request Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.Please draw talent from proven sectors.
Don’t think that whoever lives in Delhi are the only people whom you know.
Keep your eyes and ears wide open.
India is a great country brimming with achievers.
What Bangalore has done today, to become the eyesore of the world, to make Obama to say: No to Bangalore, yes to Buffalo”is entirely a handiwork of individuals without any government prop.
So, visit Bangalore, Hyderabad and interact with IIMs and IIScs and the Prime Minister must be travelling around the country and interacting with such talents.
Sitting in Delhi and doing a 9-5 job is no great leadership.
Unless, India deploys its talent to build a new vision for India and India takes up its position on the world stage as a confident nation, it would be a failure of leadership, we would assert!