Tackling large-scale corruption is still important!
Running government under Constitutional obligations calls for decisive action.
Is the government doing all these things?
That is the reason why we find ourselves in such bad shape. Outside world would surely understand we have killed as norms and obligations and stick to power at any cost! We have to play by rules and time-honoured way. Not by the whims and fancies, by our inabilities to stay on where we are today. This can’t be sustained.
Either you change or get burst! Sometimes violently too. We have to be beware! Please wake up and listen to inner voice and your moral conscience. Dr.Singh surely lost all moral credibility with which he made a lateral entry into high politics.
Democracy has its norms and compulsions!
Moral and Constitutional obligations!
There are silences, fears and even suspicions of conspiracies at present New Delhi political scenario!
No one in the government or the party is talking about! There are serious issues of governance, from 2-G scams to the latest Coalgate scams?
Is it one more runs of the same, more CBI FIRS, more charge sheets and more Supreme Court judgments and directives? Already the pending steps, following up the CBI investigations and arrest and further proceedings in the Maran Bros case and other steps are lagging behind time.
How long this new Coalgate scams would take to play themselves out?
What is the position of the PMO (of course no one talks of the PM who is in fact in the direct line of fire. The BJP is asking for his resignation and Parliament was stalled)?
And now there is the perennial role of Rahul Gandhi.
There is an air of suffocation everywhere, at the highest levels and it looks there is no way to resolve the many crises we face today in India.
Democracies the world over, not to speak of other forms of government where such crises are tackled and decisions are taken, the government and the legislatures function and governments survive and the development of the economies and societies are going on if not smoothly but at least in some positive manner. But only in India there is this unspoken silence, this fear and this run for cover for everybody.
Why the hell some others (like Digvijay Singh) talks of making Rahul Gandhi as a future Prime Minister? Does this sort of plain and unpalatable, in fact anti-democratic, talk of promoting a young man who is reluctant to take over the reins of government.
It gives the impression, rather such a blatant and rude message that in India with such a huge population and a large democratic form of government a political heir is thrust upon an unwilling people?
Is the country now ready to acquiesce in to such undemocratic talks and efforts?
Is Sonia Gandhi so unassailable?
It looks that every step on the part of the party and the government is pushing the country into a new crisis of credibility.
The Indian media, both visual and print, luckily, are very forthright and forthcoming.
The TV channels had done their duty. As for the print media, they are a bit subdued.
The Hindu, one of the most respected newspapers, has pushed such sensitive political developments to the inside pages.
The Coalgate scandal, after the internal note of the Finance Ministry questioning the competence of the Interministerial Group(IMG) to deallocate the corrupt allocations of blocks.
Now, the CBI filed new FIRs and also the deallocation of four coal blocks de-allocated, another three are to lose bank guarantees.
The political editor writes on page 14 of the Hindu, that any further step (further concessions to more belligerent exposures, might weaken the PMO!
What to do? Not doing anything is no option in politics, more so in a democracy, in an open society like India.
Democratic governments, democratic governance have always acted in a peaceful and Constitutional manner, all the world over.
When in doubt or crisis democracy offers so many solutions and way out!
You just have to read the British Parliamentary history or the US Constitution to see how to go about these issues.
There is the Parliament, the Executive and the Judiciary.
There is also the media, freedom of expression and opinion.
The Prime Minister can always take Parliament into confidence and seek its approval and influence Parliament to his, his government’s decisions.
In India, the rub is the Prime Minister is now part of the problem.
Yes, it is not pleasant to say so but the hard truth is that the PM, being an unelected member of Parliament (Lok Sabha)and unfortunately, also not being a political personality, Dr.Manmohan Singh, sorry to say, has failed to live up or failed to rise up to the expectations and challenges of his office.
Now, let us always remember, Indian democracy to say, in the modern world ,is taken seriously and not anymore what we do here, as it is being done now, not noticed outside the country.
There is a growing discomfort with the way Indian democracy and its governance is thoroughly corrupted by certain bad practices!
We needn’t elaborate. It is enough to say that we have reached a stage that many of the current ills, black money in elections, unaccounted party funds, crony capitalism etc have contributed to a high degree of unaccountability be it the party (Congress) or government becoming unanswerable to the people, why unanswerable to the party hierarchy (no CWC, no AICC and even the core group is not the core at all. In fact it is the moral core that is so thoroughly corrupt).Nor the government is well represented, well-balanced to various dominant opinions within the Congress party. Even the s0-called allies are not ideologically driven; they all seem like mercenary allies.
That is why corruption started from allies, then spread to the ruling party.
By democratic norms and conventions, the indicted minister resigns.
In India no resignation was done, not voluntarily done or sought. The Supreme Court rightly observed that it is not the judiciary’s job to govern the country!
So, the party line is to get belligenrant! That is both the party and the government would take more belligerent stand and refuse further investigations into the ever-growing corruption scandals!
Is this a wise step?
No, it is not!
You have to take intelligent and pro-active steps to dispel further suspicions.
This basic lessons we seem not to have learnt? Or, we refuse to learn any lessons?
There is now, it seems, an inexorable momentum towards the next general elections in 2014 or even before that date.
Mr.Mulayam Singh Yadav, the leader of the Samajwadi party, the UP’s current ruling party had started talking openly about its intentions to form a Third Front along with none other than Mamata Banerji who leads the Trinamul Congress in West Bengal. In fact, on the very day father Mulayam was talking about the new front, his son and UP chief minister Akilesh Yadav was conferring with Mamata in Kolkatta!
This is not unexpected and its outcome we may not know now.
But there is this relentless attack of the BJP and to everyone’s surprise the Congress ranks are bombarded, so to say, with so many new and unexpected sources of information about how almost again each and every one of the UPA government Cabinet is full of ministers and their kith and kin having a good time at the expense of the taxpayers.
So many allegations, so many court cases are pending and new cases are piling up!
No one dared to ask: whether the apex court is not burdened? Burdened with the inaptitude of the government?
Again, no one is also asking: is there not any way out of these many tangles, democratic ways?
The next reshuffle might not be a panacea. For the simple reason, no credible talent is likely to be inducted. There are no talents in the allies or the party. The credible talents have to be brought from outside the narrow, paranoid inner coteries.
There have been instances of forming a national government of talents.
In the Indian case, is this simply thinkable?
Clearly Sonia Gandhi had proved her in capabilities to lead the party further. The party is now almost empty of credible talents.
Youth Congress, Rahul Gandhi and the next hopes don’t seem bright.
The only option seems an early election. That might be a better option. At least everyone concerned would have some relief.
We can test public mood.
Who knows Mulayam Singh or Nitish Kumar or for that matter any other, be it L.K.Advani or Narendra Modi or Sushma Swaraj might have a chance.
India is a democracy of some 65 years of proven credibility.
So let us all feel confident and look forward to a democratic and constitutionally credible change.
Image source : rahulgandhi.us