23rd May 2019-
possibly it is the whole world waiting with bated breath- for the results of
General Elections in India to be announced. I am not a psephologist but share
the feel good factor that most of them have created by predicting a definite
victory for Narendradass Damodar Modi. His first term has to be considered
successful for merely applying brakes on a nation that was fast sliding into an
abyss of everything that a civilized society abhors. While this in itself is
laudable, the real positive change that has happened is in the national pride
that has been awakened. Physically, projects like Make in India and the
development of infrastructure in the areas of transportation are the most
visible. But then, as Robert Frost said ‘there are miles to go and miles to go
before one can go to sleep’, that is if ever one can go to sleep.
While demonetization and
introduction of GST have reduced corruption to a large extent, it cannot be
said that the quality of government administration and justice delivery has improved
even marginally. One benchmark I use to make this assertion is the response to
applications and appeals under the Right to Information Act. My Save Right to
Information Campaign (see the Mission Statement at the end of this article) has
been succeeding only in exposing the public servants rather than getting any
information sought. This not being the topic of this article, we will leave it
here.
When one evaluates the
performance of governments, I loath to think about the lack of transparency and
accountability in the functioning of each and every institution. The worst, of
course, is the judiciary followed by the bureaucracy.
The recent events that
shook the apex court highlight the urgent need to have a National Judicial
Accountability Commission with powers to try and punish judge as per laws
applicable to ordinary citizens but with twice the severity. The allegation
against the Chief Justice of India was legally a non-bailable offence. If my
memory serves me right it was the apex court that directed that the accused
need be arrested only if the allegation has been investigated by an officer of
the rank not less than an SP of Police. Maybe such an investigation in the
matter of an allegation against the CJI would have been futile. But then did
the court follow its own guidelines laid down in the Visakha verdict? No. The
in house committee that was required to investigate such allegations was headed
by Ms Indu Malhotra, a woman judge of the apex court who had attracted the
nation’s attention as the lone dissenter in the controversial Sabrimala womens’
entry case. Not only was the matter not taken up by this committee but even Ms
Indu Malhotra was inducted into the three judge special bench only after there
was objection to one of the judges in the male dominated bench constituted the
first time. This was an action that could be easily discerned as panic
reaction. Suffice to say that the clean chit given to the Chief Justice Gogoi by
this special bench was not unexpected and has dealt another death blow to the
credibility of the judiciary in general and the apex court in particular.
Another case to be
mentioned here, at least in passing, is the number of times P Chidambaram is
being granted bail. Social media is rife with speculation whether this will
make it to Guinness’s Book of World Records for the number of times an accused
is granted bail.
The failures of the
bureaucracy, even just in the context of the current elections, will suffice to
expose the fallacy of it being the steel frame of government administration.
The number of cases of
bogus voting in Kerala has been mind boggling. Video clips from CCTVs installed
in a few problematic booths have gone viral and some of these violations have
been confirmed by the State Electoral Officer. But there is a video of a
Marxist party member claiming that though a few cases have been exposed due to
the stupidity of the bogus voters who had been adequately briefed earlier,
there are many cases that will never be detected. (This video, available at https://youtu.be/Z6Qqna43Cwg is in Malayalam). The latest report confirms
re-polling in 4 booths. A first time in Kerala. Reminds me of booth capturing
which was rampant in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in the 1970s and 80s. The video
reports by Ms Nalini Singh are so vivid in one’s memory.
One of the bogus voters,
having been identified as a member of a local self government body, the CEO had
recommended her to be removed from office. The State Election Commissioner has
refused to do it. His arguments are
irrefutably ludicrous. He has reportedly stated that it could be done only if a
court has convicted the accused for misbehavior or impersonation and even that should be reported to the
Commission by a voter within the jurisdiction of that local body or the
secretary of that local body or an officer empowered by the government for that
purpose. It bedevils me to analyze whether it is the laws that are dubious
or the public servants administering them.
While the law is clear
that private property can be used for campaigning by the candidates only with
the approval of the owner, come elections and both public and private
properties that are not occupied are treated like the candidates’ own. Of
course some of the walls of even occupied properties are booked in advance,
with or without the permission of the owners.
I have had the horror of
finding the walls of the land adjoining my house defaced by a candidate. (Please
see ‘Elections: The dance of democracy or...’ at http://www.vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=4996). The land being in the names of my children, who are
away, I had complained to all the authorities- the District Electoral Officer,
the Chief Electoral Officer of the State and the Central Election Commission.
The Central Election Commission had responded with a perfunctory ‘your
complaint has been forwarded to the concerned authorities’ but there has been
no response to the query seeking the designation and address of these concerned
authorities. Also a team, under a Junior Superintendent, from the Revenue
Divisional Office, had come and made some inquiry but no formal communication
has been received from anybody so far.
As usual there have been
reports in the media of defacing squads defacing the defaced walls or removing
unauthorized hoardings. But this is obviously not even a miniscule of what is
required. Even an RTI query on recovery of dues from the candidates, for this symbolic
effort by the anti defacing squads, during the last General Elections, has not
elicited any valid response.
The next cause of concern
is the plethora of complaints of Model Code of Conduct violations by the candidates,
parties and their proxies. The most important has been of the Congress
President and Amethi candidate, Rahul Ghandi, blatantly lying about the apex
court indicting the PM, Narendra Modi, in the Rafale fighterjet deal. Apparently,
only the contempt of court issue had been taken up by the petitioner and not
the defamation of the PM who is also a candidate. Though the court is yet to
give its final decision on the petition, it was astonishing that the court gave
more than one opportunity to the respondent to apologise. Though finally an
apology has been tendered Rahul himself has been going around declaring that it
was only to the court.
Rahul got another slap on
his face when Oxford Dictionary officials rebutted a false claim by him (or his
dirty tricks department) that there was a new word introduced in the dictionary
as ‘modilie’ (‘Oxford Dictionary calls Rahul Gandhi's bluff on new word Modilie’
at https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha-2019/story/oxford-dictionary-rahul-gandhi-modilie-tweet-1526696-2019-05-16)
Violation of the MCC
reached a new low with Rahul’s sister, Priyanka Vadra, encouraging even
children to repeat the lie ‘chowkidar chor hai’.
Whatever NaMo has done
during his first term can mostly be considered as setting the stage only. He
has certainly done a good job in managing the available resources with the
rusted tools bequeathed to him. The fresh mandate will certainly be for
decisive steps to make institutions of governance transparent, accountable,
effective and efficient.
17 May 2019
Save
Right to Information Campaign
Mission
Statement
‘Save Right to
information. Use Right to Information Act.
Get information or......expose
at least three idiots/traitors* among public servants!
1. The Public Information
Officer,
2. The First Appellate
Authority (and the head of public authority where the head of the public
authority is not the FAA!) and
3. The Information
Commissioner
(* An idiot is one who
does not know the job s/he is getting paid to do and a traitor is one who knows
it but does not do it!)
No comments:
Post a Comment