Even though we say that India is biggest democracy of the world, we are far too behind in real democratic style of governance. In my view, real democracy is achieved when elected representatives fear the electorate rather than making electorate feel feared. Once this fear is instilled in elected representatives, rest all things will be taken care automatically..
I am sure many Representatives in US must be corrupt in some form or other. Still, there is fear of electorate.. Several reasons, elections every two year, term limit on highest post and most importantly there is real democracy in parties itself... Whether it is party president or whether it is nominee for presidential candidate or even for seats in congress/senate... there is true democratic way of election.. There are no bigshots at the top who dictate who will get ticket for which constituency or which governor/presidential nominee.
Whereas in India, it is all "High Command"s wish.. Instead of fearing electorate, representative fear "High Command".. and hence they fear party "High Command" or icons who some how create and spread fear or so called charisma on masses and hence on their own Party members and Representative.. .
Prime example is Nehru/Gandi family's grip on India's largest party. Only lineage is the criteria to become party head and hence control government either directly or through remote control and hence create all form of corruption and fear of themselves. If anything needs to happen, first they should kick out this family business out of party business. I can't believe there are no good leaders out of 1.2 billion and growing population.
Though nothing is perfect, but we can see outcome of loosened grip of this family on Congress and Nation for few years in 1990s after sudden death of Rajiv Gandhi.. By no means, I am supporting and praising terrorist attack.. Principally, I am against any kind of violence.. However, that event really led to Narsimha Rao's government which was free of influence for some time.. By no means, it was cleanest or non-corrupt government.. but still, changes started during those times are foundation for India's great progress till now.. We had hoped that we will get rid of family and won't need them forever.. there was great lineup of leaders like Scindhia/Pilot in Party who were ready to take over reigns of party.. however, during unfortunate events in next couple of years this entire line up of leaders died in "accidents" and we were left with Nehru/Gandhi family..
Digressed from real topic of this blog.. but still it is great example.. when there is slight improvement in democratic process..
So, in my view we should start real revolution to fix this mess we are in. Once these issues are taken care of, rest all the issues like corruption will be fixed automatically.. I really don't think that this "Lokpal" is going to fix things completely.. What if Lokpal itself is corrupt.. we might be in even worse situation.. I agree, Anna is nice person.. but then we don't know for sure about his followers.. In my view, it is all patch work.. We need to attack very foundation of this corruption.. and that foundation is "Power in hands of High Command" not in hands of public..
So our revolutions should be focussed on fixing these fundamental issues.. As these things will never happen on their own.. These very same people will not let it happen that easily.. if something like this happens, they will have literally abandon their posts as there will be surge of new and energetic leadership into the country and society as a whole..
First and most important step is to force these iconic figures out of the party. I won't mind a simple and plain revolution in India to kick Nehru/Gandhi family out of the country itself... Once they are out, then amend constitution to make terms of party presidents max to two years and they can't be re-elected for next five or 10 years. Same rule needs to be applied for Prime/Chief Minister post as well. I guess, our founding fathers did a great job in preparing constitution while copying it from UK's constitution.. but in the end, this same constitution is keeping aristocracy still very much alive in India... I think it is time to add or copy some of the constitution from US as well.. No system is perfect.. I won't say that US or UK or India's system is perfect.. However, we need to continuously evolve it and see what could be best in which situation..
When our constitution was originally made, it had provision of continuously grow number of seats based on population growth.. I think sometime in 80s it was changed and number of parliamentary seats were frozen on account of space constraints in our Parliament. I think, cost of extending Parliament building would have been not even one hundredth of one of the scams we had faced here if more representatives would have been there.. Very clearly, more the number of representatives easier it would have been for new comer to win the elections and reach parliament.. Lesser the dependence on big parties or their high command.. Better and bigger audit of different government programs..
Again, coming back to core topic... We need real democracy in parties.. That can be only achieved if we amend constitution to force any regional/national party to have regular elections to elect their leaders and even elections for nominees for Parliamentary elections.. Once these elections starts, no single person can control these parties and hence the governments.. It may seem another headache or cost to have these extra and more frequent elections but this cost will be substantially lower than the cost of one single scam if it can prevent.. Power needs to be in hands of people.. not in few families or individuals..
I am sure many Representatives in US must be corrupt in some form or other. Still, there is fear of electorate.. Several reasons, elections every two year, term limit on highest post and most importantly there is real democracy in parties itself... Whether it is party president or whether it is nominee for presidential candidate or even for seats in congress/senate... there is true democratic way of election.. There are no bigshots at the top who dictate who will get ticket for which constituency or which governor/presidential nominee.
Whereas in India, it is all "High Command"s wish.. Instead of fearing electorate, representative fear "High Command".. and hence they fear party "High Command" or icons who some how create and spread fear or so called charisma on masses and hence on their own Party members and Representative.. .
Prime example is Nehru/Gandi family's grip on India's largest party. Only lineage is the criteria to become party head and hence control government either directly or through remote control and hence create all form of corruption and fear of themselves. If anything needs to happen, first they should kick out this family business out of party business. I can't believe there are no good leaders out of 1.2 billion and growing population.
Though nothing is perfect, but we can see outcome of loosened grip of this family on Congress and Nation for few years in 1990s after sudden death of Rajiv Gandhi.. By no means, I am supporting and praising terrorist attack.. Principally, I am against any kind of violence.. However, that event really led to Narsimha Rao's government which was free of influence for some time.. By no means, it was cleanest or non-corrupt government.. but still, changes started during those times are foundation for India's great progress till now.. We had hoped that we will get rid of family and won't need them forever.. there was great lineup of leaders like Scindhia/Pilot in Party who were ready to take over reigns of party.. however, during unfortunate events in next couple of years this entire line up of leaders died in "accidents" and we were left with Nehru/Gandhi family..
Digressed from real topic of this blog.. but still it is great example.. when there is slight improvement in democratic process..
So, in my view we should start real revolution to fix this mess we are in. Once these issues are taken care of, rest all the issues like corruption will be fixed automatically.. I really don't think that this "Lokpal" is going to fix things completely.. What if Lokpal itself is corrupt.. we might be in even worse situation.. I agree, Anna is nice person.. but then we don't know for sure about his followers.. In my view, it is all patch work.. We need to attack very foundation of this corruption.. and that foundation is "Power in hands of High Command" not in hands of public..
So our revolutions should be focussed on fixing these fundamental issues.. As these things will never happen on their own.. These very same people will not let it happen that easily.. if something like this happens, they will have literally abandon their posts as there will be surge of new and energetic leadership into the country and society as a whole..
First and most important step is to force these iconic figures out of the party. I won't mind a simple and plain revolution in India to kick Nehru/Gandhi family out of the country itself... Once they are out, then amend constitution to make terms of party presidents max to two years and they can't be re-elected for next five or 10 years. Same rule needs to be applied for Prime/Chief Minister post as well. I guess, our founding fathers did a great job in preparing constitution while copying it from UK's constitution.. but in the end, this same constitution is keeping aristocracy still very much alive in India... I think it is time to add or copy some of the constitution from US as well.. No system is perfect.. I won't say that US or UK or India's system is perfect.. However, we need to continuously evolve it and see what could be best in which situation..
When our constitution was originally made, it had provision of continuously grow number of seats based on population growth.. I think sometime in 80s it was changed and number of parliamentary seats were frozen on account of space constraints in our Parliament. I think, cost of extending Parliament building would have been not even one hundredth of one of the scams we had faced here if more representatives would have been there.. Very clearly, more the number of representatives easier it would have been for new comer to win the elections and reach parliament.. Lesser the dependence on big parties or their high command.. Better and bigger audit of different government programs..
Again, coming back to core topic... We need real democracy in parties.. That can be only achieved if we amend constitution to force any regional/national party to have regular elections to elect their leaders and even elections for nominees for Parliamentary elections.. Once these elections starts, no single person can control these parties and hence the governments.. It may seem another headache or cost to have these extra and more frequent elections but this cost will be substantially lower than the cost of one single scam if it can prevent.. Power needs to be in hands of people.. not in few families or individuals..
1 comment:
You left out BJP and the RSS grip on BJP. Had RSS been democratic, there would be no reason to have BJP and India's politics would have been on different course. Progressive ideas are not monopoly of members of any one political party. All parties have members who can bring about progress. The question is whether the current methodology followed to select leaders allows these members to come to the fore.
And by the way, if proper methodology is followed, the current leaders will behave in a different way. I fondly remember T N Sheshan who bared the teeth of the office of the Election Commissioner for all times to come.
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