DEMOCRACRY FOR THE RICH AND INFLUENTIAL

Is India being reduced to a democracy for the rich and influential?

You can mount an attack on the highest democratic institution of the country, The Parliament House, caught in the process, tried and convicted by a court of law and still get away with, you can mow down the people sleeping in the pavement with your luxury car and escape conviction, you can poach, at will, an endangered specie like Chinkara or a black buck and hush up the case, you can pass through the green channel at the airport on your return from an international trip with dutiable items and plead ignorance when caught and scot free, you can shoot a bar attendant point blank and still get a bail if you have the right connections, you can import an aircraft under the guise of commercial use and keep it for personal use and evade import duty until some news channel blows the whistle, you can be involved in any number of bomb blasts killing innocent people and be a free man if you have political patronage, you can be an MP with murder charges against you and your party leaders will back you up, you, as a minister, can be prosecuted by CBI for financial scandal after a long awaited Governor’s permission, who, in turn, gets threatening calls from abroad for doing his duty and so on and so on. The list is endless.

The police are unwilling to register if you lodge a complaint and, if registered, the complainant is treated as the accused. You are unwilling to render help to the hapless bleeding victim of a road accident, even if you are a medical professional, because you are afraid of the consequences of your involvement. The judges are influenced and the poor victim who was gang raped is made to witness the sad spectacle of her assailants being set free for want of evidence adding new threats to her personal security, leave alone the inconvenient questions hurled at her by the so called “defense” lawyers. The employers, if they belong to a multinational, flex their muscle and financial power to ensure that the legal proceedings don’t tarnish their local image regardless of the anguish and trauma inflicted upon the victim and her family. These have become routine and even the intelligentsia have learned to live with it resigning to their fate.

Are we fast emerging as the largest, but the most irresponsible democracy of the 21st century where the powerful, wealthy and influential can hijack the whole system to suit their personal agenda? The British, no doubt, looted the country, but they had something in place to protect the interest of the law abiding citizen. This is the sad irony of Mr. Bharat that has completed 60 glorious years after independence. The politicians plunder the country’s wealth and the multinationals join the bandwagon in that our elected representatives and ministers have become salable commodities who can be bought and sold in the open market to make policies and enact laws to increase the bottom line of industrial giants and power houses. Factories are being put up in agricultural lands affecting the livelihood of scores of farmers because the small car is more important to the nation than the basic subsistence of the peasant. Soft drink manufacturers are locating their factories in rural areas draining the ground water resources creating artificial scarcity of drinking water and when the villagers resist, police force are sent to silence them and booked under discriminatory laws. Even in the extreme cases where the rural population is relocated for a right cause, the promised compensation does not reach them and is eaten away by the babus en route.

If this is the independent India’s state of affairs today, what have we in store for the future generations? In the last sixty years, we have not managed to produce a single leader with commitment to a national agenda. On the contrary, our system has produced more dealers than leaders. Enacting a law that imposes life ban for tainted men from holding public office will alone revamp our democratic values.

WEST RESPONSIBLE FOR SRI LANKAN SCENARIO

With the exception of Taliban who wants to propagate Islamic tenets and enforce Sharia law all over the world, terrorism is a product of deprivation. Tamils, forming almost 15% of the Sri Lankan population, have been, in the past, targeted and discriminated by the majority Sinhalese community and were always treated as second class citizens. Successive governments abetted in the crime.

What started as a small movement called TNT led by a group of young men under the leadership of Prabhakaran, it grew into LTTE, a powerful force to be reckoned with. As a ruthless terror group, they organized their own army with naval and air wings and had excellent logistical support, leave alone the dedicated suicide squads willing to strike in the name of their cause.. It took the government more than decade to dismantle the outfit.

The USA and UK are now calling for measures to combat the humanitarian crisis. Where were they for the last 30 years when the LTTE was fighting the Sri Lankan govt., when the Tamils were fighting for a legitimate cause? Where were they when the genocide was going on in Burundi and Rwanda where Tutsis and Hutus were slaughtering each other? Where were they when the Black Africans in the erstwhile Rhodesia and South Africa were mercilessly butchered and mutilated?

I find the western attitude very difficult to understand. You religiously watch as things happen and cry foul when all is over. If the healthy, wealthy, developed and influential nations of the world cannot take initiative in arresting an impending humanitarian crisis, what kind of legacy we are leaving behind. When a 9/11 strikes USA or terrorists bomb London, they call upon world nations to fight terror, but turn a blind eye to the problems elsewhere.

When a child wielding a toy gun makes a mock threat, we ignore him. Now that the child has grown up and the toy gun has been replaced by AK-47, we all panic in that we have been caught off guard. This is what has happened in Sri Lanka. The UN, of course, has been reduced to a non-entity.

THIRD FRONT CIRCUS: A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE

Now that the general elections are around the corner, a bunch of political opportunists from various regions are forming a grand unholy alliance with only one common objective, i.e., capture the political power at the centre. Having failed to strike a deal with other parties who have a reasonable national status, this disgruntled, power hungry lot have no national agenda, no vision and their sights are set on the Prime Ministerial chair. Even before agreeing to agree on the basic issues, some one in the caucus wants the alliance to declare their prime ministerial candidate even before going to polls. Fully assured of a big fight over the PM’s post, in the event of a very unlikely scenario of winning a majority, attempts are being made by some quarters for a pre emptive strike so as to cement their position after elections.

The declaration of emergency in 1975 was, no doubt, a sad chapter in the history of Indian democracy. But when Indira Gandhi released all political prisoners and declared general elections in 1977, the hitherto warring factions formed a formidable but infamous alliance called Janata party with the sole objective of throwing Indira Gandhi out of office. Voted to office by a nation that wanted to avenge the excesses of emergency, they concentrated on taking revenge on Indira Gandhi rather than focusing on the national priorities. They had no common program and once the main objective was achieved, they manifested their true color, disagreeing on every issue, which frustrated the common man who voted Indira Gandhi back to power in 1980. This is exactly what we are witnessing in third front alliance.

Mayavati, Jayalalitha, Chandrababu Naidu and Sharad Pawar are all regional leaders with big political ambitions. They will never achieve a consensus if elected in that they have all their own personal agenda and national issues will be shifted to the back burner. Together they will tarnish the image of Indian democracy already tarnished for fielding tainted candidates and make a mockery of parliament. There is a severe shortage of honest aspirants and even parties with a national presence are looking for popular candidates drawn from entertainment and sports industries regardless of their background. Successive governments have deliberately ensured that no one enacts a law against fielding candidates convicted for various offences.

It will be black day for Indian democracy if regional leaders voted to power. It is unfortunate that the people have been reduced to a mere spectator who can do nothing but to choose the lesser evil.

WHY BLAME PAK ALONE?

We have been blaming the Pak government for their inaction in dealing with terror outfits involved in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. While the neighbor’s cold attitude is understandable for obvious reasons, what have we done with the culprits already in our custody?

The brutal attack on Indian Parliament in 2001 seems to have been forgotten. Eight Indian security personnel paid with their lives while trying to save our politicians who seldom bother about the soldier. Even the return of the gallantry awards conferred upon them by their families has no effect on our thick skinned leaders.

The accused has been convicted for capital punishment by the highest court in the country, but, till today, the sentence has not been carried out using an ‘obsolete’ provision in the law that the court order cannot be carried out until the President disposes of the clemency petition filed by the convicted.

The clemency provision was introduced in our legal system in good faith to enable the President to commute the death sentence to life term imprisonment under special circumstances. That does not mean the provision can be misused to bail out terrorists.

Now that the elections are around the corner, the chances of hanging Afzal Guru are very remote in that it will affect the minority vote banks. Communal politics practiced by our politicians have grown alarmingly and this will have wide repercussions on national security. If Pakistan is a safe heaven for terror outfits, India is a safer heaven for convicted terrorists.

DANGEROUS DEAL

Pakistan’s signing a ceasefire agreement with the Taliban clearly shows how weak is the civil government there and who is the real boss. With the US forces chasing them out of Afghanistan, Taliban is slowly establishing in Pakistan with the support of ISI and the army. Now they have found a safe heaven in NEFP and have been even successful in enforcing Sharia laws. This will eventually lead to total Talibanisation of Pakistan and, once the control of their nuclear arsenal fall in the hands of the Jihadis, it will result in a global catastrophe.

It is high time the world leaders opened their eyes if they want to prevent another 9/11 happening. The US will now realize how their most trusted ally in the fight of terrorism is now openly abetting terror activities. The Taliban’s signing of a ceasefire agreement with Pakistan should be seen as the first step towards a grand plan to take over Pakistan and unless the UN declares Pakistan as a state sponsoring terrorism and impose sanctions against the regime, in all likelihood, the future generations will be paying a heavy price.

ISOLATE PAKISTAN

In the aftermath of the terror attacks in Mumbai, various intelligence agencies, both Indian and foreign, have investigated in depth all the facts and figures connected with the attackers and have gathered enough evidence to nail Pakistan as a nation abetting terror activities by providing a safe heaven to the perpetrators. India has already provided several dossiers to the Pak government substantiating the evidence that the neighbor’s territory is being used to carry out the operations involving its nationals, but to no avail.

The Pak response was understandable, a cold denial, as expected, to everything, even though the international agencies who joined the investigations have conclusively accepted the evidence. So long as the hardliners are calling the shots in Pakistan, the civilian government cannot act independently except as a spokesperson of the fundamentalists. In such a scenario, it will be impossible to make the neighboring state to take any effective measures to combat terror. Even if a technical ban is imposed to fulfill the international pressure, the culprits will regroup under different names and function as usual. The US has provided millions of dollars to Pakistan to combat terrorism, but these funds have been diverted elsewhere. The discredited nuclear scientist A.K. Khan, known for passing on the nuclear weapon technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran, has also been scot free by the by the Pakistan high court adding further testimony to the govt.’s intentions.

Surgical air strikes as a clean up operation will only worsen the scenario and may lead to a full scale war damaging the economies of both the countries already reeling under pressure due to the unprecedented global recession. This will also give Pak an opportunity to divert world attention from terrorism. How do we handle the situation?
In my opinion, we should isolate Pakistan among the international community. India should mount a major diplomatic offensive. Suspend diplomatic relations, stop all bilateral relations including trade and sporting ties and call upon all friendly nations who are potential targets of terror attacks to follow suit. Our diplomatic maneuvers with US, Russia and China has to be more effective to ensure a total barricade on the aid and arms supply to Pakistan. A UN resolution imposing an international embargo on the supply of military equipments to Pakistan will also help the cause.

OBAMA HAS SHOWN THE WAY

By slashing the maximum remuneration payable to top executives to US$500,000, US President Baraak Obama has shown the way to battle in America’s most challenging economic crisis. The successful corporates were on a money laundering spree and this is evident from the take home pay of the CEO of the bankrupt Lehman Brothers which was a whooping US$256 million.

Indian business houses are second to none with Mukesh Ambani gifting a Rs.250 crore aircraft to his wife on her birthday and Anil Ambani gifting a luxury yacht to his wife worth Rs.400 crores. Politicians have also not lagged behind with people like UP chief minister Mayavati having a regular birthday bash spending crores of rupees, leave alone the generous privileges and perks enjoyed by the MPs who show least regard for parliament sessions.

Multinationals operating in India and other top Indian companies are also known for their lavish compensation package for senior executives. It is high time Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his team take measures on the lines shown by the American President if we have to reduce the impact of this global economic crisis.