nation is getting ready to elect a new Parliament. It is by no means amused by the antics of the current occupants whether on the government benches, the Opposition or even known independents. Except for a few honourable exceptions, politicians are held in
contempt.The chances are that most of the current herd will face ignominious defeat. Parliament will doubtless have a new look. Will it be pleasing or even uglier than before remains a troublesome question. No one should venture a prediction.
Surveying the political scene, I do not see any possibility of any principled coalitions or electoral alliances. All the ones being negotiated or planned have no discernible ideological rationale nor any public weal in view.
Naked and sordid pursuit of power appears the sole motivation. Mortal enemies seem to be shaking hands and allies till yesterday are ready to stab and destroy one another.
This is a draft manifesto of a party that exists only in the imagination of a few likeminded citizens. Their only qualification is that they are not in the power game but want to live in a better India whose management is in credible and competent hands. A party or coalition that swears by this manifesto may never be born but at least the voter will find in it some useful advice who to vote for. Naturally we first turn to foreign affairs.
India is now facing a totally new world order which hardly bears any resemblance to that which our first Prime Minister encountered. Communism has proved to be a total failure and both Russia and China are Communist only in name. Both have switched over to the free market and Russia even pretends to some kind of political democracy. The US has emerged as the only military super power.
Globalisation has made obsolete many economic shibboleths and conventional trade tariffs have fallen by wayside. The current rulers have no expertise for surviving in this totally unfamiliar milieu.
However, the Constitution makers have left for all succeeding generations a compulsory lesson about how our foreign policy should be conducted. The lesson is written in the first Article which reads as under: India shall
promote global peace and security;
maintain just and honourable relations between nations;
foster respect for international law and treaty obligations in the dealings of
organised peoples with one another; and
encourage settlement of international disputes by arbitration.
Our commitment to world peace and security is the constitutional obligation. Maintaining just and honourable relations between nations and fostering respect for international law or encouraging settlement of disputes by peaceful arbitration are just corollaries from this grand theorem.
Thirty years of research has shown that democracies do not easily go to war. The horrendous consequences of war fall heavy upon the citizens in their character of soldiers and taxpayers.
Modern International Law has created an elaborate system of human rights. Starting with the Declaration of 1948 the effort has culminated in the too elaborate Covenants of 1966. The governments which do not practice rigorous democracy cannot pretend to be upholding human rights.
With all its faults and failures, India has a vibrant democracy and we have to promote the spread of democracy in all parts of the globe. It was a proud moment for India when Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and former US President George Bush entered into a partnership for furthering democracy.
In its conduct of foreign relations, this shall be the basic agenda of the new Indian government. It also follows that India will do nothing to encourage or enrich those states which are well known enemies of democracy and whose acceptance of human rights is only a pretence or a fraud.
September 11, 2001 and now November 26, 2008 have precipitated a climactic confrontation between the irresistible forces of good and evil, reason and unreason modern civilisation and primitive barbarity. Time has come when we have to recall what President Theodore Roosevelt said almost hundred years ago: “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord”.
Relations with Pakistan require the highest statesmanship. Partition and its horrible aftermath have unfortunately coloured our response to Pakistan. We cannot honestly claim that we have ever gone out of our way to win the hearts and minds of the people of that country.
India had always been opposed to the two-nation theory but we forget that Qaid-e-Azam Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, had himself repudiated it as soon as he won independence for his state. He had declared that Pakistan would be a democratic liberal and just state. It would live peacefully with its minority Hindu population and relations with India would be of friendship and cooperation.
Unfortunately, Jinnah died soon of tuberculosis and the first Prime Minister Leaqat Ali Khan was cruelly assassinated. Its excellent first Constitution of March, 1956 was superseded and luckless Pakistanis have had to suffer long and repeated spells of autocratic military rule.
The present is the chance to undo the past. Pakistan has got back its democracy; its war mongers are lying low; the establishment understands the futility of war and the Pakistan-created Frankenstein of Terrorism has now turned on its creator.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherji must stop his silly claptrap of “All options open”. War is not the option. A No War Pact with no loopholes and escape routs is the only option to pursue. Every thing else will take care of itself.
People blessed with a genuine democracy, constitutionally protected rights and duties of individuals and an independent judiciary to enforce them have attained Azadi. Any violent action to secure more of it or of a different kind or content is the crime of terrorism or treason or both.
Pakistan and India must be transparent in their dealing with the local populations on both sides of the LoC and the international community must be able to certify that there is no colonial type exploitation of their material resources. The Kashmir problem found its solution long ago but the political will has been lacking.
President Zardari is ready; Manmohan Singh has to be willing. The BJP wants immediate cessation of diplomatic relations. People of India should and will dismiss it as political bankruptcy and electoral insanity.
A genuine settlement with the Pakistan Government will make the Army retire to its barracks and make Pakistan’s revolving door democracy stable for a change.
Threats of war from India only make our neighbour’s democracy wobbly and vulnerable to its old enemies. India must guarantee that Pakistan does not turn out to be a failed state.
India and the US are pledged to fight a war against terrorism. Our ministers,
however, are not acting like warriors but policemen. Their emphasis does not
seem to be elimination of terrorists but on catching a few and punishing them
through our judicial process.
All our attempts to make Pakistan admit that the Mumbai terrorists are Pakistanis and prepare elaborate dossiers for the consumption of Pakistan and other world states are futile and wasted effort.
India and the US must persuade Pakistan to believe that terrorists are also a threat to its fledging democracy. It is in its own interest to cooperate with us in exterminating this lethal virus. The three governments must together hunt them out in their habitations and destroy them.
This action is urgently called for and must be undertaken before any terrorist
organisation can lay its hands on nuclear weapons.
The war against terrorism
cannot be fought without neutralising the states which foster, finance and
harbour terrorism.
We know the birth place of both Sunni and Shia terrorist organisations. We must persuade the Security Council to take decisive action.
If the Security Council’s action is paralysed by the veto of one or the other member, we must be prepared to act alone in exercise of our right of self-defence expressly recognised by the UN Charter.
The heart warming development which we have failed to notice or publicise is the declaration made by thousands of Muslim clerics who under the inspiration of Darul-Ulloon declared that terrorism is condemned by Islam.
There is not one word in the Holy Quran to sanctify the killing of innocent, unarmed, children, women and old men. The terrorists are too cowardly to engage the military forces and regular combatants.
Tackling terrorism will require unapologetic honesty and total moral clarity. The rogue states must be identified, named and tamed. To hobnob with them for whatever reasons is treason against the Indian nation.
One of the priceless legacies of the British rule is the judicial system with its emphasis on absolute integrity of character and a high degree of technical competence in the shape of deep knowledge of law and tremendous facility in sifting facts and analysing evidence. At the same time, justice was prompt and cheap.
Every citizen today knows that our judicial machinery has totally crumbled. It
should be the primary duty of government and Parliament to restore the system
to its pristine glory.
Lord Brougham in a speech on “Law Reform” said, “It was the boast of Augustus that he found Rome of brick and left it of marble. But how much nobler will be the sovereign’s boast when he shall have it to say, that he found law dear and left it cheap; found it a sealed book, left it a living letter; found it the patrimony of the rich, left it the inheritance of the poor; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression, left it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence.”
The present method of recruitment and dealing with judicial delinquents is totally outdated and impracticable.
India has the experience of 1993 when a credible and foolproof impeachment motion failed, because the ruling party did not vote and the required 2/3rd majority could not be collected.
It was a case in which Parliament’s corruption cooperated to sustain its companion, the judicial corruption.
Moreover, judges are made to sit on Benches before which all sorts of matters turn up. Some of them arise out of areas of law of which one, more or all the judges on the Bench have not the faintest idea.
Litigants have had the misfortunate of appearing before Benches in serious criminal cases where not one of the judges could claim any familiarity with criminal law.
The counsels even find it difficult to decide, how much enunciation of the relevant
law they must attempt or when to stop in the belief that their argument has at last
been understood.
It is easy to deal with a loquacious Judge, but it is difficulty to fathom a non-speaking one and the ignorant usually adopt a sphinx-like posture.
Repeated suggestions that matters relating to specific branches of law should be put before Judges who are experts in those branches of law have fallen on deaf ears.
Perceptive practitioners only, while sitting in court, observe the frequent miscarriage of justice happening before their eyes. These go unnoticed by others and do not evoke a protest.
Dealing with this deficiency does not require any legislation. It can be done by setting up traditions binding on the Chief Justice of the court.
It is a scandal that 30 million cases are pending in the subordinate courts and thousands in the higher courts.
Successive Law Commissions have time and again reported that we need to multiply our courts five times.
This shall be speedily done by the new government.
By reason of its unpardonable dilatoriness, criminal justice has lost its deterrent
punch. Crime and criminals continue to grow and threaten the stability and
security of society.
About four years ago, Transparency International and the Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies undertook study of corruption in India. The result published the same year said that Indians pay out more than Rs 20,000 crore as bribes every year and scores of public servants at all levels are involved.
Connected with the question of competent courts is the issue of corruption. The political system and our legislators have become totally insensitive to this galloping cancer. But the people know that corruption has permeated into every part of our body politic and it has ascended to the level of the Apex Court.
The public suspicion is heightened by the Supreme Court Judges’ reluctance to declare their wealth. Once the people’s faith and confidence in the judicial process are gone, the vacuum will be filled by musclemen and murderers.
Legislation has failed to deal with this menace proving the old adage that we cannot legislate character. Our schools and colleges curricula need to be reformed to include ethics and moral science as compulsory subjects.
The current tenure of Parliament even saw large wads of currency notes being
bandied about in the Lok Sabha. Voters must ensure that only persons of the
highest integrity are voted into our legislatures, Cabinets at the Centre and in
the state level.
For the last six months, practically the whole world is reeling under economic meltdown. India too has not escaped the catastrophe.
Wise economic policies will have to be put in place but dealing with growing corruption should be an urgent and conspicuous strategy.
On the economic front, the solution is not to revert to the old system of government controls, licenses and permits. That will be a remedy worse than the
disease.
Our Finance Ministry must now study the principles of Keynesian economics which worked for the US during the 1930s and for almost all European countries during World War II.
Massive investments in infrastructure and creation of new jobs for employing those who have lost their earlier ones for the new ones who are entering afresh the employment workforce are called for. Private entities must have easy access to public funds with checks to prevent misuse.
Our pluralist multi-religions and multi-lingual society can march forward only by demolishing dividing walls and cultivating a dominating Indian identity. Lesser identities will coexist.
This is best secured by a rational secularism which makes the needs of the Republic paramount with power to trump all religions beliefs and practices.
Secularism, correctly understood, requires every Indian life to be guided by reason
and logic. In the distribution of economic, political and social rights, the state shall
remain neutral and treat all as equals; religion of a citizen shall never justify any
hostile discrimination.
The new government shall expound and enforce this secularism without deviating from it to get some electoral advantage.
The Constitution of India recognises the need for reservation in legislatures and in public employment for those sections of society, who historically have been unjustly treated and suppressed. The women of India doubtless belong to this category.
On democratic principles half the members of every legislature must be women but as a compromise it has been proposed that one third of the seats in Parliament must be reserved for them.
Unfortunately, a male-dominated society is still resisting this proposal becoming law. The next government and Parliament must secure this justice for women in the first six months of its tenure. This makes our Parliament more orderly, purposeful and, certainly, more colourful.
This missive is our advice to voters to identify honest candidates with high liberal education committed to international peace and domestic unity with a past record which guarantees that they will not abandon principles when seeking public office.
The writer is a jurist and former Member of
Parliament