The future of democracy as a political system
Introduction:
There is no leisure in politics. Elections to the local bodies, to the state legislators and the Parliament all occur in phases and in a cluster including elections to fill up the gaps. Three to four state assembly elections occur in a matter of a couple years. The recently concluded Himachal Pradesh. Uttarakhanda, Kerala and Karnataka elections were succeeded by a few elections. Within a matter of three-month’ time, four more states are going to the polls. The opportunistic alliance between JMM and the Congress is only to win the next election as a Congress win has been forecast there.
One of the greatest natural disasters of recent years, the Uttarakhanda rescue has just been over, but it is no more now in the media-mind. What the media is concentrating on now is the Ishrat Jahan encounter. The CBI has already filed the original charge sheet in this case which states that the encounter was false, engineered by IB and Gujarat police jointly. This is a serious matter on which everyone has his own opinion. It is difficult to say where the enquiry leading to.
Indian Parliament is sovereign:
Not only in this matter, but all other controversial matters, we should accept the verdict of the High Court and the Supreme Court as the best possible solution. Political parties may be having their own interpretations, but we need not be impatient when the matter is subjected in the apex court. The encounter is not confined to a particular state or region; it is occurring everywhere in India; but it comes to our knowledge because of the human rights activists in the country.
In scores of cases, innocent people are in jails and their lives are nothing short of hell. The police find the escape-route to counter the wrath of agitated people by arresting the innocent and claiming to have captured the culprit. We may expect such a situation in a case or two, but such actions by police in a number of cases are a matter of concern and fear for the gullible masses. We should be thankful to the media which brings such facts to our notice. The Indian Parliament is sovereign in our democratic set up. Nobody should stand in the way of an elected representative in taking an independent decision. Nonetheless, elected or nominated representatives want complete freedom in their works. I think, no democratic structure can work in this way in a seamless manner. An absolute power always corrupts absolutely. We experience this in administrative matters. If the CBI remains free of government shackles, then why will it be accountable in the court of law?
Rise and fall of super democrats:
We have seen the rise and fall of a super Democrat like Anna Hazare, an ascetic like Baba Ram Dev and many civil servants, politicians and bureaucrats. Numerous social activists have also closed down their rank and file to become members of a newly constituted political party. Lawlessness and anarchy rules the Indian democratic set up in a number of places with less scope for people to come out in the open to fight the system which is never wrong except the implementation part of it which eludes the citizens as they advance with the advancement of civilization.
People world over, especially those ruled by kings and autocrats are clamoring for a new democratic system as in Egypt where President Morsey was removed and replaced by military generals reducing many people dead in the streets. However, these people have not laid their lives for the establishment of a people’s representative set up. They were showing their preference of one dictatorial form of government with another. They have not thought of any alternative form of government.
True democracy:
True democracy does not come if democratic institutions do not have the required security and stability and a delicate balance among themselves. Rarely, people understood that their measures instead of establishing a democratic set up are tending towards or inviting lawlessness and anarchy. Whatever, it may be, no such chaotic thought is possible in our country as well-versed in democratic traditions for more than six decades, will find a way out of the coalition crisis and elect a solid and firm political set up to tide over the present non performance in coalition politics which pulls the rope in both ways to see that nothing moves beyond the place where it earlier was.
Indian Police Act and Attitude:
The British Pattern Indian policing system, observing the old, outdated police laws, is spelling disaster for the country with the medieval system of hitting, beating and torturing of people by policemen in police stations and outside being no uncommon occurrence countrywide. While few of the accused die of torture, a number of others commit suicide unable to withstand upset beyond a tolerance limit and commit suicide to end their lives. Notwithstanding legal provisions against such acts by policemen, the behavior and inhumanity of police people have undergone no transformation.
In Park Circus ground in Kolkata, a 25 years old youth was brutally beaten by policemen and is under critical care at a city hospital. Rafiq, the victim, was no culprit in this case, but he was not heard or believed it and was brutally beaten to a critical stare. The fact of the case is that Rafiq was asked by three people loitering there to provide them with a match box. They searched his pockets forcibly to find out if there was any. In the mean time, the patrolling policemen saw some incident happening and went to the place.
Rafiq ran in fear of policemen harassing him and was caught with kicks, blows and lathi beatings. The policemen, also, urinated on him after he fell down from the beating. His father now has filed a complaint against the policemen and the victim is in a very precarious state in a city hospital. One senior officer has stated that the policemen involved have all been identified and strict actions will be taken against him.
Conclusion:
Of all social and political systems, put to test world over, democracy has come out with flying colors due to its latent attributes of participatory form of government and attributes of capturing justice to all citizens alike irrespective of caste, creed, sex and religion for which people world over bereft of this facility have been crying and clamoring for establishment of this system, setting aside all other notions.
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