This
article is divided in three parts, this is first part
Last
week we celebrated Constitution day. Every body was all praise for
that document. We are executing our democratic obligations in
accordance to the dictates given in that document. Many suggested
that the document is all perfect and our present Prime Minister Mr.
Modi said that his government shall keep that document as it is and
that; it is the source of inspiration to all Indians(!). A lot of
praise was bestowed on that and they all accepted that the document
is very unique and no better document can be prepared for our
country.
If
my readers remember I had written about our constitution and in that
I had quoted that our constitution is a document primarily prepared
originally by the British imperial office in London in early
twentieth century and it was supposed to help the ruler class to
control the masses the way empire builders do. Eventually, that same
document was adopted by our committee which was prepare to give our
new country a fresh constitution that may be able to guide the
governments in future management of the government. I am reminding my
readers about it because in this post I want to elaborate on the
aspect of our constitution that helps ruler class more than the
ordinary people of this country. Since it helps more the ruler class
and not the voter class they (the ruler class means bureaucrats,
politicians and Judiciary) are obviously all praise for that
document!
What
is presumed while preparing this document is important to note. This
document presumes that the elected people are sincere to the voters,
honest with the country, they are patriotic, they are in every way
competent, intelligent and also that they are thorough gentlemen.
These presumptions were made, I believe from the way then political
workers with the then National Congress were found to be.
Similarly
the constitution seems to be presuming that the bureaucrats are
sincere to the commitments they have to make during their service,
they are patriotic, they are intelligent to do the task entrusted to
them, they are gentle with the people with whom they have to deal
during their duties, they are utmost efficient in performing the task
given to them. They will not give excuses to cover up for their
shortcomings, they will not indulge in corrupt practices under any
circumstance. And finally that they are patriotic in their dealing
with the affairs of the country.
The
constitution also seems to have taken for granted that the Judiciary
is competent in understanding the problems of the people brought to
them for scrutiny and they will be sincere to the basics of human
well being to which every law is supposed to manage. They are honest
with the principle of justice and in that capable to construe the law
so that human justice is given out to the concerned parties without
any iniquity. They are superbly intelligent and fully aware for their
duties to the nation and human justice. Generally all laws are
primarily prepared to help common man and so all laws should first of
all see that it helps the end man. Our law nowhere mentions to
protect whom they are designed? I mean we want constitution to give
the definition of word gentlemen. On the contrary, laws are designed
to give lease to defaulters under many objectionable excuses. Some
times one may feel that laws are designed to cover defaulters and not
protect plaintiff.
Our
constitution does not take into consideration, if these three
principle pillars of the government are not as per above given
expectation what should be done? The failure of our democracy lies in
this presupposition that every thing is OK. While actually every
thing is not OK!
In
our last almost sixty years of experience we have enough evidence to
say that these presumptions of our constitution writer were not
correct. Therefore, our constitution has actually failed us in
attaining the real democracy in our country. I wonder if such a
failing document deserves any celebration at all.
What
it should have incorporated in it as per my thinking I want to give
here for my readers so that they may give me further improvement in
them if they need. We are supposed to discuss our problems due to a
wrongly written document, since it is based on wrong presuppositions,
such as our constitution.
As
for elected people the constitution does not consider in it the
formation of any political party. It had presumed that each member of
the House will be elected as an independent but today we find that
most elected members belong to some or the other party. We should
introduce a new chapter in our constitution and in that it will give
guideline to how a political party should be and what are the
expectations thereof by the people of India. If that guideline is
fixed in the constitution itself, it may help us in controlling
behavior of these political parties. The scope of such political
party and its limitations, behavior of the controlling members, what
is called high commands, of these parties should also be controlled
by different provisions in that chapter in the constitution. If these
limits are fixed we can control the misbehavior of many such
political parties when they behave as if they own the country when
they get elected. Particularly behavior of many persons as high
Command is difficult to control with present provisions in the
constitution. Today we do not have any such control on the high
command of these parties who work more like remote control element
where constitution has no control on them. Therefore, they continue
to misbehave with the people and that is one of the problems we face
when working with these political parties. A type of dictatorship
gets into the system of what we see when we study behavior of many
parties as if they are family run companies. We have to put an end to
it by such provisions introduced in the constitution itself. Today we
see political parties in power often take many freedoms of citizens
lightly and often make violation on it. Actually many basis freedoms
of citizens such as food, clothes, traditions cannot be jeopardized
by others just because they are elected by majority. Present
constitution does not protect people on these topics. We need a
constitution that will not allow majority elected government to
interfere with these freedoms by passing compelling laws those can
marginalize these freedoms.
We
noted during our long experience that our elected members are not as
the constitution had envisaged while preparing this document. They
are dishonest with the voters, they are not sincere to the job they
are entrusted with, they are mostly incompetent in delivering the
results while they are mostly corrupt in their ways. Voters do not
feel safe with them, they have many criminal records and in most
cases they are convicted also in criminal as well as civic law suits.
Many are not enlightened enough to understand their duties as a
member of the House. Family members of many of them take disadvantage
of their position and create problem for the rival parties, using
their special position to impress upon police and such controlling
agencies to harass their opponents; this shows that they do not
deserves to be members of the House. Their honesty with people and
the nation and also patriotism are all doubtful. Most are illiterate
and from doubtful background or upbringing. A provision in our
constitution may be brought about to eliminate such members. Many are
far from being gentlemen. We see a criminal can contest an election
and by that wrong element enters the House that is supposed to have
the best of the talent in the country. I was told that there are some
provision in the law of contesting for election prepared by our
election commission but that is an indirect attempt to control these
bad elements from entering the Houses; I do not think that is right
way to bring discipline in these people (politicians). If
constitution covers this very important topic in its main text it
will make a big difference. We see that all presumptions while
preparing this document have been wrong and so we need amend this
document or prepare a totally new paper to replace it.
This
topic continues in next post.
You
may contact me on my Email ID given below,
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are invited to visit my other blogs
Ashok
Kothare,
http://ashokkotharesblog.blogspot.com/
for
stories
I
reckon,
http://kotharesviews.blogspot.com/
for philosophy
You
may visit blog, Ideas
and tips on any subject,
http://kotharay.blogspot.in/
for intelligent discussions.
Freedom
of Expression, http://Blogs.siliconindia.com/kothare
for intelligent discussions.
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New Marathi Blog, http://kothare-marathi.blogspot.in/
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