Supreme Court Decision On Coal Scam Emphasizes Need Of More Vigilant Citizens
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava
28 September, 2014
Countercurrents.org
Indian judiciary has emerged as the corner stone of the nation. It has saved the country from falling in to the hands of self serving politicians, bureaucrats and power holders of different domains.
The decision on the coal blocks cancellation prevented country falling into a trap of corruption from where there was no escape. In the words of Milton, a hell is bottomless. Corruption is a trap with no bottom. Sink and keep on sinking in the hell but corrupt feels that they are enjoying the pleasures of heaven. A travesty of perception but truth is that since 1993, the untruth in the form of illegal coal allocation was practiced not by one government but by all those which came into power.
The allocation by the government of different hues and colours show that whole political spectrum is involved in such activities. No exception, no cry, no protest and not even no care to great pledges to the constitution, to rule of law. A perspiring day for citizen of the this nation state.
This is reality of disguised governance. The democracy is not only the instinct of the deliberation or a mechanism to ensure everyone’s participation in electing the government, it is something more. It is a commitment of the rulers to uplift the country, it also presses the leadership to follow the ethical path with good governance. The governments failed on this count. This is violation of the rule of law. Supreme Court has taken the right view on it.
The decision brings many facts out of earth. They need to be looked in a holistic manner and proper device needs to be devised by the oppressed ones to claim their right of good governance.
Good governance is not a political slogan. It is a human right of all the people of the country. From human rights emerge the fundamental rights. Indian constitution has included many rights but the right of good governance must be now included in the land of law in order to save the unethical practices of the political parties and politicians
The coal gate decision suggests that there is influence of crony capitalism in the country. The country has adopted the socialist model. It is now enshrined in the preamble. It is visible in the different constitutional provisions, in real terms, it is the capitalism of the worst order which has had full away in the country. Crony capitalism is networking capitalism. If you have contacts, you are bound to be rich. There is no need of hard work but need of well and powerful connections with the decision makers at the power elite level. It will ensure the richness.
A great fallacy of the modern democracies is that by sheer networking the resources can be siphoned off. No need of following a long journey of following the rules in the right manner.
India and many other developing countries are facing this problem of crony capitalism. This is bound to erode the socialist mindset and the belief of the people in the political system, hence political parties must include the good governance in their working agenda otherwise the political system will inch towards the stress zone.
The crony capitalism makes many people rich. These are neo rich. Many politicians can be identified in this segment. It is a very common phenomenon in the present day India that people’s representative even at the level of Panchayats and Municipality level appear suddenly so rich that it becomes very hard to understand as to how did they get so rich so easily. This is due to networking which allows them to create wealth by different means, many times by unethical one.
Coal gate helped in the emergence of a new class of people who are more unequal with their fellow beings in terms of wealth. An inequality has been caused. This inequality is not a good sign in the country where already so many types of inequalities exist. The society is already fragmented and stratified in terms of wealth. Not many enjoys the wealth, poor ones only desire for it with empty belly, perhaps not knowing that it is not possible for them to attain a level of affluence because many barriers have been put by the elites.
Supreme Court decision makes us aware that there are many hidden social aspects of such types of financial crimes. These have support from the political system, and institutions. This is the worst aspect of whole of the scam. It will affect adversely the political culture of the country. The constitutionalism will be negated in these circumstances if proper redressing is not done.
These dangers are not good for a democracy which is already facing many challenges. In this background the role of the citizens become more crucial. They need to be more vigilant to the political processing in the country. Their vigil is the effective solution to prevent such occurrences. The petition by some active citizen led to this decision.
Media has responsibility. It needs to be more proactive and must highlight any discrepancy in the system. The support to people’s vigilance will be strengthened if media is behind such preventive efforts.
Civil Society Organisations have worked in many spheres. Anna Hazare movement is recent case of their activism. Now the time arrives that people must come forward, form small clusters and work for the betterment of the society.
The Indian judiciary is a guide and founder of the values of the governance. It finds out the deficiencies in the governance. Its role is much effective. It will get more strength if people at every level work together to eliminate all the evils from the political system, from the political culture of the nation.
Role of citizens is therefore most important. Vigilance with intelligence is need of the hour. Cooperation from media and good judgments and rectification from the judiciary will seal the win for the people and the country.
Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava is presently Assistant Professor in CSJM Kanpur University[affiliated college],Vice Chairman CSSP, recent paper Why Pakistan’s army stands to gain from political turmoil, East Asia Forum, Australia,18th September, 2014 email: [email protected]
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