Article by Anand
Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future. John F Kennedy
Going by the above statement by JFK, I would like to make a few observations in the Indian context. Our political parties should frame ad hoc policies not based on their past, but, on the basis of the situation. We have once seen P V Narasimha Rao keeping the traditional Congress socialist ideas aside and paving way for a globalized economy. Having said that, the present day Indian politicians too should start looking at the present and future rather than the past.
India, being one of the youngest and the largest democracies in the world has the distinction of providing security to all its citizens irrespective of their faith. That is what we term as secularism. Here also comes an aberration worth being pointed out. The two major political forces in India, namely the Congress and BJP are at contention most of the time with regard to the interpretation of secularism. Both have their own definitions of secular principles. While the Congress claims to have championed the cause of secularism by relentlessly speaking of minorities welfare, BJP, on the other hand took the side of the majority Hindus in the country. Thereby, both the major political parties in India have involuntary subscribed to the protection of interests of a particular section of the society. With the Congress using the provision of affirmative action in their attempt to cash the votes of the minority and backward sections, BJP has mostly struck to the idea of upholding the historic Hindu domination in the country.
It is good to have the rights of all the faiths upheld equally as that forms the very foundation for harmony in the society. While affirmative action is welcome to the extent of bringing up the downtrodden classes, that does not necessarily mean that the interests of the majority section are compromised as that very idea shackles the foundations of our secularist ideas. In my view, a government that completely ignores the faith of its citizens can be said to be secular. That means, religion becomes only a matter of personal choice and will not be a part of the political administration in the country. The caste based census, in a way, goes against the ideas of secularism as the government seems to be more interested in the faith/caste of its citizens. Rather than striving for bringing out policies that reach to the grass-roots of the population, the government is more bothered about identifying a set of people for framing its policies. I, therefore, advocate for a constitution that has no definition for faith/religion, caste, and race. That forms a true secular state.
A lot of people are wary of the very word fascist and mostly associate that term to something thats evil or cruel. For a country like India, keeping the foreign relations with neighbors in mind, it is very essential to be obsessed with the ideas of nationalism and national security. We cant ignore these ideas just because they form the foundation for a fascist state. We need to be nationalistic in our approach and have complete control over our security. However, that may not happen as long as we dont have a completely autonomous army. Our constitution should make provision in such a way that army need not be answerable to anyone for its actions against other countries. That means, it should be the army which should decide whether it should wage a war with another country or not. While, this provision may be branded as fascist, but, still, holds good the interests of our country.We, being a very young democracy, have not learnt much yet practically about the hassles in administration. Our law and constitution are not the tried and tested ones yet. The very fact that were still debating the concept of the Basic structure of constitution shows that. Still, we are in the stage of learning, as a democracy. Having said that, we have seen numerous instances of misuse of power and authority by the legislature. The declaration of emergency by Indira Gandhi, and the abuse of Article 356 on various instances in the course of political vendetta go on to show that the legislature and executive cant be trusted blindly although they represent the voice of the people. We therefore, even by being a democracy, can afford to have the judiciary as a completely autonomous and supreme body in the country.
The famous judgment in Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala has triggered a conflict among the legislature and the judiciary on the row of having the ultimate say. However, we have instances where judiciary did give in to the power of the legislature and remained silent even though the government was making a mockery of justice and human rights. One can easily make out that from the statement read out by the only dissenting judge Justice J S Khanna in the case of ADM Jabalpur v Shivshankar Shukla. Justice Khanna described it as the darkest hour in the history of Indian democracy when a petition of Habeas Corpus was struck down by a Supreme Court bench comprising four other judges Justice A N Ray, Justice Y V Chandrachud, Justice M H Beg, and Justice P N Bhagwati.
Thereafter, the cold war didnt end between the legislature and the judiciary. The controversy in the appointment of Supreme Court Chief Justice A N Ray superceeding 3 senior judges resulted in the resignation of 3 judges. This is rather an unfortunate event and went on to prove that the judiciary lacked the power to protect the interests of people if the government is unfair. Therefore, we need a stronger judiciary to uphold the confidence in our democracy.
Coming to foreign policy, Nehrus non-aligned doctrine may have been appropriate in the immediate post-WW II situation to avoid polarization and safegaurd our relations with the US and USSR at the same time. However, our current policy makers should bear the fact in mind that we cannot all the time remain indifferent (Read non-aligned) to injustices in the world and may have to take a stand. During the 1962 war with China, it was not the NAM countries who met at Colombo who extended their support to Indias fair side, but, the non-NAM USs Kennedy administration which termed the situation as a blatant Chinese communist aggression against India and reached out to us with their Air Force support before a ceasefire has been declared by China. President Kennedy, in his historical statement, said, We should defend India, and therefore, we WILL defend India.
Taking the above example as a lesson, it is important that we time and again take a firm stand on various international political issues and demonstrate our global influence. Again, going by what John F Kennedy rightly said, It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for a war, we need to exert our aggression in dealing extremism in Kashmir and in dealing with Pakistan. Pakistan has time and again demonstrated its reluctance in heeding to Indias fair claims and its certain we can never solve the problem with bilateral talks. Considering the fact that were a much stronger army than Pakistan, we can always take advantage of that and show our dominance in the Kashmir region. As Theodore Roosevelt puts it, Walk softly, talk softly, but carry a big stick in your hand, we should always pose a threat to Pakistan through our military aggression.
Now, let me conclude by summarizing what Ive stated till now. We need to consider our past only to the extent of learning lessons and progress with an eye on the present and focus on the future. We cannot confine ourselves by our self-inflicted wounds in the form of flaws in the constitutional framework. Also, our political parties should think a step forward rather than blindly glorifying their past leaders and their policies.
Parimal Tripathi is a volunteer content writer for Jaagore. To learn and speak about issues on street children, environmental pollution, garbage disposal, corruption, volunteering, volunteer work, community services, Non Government Organization, social and civic issues visit http://www.jaagore.com
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