COMMENTS & VIEWS - R.T.I. ACT-2005

I stand by my statement. May be the N.G.Os. the activists, the mighty and the powerful getting the information/documents they want by agitating the Act. The common information seeker is rarely, if ever, gets so lucky. Out of the seven such cases that have come to my notice not a single applicant was lucky enough to get the requested information/documents, correct and complete in all respects. What he gains in the bargain is : the wrath and fury of the mighty Public authority and harassed for his audacity to seek-information from those who never cease to believe that they are not at all accountable for their acts to anybody. It is a matter of common knowledge that the Government records are in great shambles and disarray- records-room is virtually an Augean stable- and to search any document and information stored therein is akin to searching a needle in the haystack. Since there is absolutely no accountability, whatsoever, who would like even to rummage around let alone diligently search the requested relevant information/documents for nothing. In the referenced case, more than a year rolls by NOT a scrap of relevant material, document and information has been made available to the Appellant by the Public Information Officer of the Public authority of a Central Government autonomous body- the custodian of the requested records and information.. The Central Information Commissioner in his alluded order on the 2nd Appeal of the information seeker advises the applicant to help locate the records and information, and (closes the appeal?) at the Commission’s end. The Public authority cleverly attempts to evade the responsibility by misinterpreting these orders to mean that the applicant information seeker must provide them copies of certain hypothetical documents of unspecified description which, he neither has nor is supposed to have for the simple reason that the custodian of all manner of such records and documents is also the same Public authority from which the information and the requested documents are being sought and not the information seeker himself. While there is no provision of any such quid-pro-quos in the Act, which simply mandates to provide all the requested information and documents, not otherwise specifically barred, on payment of the prescribed fees and charges, the authorities that be arrogate to themselves all powers to bully and harass the information seeker and deny him the sought information and documents with impunity in spite of the Law. It is learnt that the grossly aggrieved Information-seeker in the case has since submitted an application for Special Leave to Review the Order to the Chief Information Commissioner. However, if by any chance, his application for special leave to review the order filed with the Chief Information Commissioner fails to get the consideration it richly deserves against such a blatant injustice then it could be the end of the road for the information seeker. The crowning irony is: Instead of providing the requested records and information as mandated under the Act, the custodian of the records and the information i.e. the concerned public authority it-self is asking for something-not even vaguely specified- the documents and information from the information seeker himself. For the reasons better known to him only, the Central Information commissioner finds nothing wrong in it, considers such a move “reasonable” and, in the ultimate analysis, absolves the custodian from his bounden duty and responsibility of providing the requested documents and information and, slams, for good, the doors of justice on the poor information seeker. Poorer by a few hundred rupees and more frustrated than ever before he ends up inviting the wrath and fury of the officers of the concerned Public Authority for his audacity to seek information/documents from them by agitating the Act as the already hugely hostile and immensely infuriated mighty public authority gets still more hostile against the information seeker who is then punished for the sin of requesting for information and documents so very vital and important for him. He does not have deep pockets to follow it up in the courts of law.
Ours is the most difficult country for getting justice even if one has been wronged. Whether it is so because of or in spite of all those empowering Laws; only God knows. If you feel that you have been rubbed on the wrong side by an executive action, your best bet is to suffer in silence and never ever invite still more trouble by agitating the appropriate Law.
The above is not an isolated case. Quite a few have walked along this path and suffered the similar fate. In fact, as pointed out above, barring those filed by the N.G.Os, powerful and influential persons, politicians, activists and organizations, almost every other filed by some Nobodies have been similarly fated and have a similar sordid story to narrate.
Once the activist late H.D.Shourie of Common Cause invited victims who suffered injustice at the hands of consumer courts to narrate their stories to him and was astounded to find that there were so many who lost only because they could not observe a few trivial formalities and technicalities. Is there any other Sourie around to compile such a list of ill-fated information-seekers who strove hard to get justice from the Information Commissions only to be greeted by disappointment after a frustrating experience of treading a labyrinthine course in quest for justice under the much touted “ Right to Information Act- 2005?
-SANJOG MAHESHWARI

CIC ORDER IN CASE NO. CIC/AT/A/2007/01177 Dt.19-02-2008

CIC ORDER in Case No. CIC/ AT/A/2007/ 01177 dt. 19-02-2008

Without verifying the facts and according unjustified credence to the factually false oral statement made by the Respondents, who took undue advantage of the absence of the Appellant in the hearing, the I.C. instead of forcing the Respondents to provide the requested documents/information to the Appellant, shifts the onus on to the latter by requiring him to provide to the former unspecified documents which simply do not exist at all, as a conditional quid-pro-quo, in order to cleverly bail the Respondents out of their bounden duty and responsibility to provide the requested documents/information to the seeker as enjoined under the Act.
For reasons best known to the concerned authorities, the order in the case has also not made available on the CIC website of the Net for public viewing. –SANJOG MAHESHWARI

RTI ARTICLE

SANJOG MAHESHWARI

RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT-2005-WHY IT FAILS TO DELIVER?

-SANJOG MAHESHWARI
While Article 19 (1)(a) of the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression to every citizen as his Fundamental Right, the fact remains that the people cannot effectively exercise this right unless they know. In a democratic polity, it is the people who are the masters and as such must be in the know of various issues involved in the matter of governance and administration. As early as in 1976, the Apex Court made an observation to this effect in the case of Raj Narain versus State of U.P. However, it took nearly three decades for successive governments at Centre to acknowledge the fact that the people who pay taxes for running the government have a right
to correct and complete information about how it is functioning and how their hard-earned money is being spent. An informed citizenry and transparency of information are sin-qua-non for democratic functioning of government. It was also expected that proper implementation of such provisions in law could control corruption to some extent by holding Governments and their functionaries accountable to the public. The Parliament, therefore, enacted Right to Information Act-2005, which received the assent of the President of India on 15^th June,2005 and came into force with effect from 12^th October 2005- ( its earlier version- Freedom of Information Act-2002 having proved ineffective was repealed)The new law has been invested with some empowering provisions for the people, aimed at introducing elements of transparency and
accountability in administration and to contain, if not completely eliminate, corruption. However, the corruption-ridden bureaucracy had different ideas. Unnerved by the very first flush of Applications under the RTI law, it decided to make quite a few moves to exploit several loopholes in the law and blunt its effectiveness. First, they persuaded the cabinet committee to approve an amendment to exempt file notings and cabinet papers from disclosure under the Act. The proposed Amendment to the Act brought about within less than a year of the main Act coming in the force, was opposed tooth and nail by almost every right minded citizen. On the expected lines it was vociferously advocated and espoused by the politico-bureaucratic entrenched vested interests and the foot-dragging officialdom within the government. The malafide move was, however, foiled; thanks to the huge public outcry against the proposed amendment. Thus the Act survived the first blow “to take life out of it” as aptly observed by Sh.O.P. Kejariwal, Central Information Commissioner and the common man thought all was over.
However, the euphoria died soon. How wrong we were in forgetting that we live in a society where more the things change, more they remain the same. Came on the heels the dubious “Central Information Commission (Management) Regulations, 2007- made by the Chief Information Commissioner on 13-06-2007 and enforced post-haste by him after a week i.e. from 21-06-2007- which is proving its un-doing. Ostensibly brought about “for better internal management of the affairs of the Central Information Commission so as to enable it to function effectively”,
it actually puts the RTI Act-2005 way beyond the reach of a common man by rendering the process of seeking information under the Act an exorbitantly expensive, unduly complicated, complex, cumbersome,torturous and lengthy affair. To cap it all, the clever bureaucracy is so skilled in the art of dodging and has so many tricks up its
dirty sleeves in giving the slip to inconvenient queries and disowning responsibility that it easily gets away without supplying the information/ documents it wants to conceal or at best by supplying incomplete and irrelevant information and loading the information-seeker with all the rubbish he does not want that in 90 out of hundred cases one has to file Complaint or 2^nd Appeal to the Central Information Commission and/ or 2^nd Appellate Authority- the apex body under u/s 18 or 19 of the Act.
While what was required is: to address to the crying need of the day i.e. to force the officialdom to act more responsibly and also standardize the fees and procedure structure- which differs from State to State- and make it identical throughout the country, plug the multiple loopholes in the Act which render it ineffective, the Regulations, 2007 go on to prescribe a very costly, complex and cumbersome procedure for filing the Second Appeal or Complaint with the apex body i.e. the CIC. Even at this stage the art of dodging in which the bureaucracy is past-master comes handy to them. For example, in a very simple case where an applicant had requested for the information etc. regarding the action taken on and the status of a few representations made by him to a public authority, the Central Information Commission allowed the public authority to get off without supplying any of the requested information. In their order, they observed, “ The information solicited herein is about policy matters for which no definite answer could have been given…………..” They, inter-alia,went on to say, “Yet the respondents are agreeable to allow the appellant to inspect the files / records related to his RTI request…………” (Case No.
CIC/AT/A/2007/00574 dated 19-0707). What files/records to inspect when the Public Authority/ custodian is unable to locate them in their office? A single stroke of pen scrubbed down all efforts made by the appellant and at the end of the day ( it was more than a year!) he was poorer by a few hundred rupees and as ignorant about the status of his representations as before filing the Application for Information, first appeal and second appeal and few other
applications in between and paying fees all the way for the documents which should have been but were not available with the custodian. In an identical case, on the request for information made to the CPIO NCDRC on 17/18-2-08 followed by the First Appeal to the First Appellate Authority on 31-03-08 in respect of a representation dated 05-12-07, the CPIO of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission vide his letter No. A-2001/NCDRC/2008 dated 22-04-08, inter-alia, informs that “ Section 4(1) (d) does not apply to a judicial proceedings conducted by a Court or Tribunal as it refers only to administrative and quasi judicial decisions of public authorities”. It is conveniently ignored that the appellant is simply interested in knowing the status of his representation dated 05-12-07: the date of its receipt in the Commission’s Registry, daily progress made on it with copies of the related file-notings etc.- a purely administrative matter which has nothing to do with the nitty-gritty of judicial proceedings. In yet another case, Ghaziabad Development Authority, gets off-the hook by supplying grossly incomplete and mostly irrelevant information even after more than a year of the application under the RTI Act duly followed by the first and second appeals at the appropriate levels.(U.P. State Information Commission case No. S-245). In another case a Public Authority fails to provide certified copies of requested documents such as the Service Book, Leave A/c., the Pensioner’s Pension Payment Order etc. which are classified as “PERMANENT RECORDS” UNDER GOVERNMENT RULES & REGULATIONS on the pleas that they are “ not readily traceable, are misplaced somewhere” and “efforts are still being made to locate them” and on 2^nd Appeal made to the CIC, the Information Commissioner “authorizes the Appellant to inspect the records”. It is not clear that
when the requested records are not at all “readily traceable at the end of the concerned Public Authority and “ the efforts are still being made by them to locate the requested records” (even after more than a year!) according to their own admission “and copies of the same will be made available to the Applicant as soon as they are located” as is being asserted by them since long, what is the big idea in sending the Appellant on a wild chase of the black cat in a dark room where it apparently does not exist? In the circumstances, what useful purpose the appellant’s visit to the office of the Public Authority, as (graciously?) authorized by the 2^nd Appellate Authority- the C.I.C in their recent Decsion No. CIC/AT/A/2008/00247 dt. 17^th July,08, is going to serve, is not clear? Should they have not instead ordered disciplinary action against those responsible for the gross mismanagement of vital and important records which are mandated to be preserved permanently under the rules? Also in another case, C.P.I.O of NISCAIR (C.S.I.R) pleads ignorance of both the documents-two medical reimbursement bills sent to them under Speed Post on separate dates from separate Post Offices even when the Proof of their delivery to the addressee got conclusively confirmed in writing by the competent postal authority and a certificate issued by them to that effect was submitted long back to the Public Authority who as of now is maintaining stoic silence over the matter and not even acknowledging the Appellant’s repeated reminders and the 1^st Appeal to the NISCAIR’S First Appellate Authority. These examples are merely illustrative and by no means exhaustive.The reasons for the miscarriage of justice under the Act, which, of late, has been recurring with alarming frequency, are not far to seek. Recently, a peeved L.K Advani, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and a member of the Appointment Committee of the Commission, irked by the fact that the Commission has become an all Babu-affair, declined to attend the CIC expansion meet called by its Chairperson, the Prime Minister of India. While section 12 (5) of the Act provides a vast field consisting of varied areas of public activity ranging from law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance to chose persons of eminence from them for the posts of the Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners, it is not clear why only the babus are allowed to grace these exalted offices? No wonder, they have soft-corner for the bureaucratic fraternity they come from and their Decisions are heavily loaded in favour of the Public Authorities
providing the guilty many a escape route to ride over an inconvenient situation whereas actions and remarks of the poor information-seeker are considered an affront to the authorities that be. Even after more than 60 years of independence, the colonial mind-set reigns supreme and the bureaucracy finds it difficult to shed. Secondly, in most of the cases particularly in the autonomous bodies, the hierarchical built-up is such in which neither the Public Information Officer nor the 1^st Appellate Authority wields the disciplinary powers under the Conduct Rules to initiate disciplinary action against the errant officials by invoking C.C.S (C.C.A) Rules for not providing the information and
documents under their custody. When they can get away with any or every thing they do or do not do, why should they bother?Thirdly, the Act does not provide for any relief in the form of compensation for the wrongs suffered by an aggrieved information seeker at the hands of arrogant Public Authority who have little reason to be wary of it.
- SANJOG MAHESHWARI

CGHS - A FLAWED HEALTH SCHEME OF THE CENTRAL GOVT.

Health WatchCGHS shamDiscriminatory provisionsBy Sanjog Maheshwari
The anomalies are many. Why all pensioners and retirees not treated at par? Is the life of a Class IV employee who after retirement devotes all his spare time doing useful social work in the service of the community for the welfare and well-being of the people, in any way less valuable.
The healthcare and medical facilities provided under the banner of Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) suffer from several anomalies, inadequacies, and discriminatory provisions. While right to health care and medical facilities should be seen as an integral facet of the right to life equally for all, irrespective of the individual’s status, the big babus have ensured that hassle-free world class health care, diagnostic and other medical facilities at posh private nursing homes, hospitals, health care centres at government cost and expenses is available only to the MPs and upper strata of the government employees. The nursing home facilities in government hospitals are also mostly cornered by such higher strata beneficiaries and generally remain out of reach of “commoners”. Medical specialists attached to the CGHS dispensaries, remain unavailable on their slotted week days of visit, as they are away on what is termed as VIP duties. There also exits a complex classification and sub-classification of CGHS beneficiaries in various categories; based on which the scale of facilities admissible to them under the scheme is decided. The parameters and norms differ from beneficiary to beneficiary depending on: the stage and scale of pay or pension, the position he holds or held in the government, whether as an employee or pensioner of some “purely government department” (whatever it may mean) or Central Autonomous body, and so forth; as if the life of a “commoner” is of lesser value. What is astoundingly appalling is that the pensioner-beneficiaries of autonomous bodies are not treated at par with their counterpart retired from purely government service- particularly in the matter of grant of credit facilities in the recognized private healthcare-centres, nursing homes etc. And this is where it hurts them the most. Even while they perpetuate and practice such blatant discrimination or for that matter make provisions for it in the rule book, they are not held accountable for the miseries caused thereby to the poor autonomous body pensioner- beneficiaries of the scheme. The traumatic experience and the plight of an autonomous body pensioner—beneficiary of CGHS—when in the evening of his life, suffering from age-induced infirmities and debilitating diseases, has to run around complying with quite a few absurd formalities, placating highly inflated egos of concerned babus (still afflicted with colonial mindset), getting department’s permission before and after the treatment, incurring all expenses from his own slender resources on the spot in the first instance irrespective of the enormity of the amount of expenditure involved, making repeated rounds to the hospital for getting the bills verified by the CGHS medical authorities then to the department from which retired, submitting reimbursement bills that are very much watered down for one reason or the other, settling silly objections raised only for objections’ sake, facing callous indifference, unwarranted hostility, objections and rejections all the way—can better be imagined than described. He is subjected to this unreasonable discrimination only for the sin of his retiring from an autonomous body. While a pensioner-beneficiary retiring from an autonomous body like CSIR in a disgusting display of blatant discrimination is denied credit facilities in the CGHS empanelled private hospitals, nursing homes and other health care centres to which his counterpart retiring from the Government service is eligible, simmering discontentment among this section of beneficiaries is quite conspicuous. Why this should be so particularly when the CSIR is a hundred per cent Central Government autonomous body working under the aegis and control of Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India and the Prime Minister of India is its ex-officio president? For no fault of his a CSIR pensioner-beneficiary is subjected to blatant discrimination even when he is required to make contribution to the scheme similar in scale and amount to that of a similarly placed Central Government pensioner; thanks to the whims, fancies and arrogance of the big babus in the Government who insert discriminatory provisions in the rule-book with calculated impunity. The anomalies are many. Why all pensioners and retirees not treated at par? Is the life of a Class IV employee who after retirement devotes all his spare time doing useful social work in the service of the community for the welfare and well-being of the people, in any way less valuable. As respected senior citizens of this country, all pensioners should be treated at par particularly in the matter of health care and medical facilities; distinctions of posts and positions held whether retired from so-called purely government service or hundred per cent Central government funded autonomous body must immediately go. Among pensioners age and age only should be the criterion for according “Priority” in the matter of providing health care and medical facilities which otherwise should necessarily be unvarying in scale and standard for all the pensioners across the board.

REVAMP THE POLITICAL SYSTEM OF GOVERNANCE O4-12-08

SANJOG MAHESHWARI.

BIG CHANGE CALLED FOR TO COMBAT TERRORISM

-SANJOG MAHESHWARI
The life of a common citizen of India is of little value in the eyes of so-called VIPs and Netas. otherwise the brutal massacre of innocent people in cold blood in the recent carnage wrought by the terrorist violence in the business capital of India - the maximum city- Mumbai, would not have been brushed off as a trifling event by Mr. R.R.Patil Maharashtra’s now ex- Dy. Chief Minister & Home Minister. Commenting on the dastardly diabolical terror attacks and violence hat claimed about 200 innocent lives and maimed several times over, the callously uncaring worthy reported to have observed nonchalantly -“Aishi chhoti moti Baaten Barey Shahar mein hoti hi rahatien hain” . Other examples: Deeply-grieved father of martyr Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, the NSG commando killed in action, when gets upset by pompous affectations of the C.M of Kerala, the worthy disgraces himself without remorse by retorting that “even a dog would not have visited the Unnikrisnan house had it not been that of a martyr.” However, wiser counsel prevailed and he has since apologized- after two days. While Mumbai bleeds, Ex-C.M. of Maharashtra Vilas Rao Deshmukh undertakes a location-scouting spree at Taj for his actor son’s
film taking an entourage of about twenty including Bollywood personalities with him.While Batla House encounter claims precious life of a gallant officer of the Delhi force, Shiv Raj Patil ex-Home Minister Central Government busies himself figuring out the dress to be worn for a meeting and
another worthy lands up on the martyr’s house showing the colour of his money to the family and doubting the martyrdom at the same time.
While these and many more such examples of audacious and atrocious actions and remarks are deplorably bad in taste, they underscore the fact that the Indian Political class as a whole considers itself way above the common citizenry. We have been putting up with this polluted mindset ever since independence so much so that it has now got deeply ingrained in the psyche of each and every politician. The Indian society is thus sharply divided in two classes: (i) The
privileged political class that rules and, (ii) The common citizenry that is ruled upon.
A politician belonging to the former class, inter-alia, wants and invariably arrogates to itself: (1) Power and political clout, more the merrier, in the government sans any responsibility and
accountability. If that comes with a political post so much the better, if not, the attendant pay, perks privileges, facilities, spacious Bunglow and such other freebies etc., of course, at the State’s cost, not only for self and the family but also for generations to come, will do. (2) Ditto for the Security cover-higher the category, the better it would be. (3) Rest of the things, such as minting tons of money for generations to come, by fair or foul means, the worthy, belonging to this class, is sure enough to arrange on his own.A common man from the other section, which comprises of those who routinely spend the entire day doing hard work eking out a living and arranging a square meal for the family, has no time and energy for indulging in the luxury of sparing a thought for any other thing aside from job and family. He, however, sometimes wants but rarely, if ever, gets an opportunity of thinking out-of –the-box and putting his thoughts across to the people. At the same time he wants always to be on the right side of the Establishment. Inviting the wrath of the authorities that be by being on their wrong side, howsoever the great cause or provocation may be, is not his cup of the tea. Out of an assembly of about one lakh such people recently in Mumbai, only one had the guts to air his views on a T.V.Channel
when he said something to the effect that “We want an Indian Musharraf to rule our country.” While only a handful might be sharing his views, it was he who only could avail of an opportunity to ventilate them. Others restricted themselves to giving vent to their rightful indignation, fury, anger and despair, pent up sentiments of grief and misery caused by the recent carnage. They ended up lamenting the inadequacy and loopholes in our security mechanism that let the Merchants of Death gun down hundreds and maim many times more. Of course, that also was very natural, but at the same time far from adequate- certainly not enough.
Media, both print and electronic, too, for the time being, are standing up for the cause and have been making the right noises ever since then. It, however, is a safe bet that all this will last only
till it does not transgresses into the comfort zone of the ruling political class and does not become too hot for its comforts. Then, the whole thing will lose the news-value and suddenly, all this will lapse into a deafening silence.
Our system of democratic governance invests the former- the ruling class VIPs and the inisters- with “absolute Power” to do and say any or everything without the least accountability. It also
insulates them from all manner of public or media anger and outrage. Judicial action against their callously irresponsible actions and behaviour, rarely initiated, simply goes nowhere. As a result of political expediency, the few who may be shown the door, just to assuage the public feelings, will continue to be invested with all those powers, privileges, perks and benefits security cover,
everything in tact as before, at the State’s cost. Obviously, to them it is immaterial whether all that comes with any other political post, position or office in the Government or without that.
What is important is: they will stand absolved of all their acts of omission and commission and negligence which had caused those deaths- destruction and the disaster. They enjoy total liberty to do and say whatever may suit them best and serve their immediate purpose. The life will limp back to normalcy and all will be forgotten and forgiven within a few days. This has happened umpteen times in the past; it will continue to happen many more times in the future as well. No useful purpose is going to be served unless we revamp the entire system of our democratic governance. And that includes de-linking the Executive from the Legislature; raising an Independent federal semi-military Police Force and Investigating Agency and biding good-bye to the Westminster type of Parliamentary Democracy, which has let us down through all these year, by switching over to the American model of Presidential form. SANJOG MAHESHWARI

Delhi Election

BJP’S DELHI DEBACLE
-SANJOG MAHEHWARI
Contrary to all the speculations, the Congress has won the battle of ballots in Delhi. Poll results did not favour BJP which got only 23 seats in the State Assembly elections against 40 to 45 projected as safe estimate whereas the rival Congress got 42 not thought of by the party in its wildest dream; certainly not after 26/11-“ Mumbai-carnage ”. The reasons that factored in the clear sweep of the poll-results in favour of the Congress party are obvious: (1) the sixth-pay commission bonanza to government servants and pensioners that swayed the voting pattern of a sizeable segment of this community in favour of the Congress party could not have been granted at a better time (2) “Minority” votes which in the earlier Corporation poll got divided among the political parties with persuasions similar to those of Congress, this time around, went solidly en-block in favour of the party (3) the projection of Mr.V.K. Malhotra, an aging leader, as BJP’s candidate for the C.M’s post; though the presence of a lesser number of the “minority” voters in his constituency ensured his own victory, and (4) Low-key campaigning by the complacent B.J.P
leadership on local issues and problems that render the life of a common man unbearably miserable such as: unsustainable, unplanned haphazard development and crass urbanization, ever increasing air pollution which has since scaled greater heights being more than pre-C.N.G. level, still more polluted Jamuna-lifeline of Delhi- waters even after spending hundreds of crores on implementation of the Jamuna Action Plan, traffic-choked Delhi roads with frequent traffic jams and snarl-ups lasting for hours on end, bumper to bumper cars inching their way on the traffic-chocked roads and belching volumes of carbon-dioxide all the while in the atmosphere, total absence of proper parking facilities in the colonies, people losing life and limb in routinely happening road-rages, elderly and ladies living in a totally unsecured and unsafe environment constantly exposed to murder, rape, loot and other heinous crimes , frequent power failures, sewage-contaminated low-pressure piped water supply, spurious drug racket- the list of woes of an average Delhiites is virtually endless. The Congress government even in its last ten long years of rule could not take on them headlong. That, and many such other unsettling matters such as rampant corruption, poor quality service provided by the government agencies, overcrowded metro, killer Blue-line monster etc. plaguing the life of an average Delhiite, should have provided enough ammunition to the B.J.P,. But, perhaps, BJP leadership also had been equally oblivious of the woes and the plight of the common man. Important though all these matters were and are from a Delhi citizen’s point of view, he certainly did not allow them to overshadow the tragic saga of death, devastation and destruction authored by the most inhuman carnage in recent history- the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai, which was nothing short of an attack on India. The bitter truth, however, remains that no party has any plans for the ‘Big Change’- a radical overhaul of our debased political system of governance- to set the house in order in the first instance, that only can empower the Indian nation to stand as one man against such carnage and deter it. -SANJOG MAHESHWARI

The Great American Democracy

Kudos to the American democratic processes, systems and institutions which, once again, unfailingly reinvented themselves by electing the best man, Barack Obama, till recently an obscure senator, to the most powerful position in the world, eschewing all extraneous considerations, for affectively answering the need of the times and to meet the “pressing urgency of now in the best interests of America”.
While we may shower praise on Obama’s elocutionary skills: his passionate ‘we can’ victory speech, his sincerity, courage of conviction and call for ‘change’, his victory was a tribute to the great American democracy. It is their system of democratic governance due to which the miracle happened in spite of the obvious disadvantages: being a black man, a half- Muslim with Hussein as a middle name, rumours of his early days addiction to drugs and association with grotty characters; a political minnow who apparently had no chance, even in the primaries, against Hillary Clinton.
Political analysts have celebrated this historic event of global significance by writing millions of words eulogizing America for its capacity to shake off the dark past for which Abraham Lincoln had made the supreme sacrifice. The Indian constituency of thinkers and political analysts, marveling over the Obama’s stupendous victory, can not help but crave for an early end of this dark period of insipid, spineless, thoroughly rotten and corrupt political leadership in their own country, yielding place to the inspiring and committed leadership.
Is it possible to user in the much coveted ‘change’ to ‘meet the pressing urgency of now in the best interests of India’ under the shadow of our grossly debased variety of Westminster type of Parliamentary democracy which was adopted in unseemly haste? The answer is an emphatic “NO”. For that to happen, we will have to switch over to the American-model of Presidential democracy. Nothing short of this is going to help. The sooner we adopted it, the better it would be for the health of our society and polity; our all round development and well-being. We will then have our own Lincolns and Obamas who are conspicuous by their absence in the present day India.
Even before more than 90% of our populace could know what was happening, “We The People of India” were made to adopt, enact and give to ourselves a Constitution, the good-intentioned provisions of which, when put to practice delivered just the opposite. For example, it was hoped that Executive would be de-linked from the Legislature to ensure clean and vibrant administration. Instead, the Executive has been reduced to the position of a handmaid of the Legislature. Not very infrequently calculated attempts are made, even to subvert the Judiciary and make it subservient to Legislature. Its independence is undermined. Judicial pronouncements and verdicts, whenever made in any case by the Hon’ble Supreme Courts and High Courts should be accorded the status of law of the land. We not only need a fiercely independent judiciary but also an independent Executive and Media.
Our system of elections and electioneering contributed substantially to the criminalization of the politics. It created the politics of vote-bank which in turn helped third rate demagogues with criminal background, who are long on rhetoric and dramatics and short on everything else, to ascend to powerful positions in the government by playing religion, caste and region card and pursuing quota-reservation policies with dogged determination to woo, cultivate and consolidate caste and minority vote-banks. Our corruption-ridden democratic system of governance and institutions are totally incapable of producing an Obama-like phenomenon in India. While we always want the best man to win an election, he simply dreads to run. No wonder, democracy in our country has degenerated into highly criminalized and corrupt ‘mobocracy’.

-SANJOG MAHESHWARI

HOW PROTECTED IS THE LIFE OF A COMMON MAN IN INDIA?

HOW PROTECTED IS THE LIFE OF A COMMON CITIZEN IN INDIA?



The recent terror attacks and violence has cast its ever-lengthening shadow of fear on every common citizen’s mind. He lives unsecured, as a mute, helpless spectator with loads of trepidation in his heart bracing for the worse still to happen. It is a common knowledge that no terror act, howsoever meticulously planned it may be, can successfully be committed without the local support. All out efforts will, however, be made to keep the unvarnished truth of the Mumbai terror violence out of the domain of public knowledge. After sometime, all will fade away from the notoriously “short” public memory. It will lose news-value for the media. Only the family, friends and relatives of the victims of these dastardly acts will be left to mourn the loss of their loved ones. Then some still more lives will be lost and maimed in the next terror violence through gross and criminal negligence on the part of those responsible for the safety and security of the common man, only to be forgotten soon after raising some more heat, dust and fury.

Our political leadership, concerned as it is only with its own safety, security and survival, has no qualms in consigning hundreds of ordinary lives into the hands of the Merchants of Death. How is it that once and only once and that too taken totally unawares, 9/11 happened in America whereas after every short-a while the devil-dance is enacted, with still more ferocity than before, in our ill-fated country, claiming and maiming still more innocent lives as a result of repeated betrayals by our ruling political class?

9/11 is a “one-off”. Americans are sure about that. The rest of the world is still more so. Indians are also sure about 26/11 albeit differently. Sure enough, it would be replicated many times over. The rest of the world is still surer about that. Time? Place(s)? Choice is that of the prowling predators. The victim common citizenry seems to have learnt to live under the ever-lengthening shadow of these perils nervously waiting for the worse to happen.

Indian security apparatus and architecture is made to order for the protection of life and property of politicians. If it also serves as a status symbol for them so much the better. Yo! It sure creates an impression. The lives of the common people is quite dispensable- can routinely be offered as cattle-fodder before the demon called “Terrorism”.
Terror violence has already taken a huge toll and it is high time that all political parties, irrespective their political persuasions took it headlong as a national challenge instead of viewing it as a local law and order problem. But again this could also be a tall order not quite achievable due to the vote-bank politics. In the present arrangement of things and the political order obtaining in our country, the very survival of quite a few political parties and politicians depend upon fostering, nurturing and inflating their vote banks. They cannot simply afford the luxury of ignoring their vote banks. And since it is a matter of their political life and death, their very survival depends on it, they are ready to pay any price for it; to witness the mass massacre of the innocent people- being a very small one- is quite affordable for them.

To my mind, till the whole political system of governance is revamped, constitution of a semi-military federal police force and federal investigating and intelligence agency fully controlled by the Centre may go a long way in dealing with the terrorism and the sooner we did it the better it would be for the safety and security of the citizens- their precious life and property.