Civil Society and the Political System

CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE POLITICAL SYSTEM:

Alex Tuscano

The situation prevailing in the Indian politics deserves a serious reflection on the part of the civil society.  Many journalists say that the ills in the governance at the centre and at the state assemblies affect the civil society who elects these governments.

The description of the present political situation in Karnataka:  

Karnataka has seen governments formed by different political parties.  After the long spell of Congress rule Ramkrishna Hegde formed the first non congress government.  From then on Janatha Dal and Congress have shared different innings.  One peculiar situation about Karnataka is that when there was a congress government at the centre Karnataka had a Janatha Dal government.  And when there was a non congress government at the centre Karnataka had a congress government.  This time also Karnataka has BJP government while at the centre there is Congress led UPA government.

After the term of S.M. Krishna’s government there has been instability in Karnataka.  When there was a hung assembly with BPJ coming number one, followed by congress and Janatha Dal being third,  the Congress and the JDS formed an unholy alliance to keep BJP out.  After a while the power hungry Kumarswamy broke this alliance and joined BJP to become a chief minister. There was an agreement that while Kumarswami would be a chief minister for the first twenty months Yeduarappa would be sworn in as the next chief minister for the remaining 20 months.  But when Kumarswami’s term got over the sabotaged the chance of BJP to form the government under the leadership of Yeduarappa.  In the subsequent election the Karnataka voters taught the JDS a lesson and pushed JDS to the third position with a much reduced number of MLAs.  BJP got sympathy vote but not good enough to form a government.

BJP was forced to pay heavy price to win the independent MLAs to their side to form a government.  But that did not provide enough number of seats to ensure a stable BJP government.  Yeduarappa resorted to Operation Lotus.  He got eight congress MLAs and six JDS MLAs to resign the assembly seats and get elected under BJP banner.  The parties whose MLAs were poached were waiting for their chance to teach BJP a lesson.  When Yedurappa went in for second reshuffle of the cabinet it gave rise to discontent among the BJP MLAs.  There was a prolong political crisis in Karnataka which led to a very ugly situation with dirty politics played by JDS as well as Congress!  After winging the second vote of confidence BJP is back in power.  But to save the government BJP again planned to resort to operation lotus.  BJP (the state president) shamelessly and boldly stated that they had no other option.  Politics going to the lowest ebb! 

The outcome of the Taluk and Jilha panchayat again has made the BJP to apply operation lotus to gobble majority at the local level governments.  While the BJP has absolutely no respect for democracy and elections, the elected members see themselves as commodities that could be sold and purchase like what we see at the red light area.

Then there was another scam, the land scam.  The scam ridden minister Katta had to resign.  But the matter did not stop there.  The chief minister Yeduarappa himself was in the thick of the land scam.  He denotified prime lands in and around Bangalore and allotted to his son and his son in law.  What is amazing is that in spite the general demand for his resignation, even in the BJP circle he managed to convince his bosses and continue in office.

The Situation at the Centre: 

The situation at the Centre is not very different, if not worse.  The absurdity of the high growth mode of our economy is being exposed day by day and in bits and pieces.  The economists do not seem to be humoured. The apparent situation does indicate very serious problems at the political and economic front.  The prices are rising to an extent that the common man (aam aadmi) finds it very difficult to live from day to day.  The government seems to have no clue on the cause of the problem and is unable to control prices.  The agricultural minister, Sharat Pawar has gone old and is incapable of raising himself to cease the problem.

There are scams all over.  The Common Wealth Games, the Adarsh scam, the 2G spectrum scam, the appointment of CVC and to add to all this, the Bofors scam has risen its head once again.  The latest trouble for the government has been from the black money stacked in the Swiss Banks.  The German government has given the names of 26 persons who have secret bank accounts in a very small country.  But the UPA is not willing to reveal the names for some reason.

The opposition parties are united in making the life of the ruling coalition even harder.  They have been demanding JPC inquiry in 2G scam.  Congress party in particular and the UPA in general has been stubbornly opposing this idea.  The result was that the opposition party completely washing out the winter session of the Parliament.  All the MPs and the parliament session ate up the huge sum of public money for not doing any business.  This too is not such a small scam.

The opposition is waiting for the fall of this government.  It is not that they have any solution to the rising prices or they are any way beyond scams, scandals and corruption. Except for opportunism the opposition has no other programme to offer to solve the ills of the nation.

There are economists like C P Chandrashekhar who interpret these corruption as the necessary side of the “primitive accumulation”.  After all primitive accumulation for the inception of capitalism was also large scale loots of the wealth of the common people. He has a point but it should be dealt in a separate article.

There has been a view that the people get the government they deserve.  If the people elect corrupt politicians then they will get corrupt government. 

This is only a half truth.  In the present election system and the representative democratic system the civil society has no option.  The same discredited parties will be in the fray and the same corrupt politicians will stand for elections.  The people have to choose the least corrupt among the most corrupt politicians. 

In order to overcome this situation we have to find a way out so that gradually we can eliminate the corrupt politicians and bring sanity to the political system.  There should be no horse trading.  If there is horse trading then the parties that indulge in horse trading should be punished.  The civil society should have a way to do that.

To my mind there are two ways we can adopt to put an end to this present criminal situation.

The first one is “The Right to Reject”.  This means just as we vote for candidates and the parties we feel should be elected (an acceptance vote) we can exercise an option to reject all the candidates and the parties fighting elections (a rejection vote).  Here people can exercise their voting power to reject the criminal and corrupt candidates who stand for election.  This makes it possible for the people (voters) not to elect even the least corrupt among the most corrupt.  If the rejection vote is sizeable enough then the parties should be asked to field candidates with impeccable integrity who would be acceptable to the people.  It will be up to the parties to find good candidates.  This could lead to a process of thinking among the parties to ensure that they field good candidates and provide good governance to the people.  In the process the criminal politicians and corruption will be eliminated.

The second option   is “Right to Recall”.  This means that after a period of time the voters can move a motion to demand withdrawal of the candidates they have elected on the ground of their corrupt practices, bad governance or lack of performance.  The electorate can call for a process to register their lack of confidence in such MPs and MLAs and force them to resign and hold another election to replace such politicians.

In order to exercise these two options a lot of ground work needs to be done.  Here the civil society organizations which have political independence have to play a major role.  This role will be political but not party political.  The electorate need to be educated and there needs to be a regular forum to express people’s opinions and grievances.  We have an institution of Gram Sabha in the rural panchayat context.  This can be an effective forum which will help people to decide on the process of recalling the elected members of the parliament or assemblies.  Similar forums should be created in the urban and semi urban areas where there are Municipal corporations.

This will result in emergence of enlightened electorate.  People will develop confidence in their ability and power to reform the political system and purify the institutions.  Money will not play ultimate role in making and unmaking a government.  The political parties will not be able to fool the people.  The elected members will not change their colour or forget their people after election.  We will not only weed out corruption but institute efficient, responsive and responsible government.

The issue before us is who will enlighten the civil society?  Often people get wedded to one or the other political party and fail to look at all the parties in an objective way.  Most often they are used by these parties as vote banks.  There has to be an end to the vote bank politics.  

We cannot expect present political parties to undertake this task of enlightening the civil society.  One should rightfully look at the left parties to perform this role.  The left parties were born for this purpose.  But they are so concerned about gaining power or retaining political power just as the other parties are that they have forgotten their mission.  We have to look at the civil society organisations which stand for secular, democratic, just society to take up the task of awakening the people to new spirit of citizenship.