Taking advantage of corporatization of media, both print and electronic, with crass commercialism as their motto, the NDA Government has arm twisted their promoters to toe its line as the government mouth piece so much so that media has swerved from holding the government to account by indulging in divisive and majoritarian agenda of Sangh Pariwar.
Since the current NDA Union Government came to power in May 2014, there has been a systematic frontal attacks on the autonomy and independence of the national public institutions of Parliament, judiciary, Election Commission, education including Central Board of Secondary School Examinations, Reserve Bank of India, the national central bank, armed forces, investigative agencies like Central Bureau of Investigation, elected legislature and the free press. Every such institution that has been upholding a healthy and vibrant democracy, needing to be protected and cared for by the government of the day in order to dispense neutral decisions in the interest of every citizen of India, has been undermined to weaken democratic system of rule of law based governance, with the rise of the assertive majoritarian government.
Parliament, the cradle of democracy has come under grave assaults with disruptions, triggered by both the ruling government and opposition, as never before. Prime Minister, as leader of the House, is learnt to have attended Lok Sabha (House of the People) some 20 times till the beginning of the Winter Session of Parliament in December 2018. Some of the bills that were non-financial were passed by the Lok Sabha as money bills to evade the Upper House (Rajya Sabha) scrutiny, thus making a mockery of Parliament.
Judiciary, traditionally above all other democratic institutions, came under withering frontal scrutiny on January 12, 2018, when four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court of India came out at unprecedented crowded press conference to say that “democracy was in danger”, besides charging the then Chief Justice of India Deepak Misra with allocating sensitive cases to the benches giving judgements favourable to the Government. No wonder, the Chief Justice was subjected to impeachment, which ultimately was abandoned. This resulted in the image of judiciary taking a hit from which it will be difficult for it to recover.
Election Commission enjoying the reservoir of unbridled power to conduct free and fair elections was treated like a vassal entity of the government when it announced elections to the State Assemblies of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh with a gap of one month between enforcement of Model Code of Conduct and elections, just to enable BJP State Government of Gujarat and the Prime Minister to announce sops and freebies to people of Gujarat. Results of both the State Assemblies were announced same day. At the same time, Election Commission’s unfair and partisan conduct came to fore when it disqualified over 20 MLAs of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of Delhi Legislature. It is different that the Delhi High Court quashed the impugned orders of the Election Commission as ‘bad in law’, ‘vitiated’ and a ‘failure’ to comply with the principles of natural justice. Partisan conduct of Election Commission and pressure of government on it to behave unfairly have not been lost on the people. Even former Election Commissioners had condemned conduct of the Election Commission.
NDA Union Government also politicized the armed forces. It bypassed time honoured principles of appointing senior most as chiefs of armed forces as also surgical strikes against terrorists in occupied Kashmir in September 2016 as well as a military hot pursuit of rebels in Myanmar, which no previous governments had done despite several such strikes before, thus diluting the principle of non-partisan security issues. No wonder, the Prime Minister denounced the first Prime Minister of India during Karnataka State Assembly Elections 2018 for having insulted two army chiefs from that state. Principle that armed forces be kept out of politics, and above regional or religious loyalties, was disregarded by the Prime Minister for short term political gain.
Autonomy and integrity of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) took a major hit during the demonetisation of rupees 500 and rupees 1000 notes in November 2016, when some seventy four times rules were amended, entire people lined up for some bucks. More than 150 people died in unending queue for money in ATM, RBI was in background, government in the Finance Ministry ruled the roost, financial liquidity of small, medium and informal sectors knocked down so much so that it rendered a massive unemployment, affecting national economy. None of the purported objectives of demonetisation succeeded. RBI’s Board of Directors has been infested with Sangh Pariwar loyalists and there is ongoing tussle between the Union Government and RBI over withdrawal of over rupees two lakh crore (rupees two trillion) from its reserve with a threat to invoke Section 7 of the RBI Act, 1934 unprecedentedly, undermining financial credibility of India as international investment destination. This shows current national economy in poor light.
Controversy over leaked exam papers for national school leavers` cast doubts on the Central Board of Secondary Education, which conducts the test. It impacted unimpeachable exam results as fundamental to fairness. History of India has been communalized, ancient mythological India glorified as having pioneered plastic surgery, avionics, internet and other scientific marvels, making a bonfire of the 1957 policy of scientific temper to take the country above myths and superstitions and to develop spirit of inquiry and reasonableness among our people. National Council of Education & Training, Indian Council of Historical Research and Indian Council of Social Science Research have been manned at the apex by RSS to distort country’s history and social structure, thus attacking the very idea of India as enshrined in the Constitution.
Premier national investigative agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate, whose ability to investigate and fight crimes considered as gold standards, have been misused to frame and harass political and other adversaries, as never before, with their public credibility having hit all time low. Now investigations by them are misconstrued as politically motivated and partisan.
Taking advantage of corporatization of media, both print and electronic, with crass commercialism as their motto, the NDA Government has arm twisted their promoters to toe its line as the government mouth piece so much so that media has swerved from holding the government to account by indulging in divisive and majoritarian agenda of Sangh Pariwar. As a result, there is virtually no scrutiny of the government and public attention being diverted from basic problems of people facing the nation.
With the ongoing frontal assaults on public institutions and deinstitutionalization of governance, the very idea of India is being endangered to the extent that the people may lose faith in the system with incalculable consequences for our biggest asset of democracy with its core values of unity of our people amidst their diversity and coexistence fully undermined!