Turning Point India
1201, Sector 29, Arun Vihar, Noida – 201
303 (UP) (India)
Ph: 0120-2454344, Mob: 9818047092,
_______________________________________________
27035A/TPI/TT-3 16
September 2012
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1.
Hon'ble Mr. Justice S.H. Kapadia,
Chief Justice of India,
Supreme Court of
India,
Tilak Marg, New Delhi-110 001
E-mail: supremecourt@nic.in
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2.
Mr. V.S.Sampath,
Chief Election Commissioner of India Nirvachan Sadan, Ashoka Road,
New Delhi-110001
E-mail: vs.sampath@eci.gov.in
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3. Mr. Vinod Rai,
Comptroller and Auditor General of India,
Pocket-9, Deen
Dayal Upadhyay Marg,
New Delhi-110124.
E-Mail: pdis@cag.gov.in
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4. General Bikram Singh, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, SM, VSM,
ADC
Chief of the Army Staff
Integrated HQs of Armed Forces (Army)
South Block, DHQ
PO, New Delhi-110011
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5. Admiral DK Joshi, PVSM, AVSM, YSM, NM, VSM, ADC
Chief of the Naval Staff
Integrated HQs of Armed Forces (Navy)
South Block, DHQ PO, New Delhi-110011
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6. Air Chief Marshal Norman Anil Kumar Browne,
PVSM, AVSM, VM
Chief of the Air Staff
Integrated HQs of Armed Forces (Air Force)
Vayu Bhawan, DHQ PO, New Delhi-110011
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Sovereignty and Integrity of India in Peril
Respected
Sirs,
1.
At the outset, I appeal to your magnanimity to kindly pardon me for impropriety,
if any, in addressing you collectively like this. Collectively, you are the vision
providers, navigators and powers who can save our Democracy from collapsing. At a time when public confidence in the
Government institutions is waning fast, you are the Institutions and
authorities that still command people’s confidence and hope.
2.
I am bringing before you the issues and proposals that have been debated
and deliberated for months by mature, experienced and highly responsible men
and women of our society. Therefore, very humbly and most hopefully, I would request
you to please mull over these submissions seriously and, more importantly, initiate
pragmatic actions to purge and provide a fair, transparent, honest, efficient,
and people friendly Democratic system that has been devoured by corruption and
divisive forces of self-serving politics. Sovereignty and Integrity of India have
never been in a more perilous state.
3.
Fully conscious of the pressure on your precious time, I shall be as
concise as possible in conveying to you what we consider ‘aspirations of a distraught
Nation’.
The External Threat Scenario
4.
India is the only country in the world that has two of her major
neighbours, both nuclear powers, with a history of wars and continuing animosities
and suspicions – frequent peace and friendship initiatives notwithstanding. China,
aspiring for global leadership, is befriending India’s closer neighbours like
Srilanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar and even Nepal while their faith in India is
dwindling. In her quest to encircle India, China is steadily expanding her
influence in the Indian Ocean and Asia Pacific. In the west, the scene is even more
worrisome. Attacks by the al Qaeda-Taliban terrorists on Pakistan’s high
security installations have become more audacious and frequent, the latest
being on Kamra air base, believed to be storing nuclear warheads. These attacks
have laid bare the vulnerability of a beleaguered Pakistan which is fighting a losing
war on many fronts besides its ongoing asymmetric war against terror. Tussle
between the Judiciary and the Executive, resurging Islamist movements, rampant
corruption and a failing economy with an S&P debt rating lowered to ‘CCC
plus’ which is among the world’s lowest – all add up to make Pakistan more
shaky and unstable. For India, a weak, strife-torn, unstable Pakistan is more
dangerous than a strong, prosperous and stable Pakistan for obvious reasons. The
vital question, however, is how prepared we are to play a proactive role in
either eventuality.
The Domestic Scenario
5.
Rise of Sectarian/Divisive
Politics: Divisive politics is flourishing with
utter disregard to the constitutional safeguards as gangs like Shiv Sena and
MNS brazenly go on the rampage every now and then driving away non-Marathas
from Mumbai. Raj Thackray has the audacity to issue Fatwas to ban Hindi TV
and banish all Biharis from Mumbai. In Mumbai again, a group of demonstrators
raise Pakistani flag, destroy ‘Amar Jawan Jyoti’ and set vehicles and public
property afire even as the police watched mutely. What is even more shocking is
that the Government lumps it all so meekly and helplessly! At the national
level, the politics of caste-community based quota, subsidy, and reservation has
destroyed harmony and created rival groups within the society, while the poor -
the so-called ‘beneficiaries’- still languish in perpetual poverty that spreads
beyond caste boundaries. Rather than empowering the impoverished, the quota regime
has only promoted ‘dependence’ of the needy. Hordes of foreign nationals continue
to infiltrate illegally into India from Bangladesh and neither the State
Government of Assam nor the Centre seems to know how to tackle the problem
which recently erupted in violence taking toll of several lives and rendering thousands
of people homeless. As if that was not enough, Indian citizens from NE states
were hounded and targeted in metro cities as if they were aliens in their own
country. The very idea of India as a
Nation is under threat!
6.
Probity in Public Life
Abandoned: Falling standard of probity among politicians
is the bane of Indian Democracy today. Assets of MPs and MLAs quickly multiply into
hefty fortunes, in many cases recording a staggering 100 to 1000 per cent growth
even when there is no visible source of honest income. The CAG revelations in 2
G, CWG and Coal block allocations have exposed how forthcoming our politicians
and bureaucrats are in compromising their integrity and character for quick
personal gains. Some have surpassed limits and fallen to the bottom of moral
depravity and, shockingly, even the law has been slower and softer on the likes
of ND Tiwari, Gopal Kanda, Mahipal Maderna, Abhishek Singhvi and so on. MPs’
affidavits perused by the National Election Watch (NEW) revealed that more than
162 Lok Sabha MPs including some ministers are facing criminal cases in courts
of law. Of these, 76 are involved in serious crimes like murder, rape, dacoity,
cheating, kidnapping and so on. Sadly,
the number of tainted MPs has been steadily rising – there were 128 in the 14th
Lok Sabha while now they are 162 in the 15th Lok Sabha – despite public
outcry for Lokpal and repeated recommendations from India’s constitutional
authorities at the highest level. Here is the evidence of stubborn inaction:
(a)
The Election Commission of
India recommended as far back as 1998 that ‘candidates with pending criminal
cases should be debarred from contesting elections.’ The Commission had to
reiterate it in 2004 but without any effect.
(b)
The Law Commission of India
similarly proposed in 1999 an amendment/insertion of Section 8B of Representation
of People Act, 1951 that would make candidates facing charges by a court of law
ineligible to contest elections. Yet, no effect!
(c)
The National Commission to
Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) also emphasised in their
Report submitted in 2001 that “Any person convicted for any heinous crime
like murder, rape, smuggling, dacoity etc should be permanently debarred from
contesting for any political office”. Going a step further, the Commission
also proposed that Political Parties giving ticket to such candidates should be
‘derecognised forthwith.’ No effect, yet again!
(d)
The Second Administrative
Reforms Commission in its final Report submitted in 2008 lent support to
the Law Commission proposal for appropriate legislation to debar candidates
with criminal background from entering legislatures. To no avail whatsoever!
7.
Corrupt, Callous Governance: In its Corruption Perception Index of nations for the year 2011, Transparency
International pegs India at level 95 recording a drop 11 notches below her
previous year’s position among 178 countries of the world, a score that is far
worse than countries like Morocco, Grenada, Zambia, Srilanka and many others in
the category. Enviably viewed as one of the
world’s fastest growing Economies (BRIC), India’s growth story is annoyingly diminishing
having already slid from 10.6 in 2010 to 7.2 in 2011 and may ‘collapse to 5
percent’ this year as cautiously admitted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
himself at the Planning Commission meeting on 15 September 2012. The logjam in
which the Government is struck is so strange that the UPA partners, who should
be supporting the Government, are criticising its policies and moves more
bitterly than Opposition to extract more than their pound of flesh. At the core
of all these negatives lies the official corruption which is tearing through the
skies. Widely criticised domestically as well as globally for manipulating
poverty statistics, our Planning Commission put 32 percent of India’s
population below poverty line (BPL) whereas the World Bank puts it at 42
percent. Evidently, subsidies, reservations and populistic projects like MNREGA
and other poverty alleviation schemes have ended up enriching only the corrupt
officials, local politicians and touts at the cost of targeted beneficiaries. Misappropriating
public money and perpetuating poverty in such a regime has become a lucrative
business of the politico-bureaucratic nexus. Unconcerned about the rising
public ire against official corruption, Sushil Kumar Shinde, the Home Minister
of world’s largest Democracy disgraced it when in reply to a query from the
press on 15 September 2012 in Pune he said, “earlier the Bofors was a talking
point. People forgot about it. Now it is coal. This too will be
forgotten." A live example of how corruption destroys moral fibre of the
nation!
8.
Systemic Paralysis: Bureaucrats are on a ‘pens down’ mode reportedly because they hesitate
to take decisions for fear of getting caught as if honest working were so
risky and no longer possible in government departments! Accountability has
disappeared from the system. The state of crucial public utility services like government
hospitals is horrific. Government schools are no better than cattle sheds. People
fear police more than they fear criminals. Self respecting citizens no longer risk
going to police stations to seek help because they find it easier to settle
scores directly with the criminals than be exploited and insulted by police
with no positive result in sight. No complaints against their rogue behaviour
scares any government employee for, thanks to the shared booty of their ‘collections’,
the boss would do no more than placate the complainant and hush up the matter
to the delight of his delinquent subordinate. What has happened to the system
that demanded efficiency, punctuality and fairness in official performance? The
idea of Lokpal dates back to 1969 when the bill was first passed in the Lok
Sabha. Since then no other bill has been
debated as much in and out of the Parliament. Teeming multitudes of humanity at
Delhi’s Ramlila grounds for once forced the Parliament to adopt a ‘Sense of the
House’ resolution favouring adoption of the Lokpal. The agitation was called off, and so was the
Lokpal bill.
9.
The Coalition Sophistry: Coalition governments have made a mockery of Democracy. Political
parties that contest elections by rousing public passions against each other as
avowed enemies trading abuses and allegations, suddenly have no compunction in
forming unholy alliances with those very rivals soon after elections. This is
grossly unethical, against the will of the electorate and, therefore, against
the spirit of the constitution too. This is like gangs coming together to form
a ‘Mafia Group’ rather than a ‘Government’ which they would manoeuvre to serve
their narrow interests rather than peoples’. It must, therefore, be incumbent upon
parties to first form an alliance and decide on a common Manifesto on which they
intend to contest elections as partners so that the voter knows what kind of a
government he is electing. Also, it is no secret that MPs were sold and
purchased to save fledgling coalition governments twice on the floor of the Lok
Sabha – the Narsimha Rao Government in 1993 and the Manmohan Singh Government
in 2004. In the existing constitutional dispensation, it is possible for an
otherwise insignificant group of legislators or even an individual to conspire
with one of the rival groups in an evenly divided House and topple or alter a
Coalition Government to arrogate unusual power and authority to themselves – a
scenario that would be grossly against the mandate of the electorate, yet
constitutionally permissible. We know how an independent MLA, Madhu Koda, now
in jail for amassing an illegal wealth of Rs. 4000 crore, became Chief Minister
of Jharkhand in 2006. In the present Coalition, the Prime Minister has himself
confessed that he is working under ‘coalition compulsions’, implying that the
Government does yield to blackmail and coercion from partners for its survival.
This compulsive stranglehold of coalition partners has been the primary factor
in paralysing the Government. By implication, such governments last as long as
they serve vested interests of partners; public service is incidental. Having
messed up almost an entire monsoon session of the Parliament without
transacting useful business, the Government is now frantically huddling to take
‘bold decisions’ on FDI, disinvestment and other controversial issues on the
sly even many UPA partners are left fuming.
10.
Official Neglect hits
Military Morale: It is now indisputably known that the military personnel and
Ex-servicemen were given a raw deal by the 6th Central Pay Commission, not to
mention of the woes given by earlier pay panels. A large number of petitions
and appeals filed by aggrieved ex-servicemen against the Government decisions
stand disposed by the Armed Forces Tribunal, High Courts and the honourable
Supreme Court in favour of the petitioners asking the Government to grant
remedies in each case. Yet, the bureaucratic red tape has not permitted justice
to reach the aggrieved parties including serving soldiers. The result is that
the mounting resentment has taken a toll on the military morale which has
recently manifested in some very disturbing happenings in some military units
deployed in sensitive operational areas. Spilling beyond breach of discipline,
these incidents became mutinous confrontations defying chain of command. It is
a different matter though that the top military brass shall go to any extent to
allay doubts about military’s morale and battle worthiness because in military
ethos it is disgraceful and un-soldierly to be demoralised. Even a dying
soldier would boast of his ‘high morale’. India’s military might is the last
resort to deal with the most complex and dangerous threats – internal or
external – when all else might have failed. There is no alternative to
maintaining the Armed Forces fully motivated, satisfied, well equipped and well
cared for so that they deliver desired results. Unfortunately, petty
considerations like inter-service parity, inferiority or superiority and
one-upmanship are over-riding national interests and, in their effort to negate
the uniqueness of military’s role and structure, the bureaucrats have
traditionally viewed military as their rival in service status. This hostile
mindset has always pulled down the soldiery in India by making the Government
give them less than they deserve. Throughout the world, military enjoys
distinct privileges, status and prestige which are officially bestowed upon the
soldiers in the form of badges of rank, insignia, uniform, ‘standards’ and
banners – all that distinguishes them from the rest. It is in everybody’s
interest to make soldiers proud of their profession and beloved of the people
they die for. There is an urgent need to arrest the fall of military morale and
restore their dignity and motivation before it is too late.
Conclusion
11.
There are a host of reforms
awaiting enactment of appropriate laws like Lokpal Bill, Whistle Blowers Bill, Electoral
and Political Reforms, Ban on entry of charge-sheeted individuals into the
Legislature or public offices, Confiscation of illegally acquired assets of
politicians and government officials, Judicial Reforms and Judges
Accountability Bill et al are unlikely to see the light of the day under the
existing system.
12.
Peaceful agitations, recommendations
of Commissions and statutory bodies, and even directions/strictures and
observations frequently passed by the Judiciary have failed to improve the
situation. The Law Minister derisively scoffed at the peaceful mass agitation
saying, “Ramlila happens every year; what’s the worry?” Equally
scornfully, the Home Minister also echoed the Government attitude when he said,
"earlier the Bofors was a talking point. People forgot about it. Now it
is coal. This too will be forgotten."
13.
The message is now clear:
Non-violent Satyagraha is no more than a carnival that can go on for eternity
or dissipate. The danger of such apathy and arrogance is that people will
become restive and take to violence. Simmering resentment is mounting
throughout the length and breadth of the country and forebodings of anarchy are
very much perceptible.
14.
It is in this backdrop of harsh
realities that we consider it highly expedient that bold action is now needed to
save the country from anarchic times ahead. It might be unconventional, some
might view it even ‘unconstitutional’ too, but would it really be so if the
honourable Chief Justice of India, the CEC, the CAG and the Chiefs of the Armed
Forces sat together and discussed the vital national issues that are not
getting resolved by any other democratic mechanism? Indian democracy is
yearning for your guidance today.
15.
While we suggest no specific
plan to India’s most enlightened brains and custodians of public faith, we would
certainly beg you to act collectively, resolutely and effectively before it is
too late to introduce a course correction in our governance and facilitate the
country’s advance to peace, prosperity, power and glory. Your intervention can
save India from going the Libyan, Egyptian or Syrian way.
With best
regards and lots of hope,
Yours faithfully,
Karan
Kharb
Turning Point India
