Despite an uncooperative Opposition, the Modi Government has managed to get much work done in the first half of the Budget Session. However, if the notion of business as usual has to change, the Indian police and judiciary systems need to be overhauled at the earliest
When a train pulls out of a railway station, it usually gets a yellow signal, not a green one. A yellow signal for a train, after it has stopped, means ‘proceed with caution’. The success of the Narendra Modi Government to get over the obstructionism of the anti-development wing of the Congress and the perpetually frustrated communists, and successfully pass the Insurance laws (Amendment) Bill, 2015, the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2015, as well as the extremely important Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Bill, 2015, is a testament to the tenacity of the Government.
During the first half of the Budget Session of Parliament, it appeared as if the Bharatiya Janata Party, coming back to power at the Centre after a decade, had forgotten the most important parliamentary skill of floor management.
The Congress proved how masterful it was at floor management by summoning the dark art when it passed the Civil liability for Nuclear Damage Act, by hook and crook, in 2010. However, through a combination of persuasion and possibly some pressure as well, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi did an exemplary job for the NDA this session.
Yet, while the BJP and its floor managers can rightly pat themselves on the back for a well done job, this is just the beginning for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team. For one, there is still the high-profile amendment to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, which is the Congress’s poison pill. But that is just a tip of the iceberg.
If the notion of business as usual has to change in the true sense, there is a need for serious reforms in the Indian police and judiciary systems. The slothfulness of India’s justice system is highlighted in the near reticence of the Supreme Court to take up the December 16 Delhi gang rape case.
All thanks to the needless controversy over a badly made documentary — India’s Daughter — we learned one important thing: That even after the trial court and the Delhi High Court gave quick and learned judgements, the Supreme Court has been sitting on the appeals of the convicts for a year.
No one is advocating that innocents be hanged. Death penalty, in itself, is an extreme punishment. But we know that these men are guilty. The reprehensible nature of their crime got national attention because it occurred in Delhi.
It would be fair enough to say that a majority of Indians, across society, feel that the culprits should be hanged, just like Ajmal Kasab deserved to die — and the biriyani controversy, three years later, is near comical.
It is not just about the high-profile criminal acts that happen every now and then. It is about the lethargic nature of the justice delivery system in India. Everything, from the police to the judiciary, needs quick reform. Property cases often drag on needlessly for years, and appeals to orders by quasi-judicial bodies usually take ages to resolve.
It is also becoming clear that until you are rich and connected, getting justice is next to impossible. Neelam Katara’s fight for justice for her murdered son is a remarkable example. Ms Katara knew the judicial system and was a Government officer’s wife. Tens of Nitish Katara’s are murdered in India and there are hundreds of cases like Nirbhaya. But do they get justiceIJ That is rare.The system of justice is just a tip of the iceberg of the two things that need urgent reform.
Make no mistake: The opaqueness of the Indian justice system is one of the reasons why the country’s reputation as an investment destination is suffering. After all, if you were a foreign investor, would you invest in a country where it takes a decade or two to get justice even on a simple commercial caseIJ
The fact is that for over a decade, reforms and law-making in India have ground to a halt. We had successive Governments that celebrated poverty and backwardness. Again, there is a need for upliftment of the poor in India. Millions of people need to be dragged up from the ranks of the poor.
And while handouts may anger those who feel that the Government should not indulge in schemes such as the rural employment guarantee schemes, the fact remains that many States in India are desperately poor. Even if massive investments were to be made to make sure that the next generation of Indians are educated and can do better, their parents still need to be pretty much physically lifted out of extreme poverty.
Governments, dominated by do-gooders and evangelicals who celebrate poverty, as it gives them a platform, will never really want to work for the upliftment of the poor. They would rather that the poor stay attached to the intravenous fluid drip therapy of Government handouts for generations.
Nothing can epitomise this better than Congress scion Rahul Gandhi’s question: “What is the need for roads if only the rich use themIJ” Mr Gandhi, someone who has consistently failed his constituents, forgot that roads and the four-stroke motorcycle in particular have transformed rural India in the past three decades.
If the notion of the Indian dream is to take root, roads need to be built, just as factories are built. In Parliament recently, there have been good speeches from the ruling party, but there is one speech that stood out for this writer. It was not a speech made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
It was a speech made by Mr Hukmdev Narayan Yadav, the lok Sabha member from Madhubani. Some may consider the speech to be funny and rustic, but it is far from that. There has not been such an impassioned speech in Parliament for a long time; this columnist advises those who understand Hindi to listen to that speech on YouTube.
India is a country that is still stuck in the medieval ages, not just socially but also economically. We cannot become this ‘evolved’ nation that does not hang its murderers, like Norway, where Anders Behring Breivik is set to spend the rest of his life in a luxury prison.
We will need to hang murderers and rapists, we will need to do things that might seem irrational to those with Western sensibilities because we are not Western and we are not developed. And if we are to become socially developed, we will need to progress economically. The Modi Government has made a start, but the road ahead is scary. He and those with him should steel themselves for the struggle.