Armed with legislation and a firm sense of resolve, India is determined to tackle its core issues like health, violence and negative voting. It requires a deeply-rooted sense of accountability and initiative to tackles core issues plaguing a state. India, for one, being a cauldron of mixed cultures and, concurrently, multifarious reasoning constantly emanating from a wide range of socio-economic factions, has huge unfulfilled tasks at hand. The trend to indulge in jingoism triggered by convenient channels can easily divert public memory and collective thinking from core issues that need to be addressed and instead numb the overall sentiment with a very transient exuberance.
On India's 60th Republic Day, it's time we shrug aside all the highbrow retrospection and cerebral introspection and take a hard look at issues involving legislation 'we , the people' carve out for ourselves through our elected representatives and those we conveniently tend to ignore for want of a mature equity. For a state to be developed in its true sense, it's important to develop its human resources as after all it's the citizenry that forms the most vital component of a state. It's for this very reason that the judiciary in its most active forms has made fervent attempts to widen the all-encompassing definition of the state as elaborated by Article 12 of the Indian Constitution which refuses to confine the 'State' to a Government department and the Legislature but extends it to any action - administrative(whether statutory or non-statutory ), judicial or quasi-judicial which can be brought within the fold of 'State action' being action which violates a fundamental right.
Against the backdrop of the apathy towards public health, the National Health Bill 2009 was introduced. It outlined the setting up of a National Public Health Board, as well as similar state-level bodies involving active citizens to lay down standards for public and private hospitals, review the standards as well as health policies every five years and to carry out mandatory audits of the health system from time to time. Violence as normally perceived , and quite lopsidedly too, solely as a behavioural anomaly, has now transgressed in meaning for India's people and its elected legislature which has learnt to lend support to a cause ignored for over decades - that of gays and rights stubbed by an all-Victorian British regime. So, the Indian Penal Code's Section 377 that made same sex illegal as against the order of nature to impose an archaic British view on a people against their wishes was finally quashed thus making justice for all a reality .
With Gujarat having led the way with regard to negative voting by passing the Gujarat Local Authority Laws Amendment Bill 2009, the rest of the nation's all set to register changes in the near future . The bill, incidentally, makes voting in polls of seven civic bodies, 26 district panchayats, 223 taluka panchayats and 13,706 village panchayats mandatory and provides people the right to record a negative ballot against a candidate/party. The much awaited negative voting should well be on the priority list of other states who, in the steps of Gujarat , are expected to make necessary state law amendments to empower the citizenry the right to desist from exercising their franchise ... armed with the same element of privacy as guaranteed to their other voting counterparts.
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Republic Of Hope - Lets transform the country in the next 20 years
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Six decades ago, many wrote our fledgling republic off as a post-colonial upstart with constitutional pretensions. Yet here we are, as committed to democratic, secular and egalitarian principles as in 1950. Down the years, Indians have not only elected their leaders but, when let down, also kicked them out. And, once so food-insecure that it lived ship to mouth, Indias now a growth story drawing global whistles. Yet, on a day that equally recalls the unfinished tasks of hard-won freedom, India cant rest on its laurels. For one thing, were yet to defeat divisive forces or eradicate socio-economic disparities. For another, megalopolis or rural hinterland, Indias news-hungry , cellphone-wielding citizens are more clued in than ever before. Our very successes the telecom revolution, for instance have created an aspirational society marked by an expanding entrepreneurial middle class. Also, the growing ranks of a young and productive population our famed demographic advantage mandates an enabling environment in which they can flower. Such a society is a tough tiger to ride for those wielding power in its name.
If the tiger isnt to run away with us, inclusive growth must keep lifting living standards. But while NREGS-style affirmative action serves social justice, its no surrogate for equality of opportunity. Thats why the coming years must wean away disadvantaged groups from government largesse. That means delivery on a war footing of education, healthcare and economic opportunities. To alleviate poverty and distress, lets think beyond food subsidy and loan waivers. Lets create manufacturing jobs on a mass scale to stem casualisation of work and absorb rural labour. 21century India can no longer delay labour reform, modernisation of agriculture or the trimming of wasteful subsidies. Equally, it needs better infrastructure roads, power, communications to sustain high growth.
New India needs government as enabler, not patron. Let government get out of running hotels, airlines and coalmines. Let it focus on attracting investment and facilitating business by, say, creating that common market we keep talking of. Let it think of citizens rights, not group-specific loyalties wrested by political paternalism. To be fair, with RTI or right to education, this policymaking shift is visible. Also, social schemes driven by economic criteria are weakening a caste-based quota regime thats past its sell-by date. Today, Nitish Kumar talks of empowering the poor across the social board. Mayawati backs promotion of English as key to socio-economic uplift. Impressive growth in many laggard states suggests increasing political responsiveness to public demand for good governance and development.
Lets strengthen these currents by getting tougher on corruption and criminalisation of politics that sap the vitality of our democratic institutions from within. Finally, these institutions themselves need to focus on actual delivery of public services. With its track record of democratic practice and growing economic clout, India can play a leading role on the 21century global stage. For that, it not only can make the next 20 years or so even more transformative than the past 60, it must do so. Lets get cracking today.
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(SOURCE : TOI)
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