The Greater Good Mirage

This post comes in light of the results of the latest Indian general elections. Narendra Modi, the incubant Prime Minister was voted back to power with an even higher majority. Modi has been in mainstream politics since 20 years when he first became the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat. He was kept in power for three consecutive terms. Even when he “offered” resignation after the communal violence of 2002, he was voted back to power — and with an even higher majority. Why? Why is he liked and respected so much? What is the reason for the sheer amount of trust that Narendra Modi commands?

The most common answer is that he wields power. He makes decisions and he isn’t afraid to speak up. But is he? We live in a world where Donald Trump is the President of the most powerful country in the world. We live in a world where a chubby cutie pie is the supreme leader of one of the last surviving communist powers of the world. Is anything impossible now?

As a kid, I always wondered how can people say India is going to be a global power? How can India show all that growth? When the politicians are basically dumb and openly squabble like pirates? A learned friend, and an IAS (Indian Administrative Service) aspirant explained it beautifully.

The Executive is an important arm of the democracy that enforces and monitors the law of the land. The officers of the Executive report and are answerable to a parent ministry, the ministry in turn is headed by a minister. A minister then shall bring up or propose bills that will be deliberated and debated upon in the parliament.

Here again, not all bills maybe simple and may require further analysis and debate, hence there are committees created which act as a mini parliament where the committee members again deliberate over it and once satisfied with the work done, propose it from the floor of the parliament as a committee.

So what’s the point I’m trying to make? The point is, many alleged intellectuals of our society have been claiming that Modi and Modi-Shah could single handedly destroy the democratic structure of India. They have some data on their side, the last Modi government — the 16th Loksabha of India, 133 bills were passed. Though most of these bills have been discussed for longer duration, only 25% of the bills were referred to a committee. Apart from these, there were also 45 executive ordinances passed. All these tend to suggest the government is moving towards a centralised approach and soon the numerous moving parts of the machinery would be rendered obsolete and useless.

To talk from the other side, isn’t reference to a sub committee sign of indecision? If history is to go by, Indian legislation refers controversial and land mark bills to a committee, if things go well, the government gets the credit and if it goes sideways, the committee gets the bullets. So can see this as a change to the positive?

This Modi-Shah government doesn’t want to refer anything to a committee because it wants to roll policy and not get stuck in a committee. The government in desperate situations has also used the executive ordinance route where in no discussion was ever held.

Isn’t it good? If one person or a few people make all the decisions then we know where to point incase of failure. So we as citizens should not sour up at these “power blocks” and instead create models or ways of tracking the decisions made, routes taken to enact laws and wait for the opportune moment.

To do what? To say I told you so.

~

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