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| Political culture and civil liberties degraded | | | Jamwal Mahadeep Singh | 1/29/2019 10:07:45 PM |
| The nations are constantly indexed by various international agencies in various fields. Whatever data or figures, the ruling party, in a nation put in public domain, many times comes under severe criticism owing to its exaggerated in nature. This all is with the intentions to project its performances many times more than actuality, to mislead the voters. But the international agencies do not confine their ratings for a single nation as such there remains no space to put these ratings as biased. Some similar situation we come across, when we speak of India's global rating in different fields. The only rating that is much talked by Modi government is 'Ease of Doing Business'. The situation so created apparently speaks of benefitting the crony capitalists and middle rung business community never discuss or feel bettered by this rating. On the strength of this global rating, Modi government always projecting itself as 'Demigod' of every Indian and in such a situation, the ruling fraternity has every right to claim of better performance but it is merely about raising the levels in particular field that suits to handful people and it cannot be categorized as good governance. But when we speak of the 'Democracy' in democratic countries, one feel proud of the democracy to which the common citizenry belongs. The country is supposed to be progressing, if the democratic set up of the country raises high in comparisons. We find the global rating declining year-to-year since 2014, in components crucial for a democracy. On Global Hunger Index India that was ranking at number 55 among 120 countries by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in 2014, slipped to 100th among 119 nations in 2017 and further to 103rd out of 119 Nations in 2018. There are 1.77 million homeless in India (Census 2011). In 2016, the apex court slammed the Centre and states for their lackadaisical approach in providing shelters to the poverty-stricken in urban areas. India stand tagged as world's most dangerous country for women in a Thomson Reuters Foundation survey of 548 experts on women's issues. A recent rating of 123 countries with functional right to information law saw the country slipped to number 6 that was number 2 in the years 2011, 2012 and 2013. On the press freedom global rating, India's position declining year-to-year, it was at number 133 in 2016, slipping to number 136 in 2017 and 138th in recently released World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) 2018 by 'Reporters Without Borders'.
When we speak of Global Democracy Index, India's rank slipping continuously since the takeover of Modi government, the number that was 27 in the index of 165 countries in the year 2014 slipped to 32nd in 2016 and world's largest democracy ranked 42nd among 165 independent states on annual 2017 Global Democracy Index (GDI) released by UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The report states, after Narendra Modi took over, India has degraded in political culture and civil liberties. India's overall score has fallen to 7.23 points out of ten, even as it scored well on electoral process and pluralism (9.17). When we look to the categories considered by the 'EIU', India scored lower on four parameters: political culture, functioning of government, political participation and civil liberties. Political culture is the set of attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments which give order and meaning to a political process and which provide the underlying assumptions and rules that govern behavior in the political system. 2. Functioning of government: The first principle and law of perfect government is that government will never be self-serving; or, in other words, it will never act of itself for the sake of its own existence. The perfect government is that it provides the means, whereby those whom it serves may have an equal opportunity to experience the happiness that each of them (those served) desires. It serves those who benefit from its existence. Those who benefit from its existence are those who give it its power. And this power is only used to serve those who have given it its power. 3. Political participation: Vibrant democracies are characterized by a continuous expansion of the available forms of participation. Political participation can be loosely defined as citizens' activities affecting politics. Political participation is relevant for any political system, but it is an indispensable feature of democracy: Where few take part in decisions there is little democracy; the more participation there is in decisions, the more democracy there is. Thus, the extent and scope of political participation are important, perhaps even decisive criteria for assessing the quality of democracy. 4. Civil liberties are freedoms, due to every individual, just based on the fact that they are human beings as the freedom of a citizen, to exercise customary rights, as of speech or assembly, without unwarranted or arbitrary interference by the government. Such a right as guaranteed by the laws of a country. India was ranked 49th with regard to media freedom, with its media being classified as 'partly free'. The rise of conservative religious ideologies in India is another factor that has affected the country's ranking. The strengthening of right-wing Hindu forces has lead to rise of vigilantism and violence against minority communities as well as other dissenting voices. These branding of India's picture can be reached on search engines. More sorrowful aspect on this issue is that government never brings such data into public domain that is likely to hit the ignorance of the balloters, although the search engines are always helpful to know how of these facts but the negligible number of literate bounce upon this piece of information. This may be because of their least concern about performance of government and they feel happy confined to their four walls. I feel it to be an assigned job of a freelance writer to aware one and all about those ratings harmful for a nation that may help the fraternity responsible for such ratings to improve in these fields for meaningful achievements. At present corrupt, criminal and inefficient politicians are ruling the roost! This is the deadliest combination possible. ADR?study: BJP has highest no. of MPs, MLAs with cases of crime against women. ADR and National Election Watch have analyzed 4,852 out of 4,896 election affidavits of current MPs and MLAs. This includes 774 out of 776 affidavits of MPs and 4,078 out of 4,120 MLAs from all the states of India. Out of the analysed 1,581 (33%) MPs and MLAs with declared criminal cases. India's highest court has said that politicians with a "criminal background" should not serve in government. The Supreme Court said it could not disqualify the ministers, as the constitution allows prime ministers to appoint their own cabinets, but said it hoped the premier would, but our most cherished PM brushed away the observation of the Apex Court. 24 per cent ministers in the Modi government are facing charges of murder, rape, kidnapping, still it is projected as most neat and clean government by the rulers. What a yard stick they possess to measure a government as neat and clean? The politicians in power always carry clutter in their mind and assume that the voters will keep voting for them, whatever happens. If we will not break this cycle, we will never get anywhere. The election is our chance to take our democracy to the next level; this is our chance to help our democracy succeed. If every voter who wants change goes out and votes on Election Day, we can break this cycle. Our vote belongs to us and nobody else. It is our power. Our right to vote is fundamental, and when access to the ballot box is impeded, our democracy suffers. If we don't vote wisely, we'll continue to get more of the same politicians who put their needs before ours. |
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