A Democracy That is All Skin and Bones |
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As we lurch to the close of a singularly dismal year that rounds off a horrid decade, one is filled with a sense of despondency at the relentless diminution of our democracy and the very real prospect of remaining interminably in the grip of an arrogant majoritarian regime. It is such a savage irony that only last year, we thought we had barely escaped the tyrant’s noose owing to the unexpectedly bullish performance of the INDIA alliance in the Lok Sabha election. It had given a flicker of hope that we would get back our vibrant, chaotic democracy, but it was a false dawn!
For many like me, if the unanticipated facile wins of the NDA in the Maharashtra, Haryana and Delhi Assembly elections were deeply disheartening, the staggering sweep of the ruling coalition in the recent Bihar election clearly signals the endgame – the rout of democracy and all its constituent elements.
Just to rub it in, there was the thumping victory of the NDA in the Maharashtra local body polls and even more troubling, the BJP’s success in the prestigious Thiruvananthapuram Corporation election, ending the LDF’s four-decade long hold on Kerala’s most important local body which a gloating PM unerringly described as a “watershed moment in Kerala politics.” The once impregnable ‘final frontier’ holding up the saffron wave has been prised open.
We still have the trappings of a democracy but that’s about it. Parliament, aptly described by John Diefenbaker as “the custodian of the nation’s freedom” and defined by the inclusiveness of its dialogue that reflects the collective will of the people, is now a travesty. The tyrant and his minions have ruthlessly gamed the system to impose their will and dubious policies on the polity, disdainfully upending parliamentary convention and etiquette, prioritising power over truth and deliberative consultation.
The Parliament session earlier this month demonstrated beyond a doubt that our supreme legislative body is a caricature of the real thing. Take the discussion on electoral reforms. Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition, raised critical issues regarding the skewed procedure for the selection of Election Commissioners, “vote chori” and the flawed SIR on account of which hundreds of thousands of citizens had been disenfranchised.
In response, Amit Shah, dripping arrogance and........