Sir,
Apropos the piece “We need a …” (DE 25 Feb). Mr. Saraf has opened an academic debate and in good time. As a legal luminary, he has treated the subject academically and, of course, efficiently. The crucial question is not of academics but of ground reality. He has partially merited intermittent stints of Governor rule over the rule of elected regimes. We know that Governor’s rule is only an interim arrangement under the provisions of existing constitution. However, I, as an ordinary citizen, expected him to delve deep into the conditions and causes that make him merit Governor’s rule over the elected Government. The crux of the debate exactly lies in this point. After perfunctory adulation of interim stints of Governor’s rule, he has jumped on to invoke in support of his point the constitutional provisos, which, however, nobody is inclined to dispute. The point is that either there is some fundamental flaw in the type of democracy we have embraced in this country or that there is something seriously wrong with the electorate that throws up an elected regime which, at the end of the day, disappoints it.
Perhaps both eventualities are co-existent. Democracy, according to political pundits, is not the best of political systems known to us. The truism that “For forms of Government let fools contest/ whatever is governed best is best” is historically indisputable. China has no democracy of the type we have or the British have. Yet China rules the roost. The Fathers of our Constitution were wise and learned men no doubt. However, they were not omniscient. I will not say they have erred but I will say we need to move beyond the limits where they had stopped to think.
In the light of the rise of many anti-national-isms in the country today we need very pervasive and overarching revision of a large number of provisions of our Constitution. At the same time, we shall have to make entry of political vagabonds into law making structures much more restricted and complicated. To put it in crude words, we need only calibrated intellectuals in our law-making bodies and not political opportunists and rabble rousers who can shape easy constituencies of stone-pelting mobs. Mr. Saraf is good at theory and bad at practice. What has he to say of a democracy in which a million people walked behind the cortege of their departed leader as mark of respect but then the State had to deploy a posse of force to protect his grave against a multitude of capricious folks turning vandals?
Yours etc…..
Dr. K.N. Pandita
Jammu
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