Vol. 10, Issue : 8
August 2018
T he F
açade of Democr
acy
Façade
Democracy
As we are fast approaching the 72 nd day of
Transfer of Power (August 15) the hollowness of the
supposedly largest democracy continues to get
exposed before the people.
The democratic and civil rights are being
violated at all levels by security and police forces
with impunity. Dozens of encounter and custodial
deaths are taking place. Yet, the directives from the
Supreme Court go unattended and National Human
Rights Commission condones itself by announcing
monetary compensation to the victims. Private armed
gangs are killing law abiding and innocent citizens
which are being abetted by the Hindu communal
forces wielding the state power. Anyone trying to
promote secularism, freedom to practice once own
religion and freedom of speech is being branded as
anti-national. Dissenters are being denied to
organize peaceful rallies against forceful acquisition
of land, displacement and submergence of villages.
‘Paid news’ and ‘fake news’ are being paraded as
the authoritative facts. Journalists have no freedom
than presenting what the big bourgeois bosses want.
And when scribes belonging to small press are
exposing the facts, they are being eliminated
physically.
While the mandarins in the seat of power at New
Delhi are getting more intolerant with every passing
day trampling the voices of dissent, they are,
including the PM, engaged in the exercises to please
the US imperialism. In her recent visit to India, Nikki
Haley, the US representative at UN and a person of
Indian origin, publicly asked the Indian government
to downgrade its relations with neighbor country Iran
and stop buying oil from it. And Modi government is
ready to buckle under pressure as its predecessor
UPA has done in the case of Iran gas pipe line to the
detriment of country’s interests.
The Indian Parliament, which used to function
more in disruption by its members than discharging
its duties, not surprisingly sat for a marathon 14 hour
session to discuss no confidence motion against the
BJP government. The result was as predicted, defeat
of the motion. Yet one more aspect of the Indian
democracy, the so-called federal nature of it, has
come to the focus. Many Members of Parliament from
various states cutting across the party lines have
accused the Centre that it has been perpetuating
injustice to their state – denying financial allocations
due to them, taking away many of their powers etc.
But no one was bold enough to demand a review of
the Centre- state relations.
Though the ruling class parties praise the unity
and diversity as the sacred feature of Indian polity
and culture and talk endlessly of the federal nature
of the Indian Constitution, in practice, it largely
remains as an unitary state. With every passing year
more and more powers of the state are being taken
away to rest them with the Centre. Whichever ruling
party and coalition is at the helm of the affairs, it
encroaches upon the powers of the states. The latest
example is the Goods and Services Tax, which has
effectively taken away the tax collecting capability
of the states and forced them to look to the Centre
for the devolvement of the income through tax
collections and virtually made them dependent on
the Centre.
When the Centre-state relations became a
serious political discourse during 1980s, the Central
government appointed the Sarkaria Commission. Its
recommendations, though of limited nature and
Organ of the Central Committee of CPI(ML)