India is celebrating its 66th Republic Day today. The national capital territory is under a layered security blanket, to ensure the celebrations will not be marred by any inconvenient incident, and that the foreign as well as national dignitaries will return home safe. Some amongst the millions of Indians watching today’s celebrations may wonder why such guarantees of security do not exist for them.
Resources spent on security for this year’s Republic Day have attracted its share of criticism, including from the Supreme Court of India. The kind of criticism aired is out of place; it is the responsibility of the Indian state to ensure safety of guests attending a national event. What is missing in the critique is that for the majority of Indians the state has failed to provide the basic protection to their person and property.
Showcased with colour and pageantry in the Republic Day parade, is India’s security and defence competence. While the Indian armed forces have succeeded in securing India’s borders, the government has failed in ensure similar safety for its vast population – from crime, poverty, exploitation, marginalisation, and exclusion.
For the first time, women officers have led contingents of the armed forces during the parade; it is an advance. Unfortunately, their civilian counterparts remain vulnerable to sexual and other forms of violence; and there is no criminal justice machinery on which the women can depend for redress from, and deterrence to, this violence, for which India has now become infamous across the world.
Among other things, a republic implies that supreme power rests with citizens who select representatives to exercise this power and this supreme power protects each and every citizen of the republic, ensuring them justice, freedom, and dignity. By this definition, the republic remains a distant dream for a majority of the Indian population.
To make the republic real to the majority, thorough criminal justice reform is imperative. And, this has yet to be addressed by any representative leadership since the nation became a republic. For the past 66 years, no union or state government has prioritized criminal justice reforms. These reforms, the most critical factor in improving the quality of life and security in the republic, are not even on the table for discussion; such reforms are not state policy.
The continuation of the most brutal forms of colonial policing, replete with torture and corruption, and devoid of credible investigation systems, have resulted in an unsafe India, where predatory forces converge upon those who cannot afford private protection. Acute poverty, and the inability of the poor to escape from it, is a direct result of this environment. In such a state, citizens cannot set goals beyond survival.
Sixty-six years after the promulgation of a democratic and secular constitution that guarantees a federal state with independent institutions constituted to guarantee the supremacy of the constitution, India has more poor. Indians today face more threats to their life and property than they faced in 1950, and the dignified life with freedom that the founding fathers of this great nation enshrined is still a dream to be realised. Representative leaders of the Indian state must address these matters as priority. For citizens, Republic Day will otherwise become just a calendar holiday, with no essence or meaning.
