India will hold general elections for the 15th Lok Sabha in April. Lok Sabha, meaning ‘house of the people’, is the directly elected, lower house of the Indian parliament. Under the prevailing circumstances it is impossible for a political party to succeed in the general elections to claim absolute majority in the parliament and thus to form a government all by itself. Due to this, political parties in the country are engaged in hot pursuits of each other, trying to form coalitions or creating environments to breach them in opposing camps.
As it was in the past, every political party interested in the general elections has posed the concern about the ordinary citizen in the country to the forefront of discussions. The democratic process in India, albeit failures, is a rare occasion in the country where the ordinary citizen and her/his opinion could matter.
Yet, it appears that the discussions about the ordinary Indians are mere skin-deep pretentions of the political parties in the country. For instance, most of the current political debates are about national unity, security and financial stability, often expressed in extremely polarised religious overtones.
Unity, security and financial stability are indeed important for a nation. But it cannot be achieved without the peoples’ support. From an ordinary citizen’s minimalistic standpoint, unity means non-discrimination, security means local police and financial stability is the guarantee of the right to food.
As of today, discrimination, induced by religion, caste, corruption and nepotism prevails over the country. In spite of being a secular and democratic republic, religion draws the fault lines dividing the country into biased fragments. Fundamentalist political parties like the BJP and its allies like the VHP, through word and action, reiterates these demarcations, the breaching of which could result in loss of life and property. The recent incident where one of the BJP candidates from Uttar Pradesh state drew flak from the National Election Commission for making remarks capable of inciting communal violence is an example.
According to the fundamentalist Hindu political parties, the very fact that the country has the world’s second largest Muslim population, in essence, is a threat to national security. It is a fact that in the states ruled by the BJP or its allies, non-Hindu communities face discrimination. Religious fundamentalism has not brought stability or security to any country, and India cannot be an exception.
Discrimination is not a novel concept in the country. Brahmanism, runs deep within the society, thus creating hierarchies. Though non-acceptable in a secular order, the sectarianism rooted in the society contributes the largest share in maintaining and justifying caste based discrimination. Despite of the express prohibitions in the constitution and the criminalisation of caste based discrimination by statute; the members of the lower caste are discriminated by the upper caste. Additionally, widespread corruption prevents the members of the lower castes in benefiting from a legal regime that prohibits discrimination.
A legal regime cannot guarantee the rule of law without a properly operating police force. Police being a subject under the realm of the state (provincial) list, the state governments enjoy absolute authority over the police force. This has left the police at the whims of the political parties who assume power in the states.
State governments without exception use the police force not to enforce the law but to transmit the ruling party’s political whims upon the people. The state governments purchase allegiance of the police force by trading guaranteed impunity from prosecution against the breach of law by the law enforcement agencies. The result is the complete isolation of the ordinary citizen from the police.
Most police stations in the country have degenerated into legalised torture centres, where crime investigation receives the last priority. The complainant as well as the accused faces the same amount of risk of bodily harm from the police, unless either one of them are willing to pay bribes. Custodial torture is widely used to extract bribe and to silence opposition. Even lawyers find it difficult to approach police officers, as they do not want to risk humiliation or harm at the police stations.
No political parties have ever expressed a willingness to bring the police out of political control or to develop the police into an institution that it is intended for — law enforcement and investigation. The public statement made by the prime minister that India would ratify the UN Convention against Torture, has remained a faint wish of a pious soul, than the reflection of a government policy.
The actual implementation of a sensible national policy on the right to food also remains in the backburner of the political parties. The election manifesto guarantying the right to food by the member of the current ruling coalition is to be viewed with suspicion since until the eve of the general elections the current government was engaged in systematically denying it.
The denial of the fundamental right to food is widespread and consistent in the country. Starvation and malnutrition is reported from almost all states, but for a few exceptions. The absence of a national policy for land reforms denies the poor their entitlement for land and perpetuates feudalism. Throughout India landlords occupy vast extents of private and public land, where the poor, particularly the members of the Dalit community, are forced to work as bonded labourers.
Despite the implementation of statutes preventing landlordism and bonded labour, these laws are yet to make an impact in the rural backdrop of the country. Several candidates who are contesting the general elections themselves are landlords. It is natural thus that a land reforms policy gets the least priority during an election campaign.
The general election is an opportunity for the ordinary Indian to challenge the political parties in the country for continuously failing to meet peoples’ requirements. The hype created by the political parties about national security and financial stability are ploys to distract public interest and to deter the electorate from demanding a change in the status quo. Creating unwarranted fear to generate sectarian dependability defined with caste and religious underpinnings is the execution of an all-party strategy to defer from addressing the dire needs of the ordinary citizen.
