OPINION

The appointment of the formidable Dharmendra Pradhan as the new Education Minister is a clear indication that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants an end to the backseat driving in the functioning of this major ministry. There has been an increasing feeling, with comparatively weak ministers in the saddle, about too much ‘outside interference’ in functioning of the educational institution under the aegis of the central government.

The Narendra Modi government in 2014 had inherited a rich legacy of education institutions, thanks to the vision of late Human Resource Development (HRD) Arjun Singh and his successor Kapil Sibal, a bouquet of central universities was created across the country which added handsomely to the list of already existing institutions built before and after independence. Despite the infrastructure, it also remains a fact that education in our country largely remained hostage to the whims and fancies of the left-leaning ideologues. Over the years there was an increasing desire to break education free from the left-leaning ideological parochialism.

Last week a remark made by the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, “elections no guarantee against tyranny,” went viral. This was said by the Chief Justice while delivering a memorial lecture in the national Capital and the qualifying lines of this expression are very relevant to illuminate on the pattern of governance in the national Capital, which some also consider to be microsome of the Indian political system.

Chief Justice Ramana said, “The idea that people are the ultimate sovereign is also to be found in notions of human dignity and autonomy. A public discourse, that is both reasoned and reasonable, is to be seen as an inherent aspect of human dignity and hence essential to a properly functioning democracy.” In the context of current situation of administrative chaos, to use expression of Chief Justice Ramana, in absence of “reasoned and reasonable public discourse,” governance has touched nadir and human dignity going abegging while seeking accountability of the rulers.

The gruesome crime of stealing, hoarding and black-marketing life-saving oxygen goes unregistered by police and other law-enforcing agencies as political rivals bury hatchet and decide to work together what they call the ‘betterment’ of people. Governance today, and Delhi being a ‘role-model’, has come to depend much on the social media energy. A very well-documented news report in The Morning Standard on how Delhi Government has frittered away tax-payers’ money in the name of cleaning Yamuna doesn’t trend on the social media but a speculative story on Mamata Banerjee being in trouble because Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat couldn’t get elected to assembly becomes viral.

Some Englishmen, a statesman in particular, who till not very long ago were used to be a household name in India, would be a very satisfied soul finding their words to be prophetic. Last week we talked of TS Eliot and his poem Hollow Men, this week it would be appropriate to quote the much polarizing former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Historians claim Churchill to be anti-India but by his own admission he loved India, however, was worried about the kind of people who would come to govern the country. He once famously said, “Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; …men of straw. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles.”

For years now this statement has been dismissed as utterly racist, and it indeed is prejudiced. However, in private conversations this statement has often been referred to whenever our political class has indulged in degrading and debase acts. The statement is back in coinage ever since the Supreme Court appointed committee report on the shortage of oxygen has become public.

The popular tune of Come September, unlike the rage which the 1961 Hollywood flick created for millions, would not be music to the ears of Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat. The former student activist and present Lok Sabha member from Garhwal was sworn-in as Chief Minister of Uttarakhand on March 10 this year in the midst of the Kumbh fiasco, which is largely now being blamed for the second wave of coronavirus across the Ganga plains and other parts of the country.

The cause for Rawat’s predicament is our Constitution, whose Article 164 (4) states, “a Minister who for any period of six consecutive months is not a member of the Legislature of the State shall at the expiration of that period cease to be a Minister.” Rawat’s problem are manifold the first and foremost being that he is not member of the state assembly and the state legislature of Uttarakhand being unicameral, unlike some of the larger states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra, he has no other option but enter assembly though a by poll.

The assembly has two vacancies, first Gangotri caused by death of sitting MLA due to Covid and now Haldwani, caused by the recent death of Leader of Opposition, Indira Hridyesh, whose seat Rawat may not find very safe to contest. All the other seats in the assembly, whose life anyway ends in March 2022, are for now occupied. Rawat would have to ‘force’ the by polls for both the seats take place well before September to end the looming political crisis.

The country in general and the national Capital in particular was badly ravaged by the second wave of onslaught by Covid-19 virus. As per the government figures, during this bout of the coronavirus surge, Delhi had over 14 lakh confirmed cases as of June 14, 2021, with over 24000 fatalities.

Now we are faced with the screaming headlines every morning of the likely arrival of the third wave, and accompanying claims by the government of how it was getting ready to face the possible menace. Here it would be worthwhile to recall what celebrated English poet TS Eliot once wrote in his vowed poem Hollow Men, “Between the idea, And the reality, Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow.”

The capital during the second wave faced acute shortage of oxygen, ICU beds and rampant profiteering by the pharmacists and several hospitals. In the nutshell the health infrastructure of the city crumbled. The government failed to rise to the challenge, though the official stand would claim otherwise.