OPINION

In about a week’s time the keenly contested elections to the Delhi University Students Union of (DUSU) would take place. The direct elections to the students’ body started in the 1970s, sometime before the Emergency and has largely witnessed keen contest between the Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh-sponsored Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

There have been times when some other political forces have entered the fray and have had some impact but then those have been more or less cases of aberration than any trend. This time around too, the students’ arm of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Chatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) has entered the fray after a gap, albeit in alliance with the All India Students Association (AISA), which is closely identified with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).

Free and fair election is the sine qua non of a robust democracy. The term implies that elections should be held in an environment of freedom of choice before the electorate without any fear, pressure or influence of any sort. As the democracy progressed in India, it was noted that the elections were becoming susceptible to manipulation and the administrative machinery as well as the muscle and money available with the political parties shaped the political fate of the contestants at the polls.

I remember the days of the late 1960s to early 1980s when, before the introduction of the EVMs, the polling booths were auctioned for grabbing, loot or destruction by the political musclemen. Electoral violence choked the voice and freedom of many a voters especially of the Dalits and the economically suppressed. Furthermore, the district magistrates and the police were often accused of taking sides in the game plan of the powers that be.

The protests by the Opposition and the lawyer activists’ arguments in the court at the arrest of five Maoist activists by the police on the ground of being involved in activities aiming against the society and the country raises several questions including the question whether freedom of speech and expression can be used by any person including the self-proclaimed or real ‘eminent’ as a shield for their unlawful and anti-national actions. Do the writings or speeches not have the potential for tearing apart the democratic fabric of our country?

The second question is for the judiciary to examine whether right to freedom of speech and expression can be read and enforced in part and not in its totality. The judiciary should revisit the entire content and intent of Article 19 which places certain important limitations determining the ambit and the scope of the right to freedom.

August has become a feared month in the Millennium City of Gurgaon. The overnight shower brought the cyber hub, our showcase to the western world, to a grinding halt on morning of Tuesday last. Gurgaon is not alone. The whole of National Capital region (NCR), which has witnessed most rapid speed of urbanisation in the past 25 years is increasingly feeling the ‘wrath’ of the annual Monsoon rains.

Be it Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad or even parts of the national Capital, all linked up by swanky roads and lined by spic and span apartment blocks are increasingly being visited by the fear of deluge years after year. Why is this happening? We stop asking this question as soon as the Monsoon season is over.

Last June when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was once again admitted in the hospital, it was taken as a routine check-up visit. Doctors also said so and promised that he would be home within the next few days. That did not happen; his condition suddenly turned serious. Every who is who of Indian politics was rushing to AIIMS to know the wellbeing of the great leader wrestling against death once again after 1968 and challenging her since 2009 -- Maut se than gai.

Everyone went to their deity from a temple to a mosque or a church to pray for his health and recovery. Though the ultimate happened, the death won, but not without a condition. Atal told her in no uncertain terms that he would not surrender until the nation celebrated her independence day on 15th August. He breathed his last on evening of August, engulfing the entire nation nay the whole world into grief and shock.