OPINION

The nine-day-long drama which Delhi chief minister ArvindKejriwal unfolded in the ante-room of Lieutenant Governor’s office opened discussions on several political repercussions which it believed to have caused. While a quadruple of Chief Ministers, belonging to Opposition parties and in the town for a NitiAayog meeting, did not miss the opportunity for a photo frame. On the other hand, the Congress leadership was on the receiving end of brickbats hurled at them for not joining the opposition party.

All through the nine-days that ArvindKejriwal and his aides had the television crews holed up at Raj NiwasMarg, they did not bother to address the ‘official opposition’ that is the Delhi BJP. Despite having won the last round of polls in the city – the municipal elections in 2017 and having seven LokSabha MPs from the city, Delhi BJP failed to make an effective presence in the political drama. It was left to the Lieutenant Governor and the bureaucrats to fend for the centre’s cause.

For the last many years there is something in the air that seems to be different, something non-conventional trying to impact and impel minds of the people of India to think afresh to change their lives and attitudes to enter into a transformational mind space.Concept of new India has been brought to the centre stage implying thereby that India must prepare itself for an intellectual, social and Cultural Revolution in order to shed its image of a poor, backward, dependent, client state on the global map. Its message is that we, as people, shall have to be prepared to mould and adapt to the new philosophy of change oriented  politics and governance as envisioned by the transformational leaders and modernize, if not totally abjure the age old politics based on parochial considerations of caste, creed, region, religion and so on.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is strenuously focusing on creating a new socio-political culture that could nurture a vibrant and developed nation in a holistic sense.  While India should have all elements of modernity in matters of governance touching upon values, structures, methods and practices involved in shaping the social, political and economic systems of our country, the relevance of India’s traditional social and economic values need not be ignored for ushering in a self-initiated and humane change.

in 2013, as Sheila Dikshit’s 15-years-long tenure as Chief Minister of Delhi inched to closure, several of her close confidantes in the bureaucracy took voluntary transfer out of Delhi. Around the same time ManoharParrikar had come to power in Goa and was forming his team. Since Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territories have a common pool of all India service officers to draw from, several of these officers got transferred to Goa.

One morning a newspaper headline screamed, “Sheila’s confidantes now part ofParrikar’s team.” This sums up the nature of bureaucracy in this country – apolitical. The political leadership should have the wherewithal to make the bureaucracy work, which owns its final accountability to the blue book drafted by a gentleman called Dr BhimraoAmbedkar, laws passed by the parliament and rules of business drawn thereafter and not the whims and fancies of elected body of law makerswhich are sought to be camouflaged as “desire of the people”.

The permanent executive, as the bureaucracy is defined in the lexicon of public administration, is expected to keep checks and balances on the elected representatives and vice-versa. This arrangement has friction inherent in it. In physics, which Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal must have studied at IIT, it’s said, “Friction provides required energy. Good part of friction is it help us move about without falling all the time.”

The Association of Victims of the Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) has been fighting to get justice for their loved ones who were killed on June 13th, 1997 at Uphaar Cinema, New Delhi in one of the worst manmade tragedies.

AVUT invested its faith in the Criminal Justice System and took up an arduous and agonizing fight for justice in the hope that it would get justice for those who were killed in the tragedy. But the final verdict of the Supreme Court we believe is certain to go down in the history as a travesty of justice. AVUT’s  endeavour for past 21 years has been not only to get justice for our loved ones, but also to ensure implementation of   safety laws in public spaces so that no precious human lives are  lost.

In the last two decades the nation has witnessed many fire tragedies, the most recent being Kamala Mills Fire, Mumbai. Apart from the number of casualties being different, there is one common thread that runs through each of   them is that all of them were man-made. Under our prevalent system, such offenders are booked under section 304-A of the Indian Penal Code which translates into causing death due to rash and negligent act. In this grim scenario, incidents of such catastrophic magnitude are bound to recur since there is no legal deterrence that can instill fear in the minds of possible wrongdoers

Within hours of HD Kumaraswamy taking over as Chief Minister of Karnataka, the social media noticed quiet posting of a tweet by union home minister Rajnath Singh. The post said, “Congratulations to Shri HD Kumaraswamy and Shri G Parameshwar on taking oath as the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka. I hope, Karnataka will move forward towards peace, progress and prosperity under the new Govt.”

This post came at the time when the world was going gaga over the presence of almost all the opposition leaders in Bengaluru at the swearing in of the JD(S) leader as the new chief minister and the Congress leader as his deputy. The swearing in ceremony in Bengaluru was happening after much animated political activity which had followed the fractured mandate. The post surprised the Modi-Bhakts, the BJP-sympathisers and the BJP-opponents alike.

When more than a month had been spent in a political discourse which lacked in any respectful degree of civility, the tone and tenor of Rajnath Singh’s post indeed could be seen, if nothing else, as an attempt by his political party at course correction. A functionary in the ruling party mentioned that it was customary for the Home Minister to extend such courtesy to a new state government.