Indian government led by PM Narendra Damodardas Modi is facing the greatest challenge, namely – Pandemic; Attack on Indian borders from Nepal and China; falling Economy; Huge migrant exodus – these challenges suddenly have exposed the government and front in forth the true face of government. A government led by party whose “Media group” is more active than its defense ministry or finance ministry or external affairs ministry. This government have relied hugely in forming public opinion and in order to achieve the favourable public opinion government have not only quarrelled with the many autonomous institution which saved India from the dictatorship of Indira Priyadarshini Nehru aka Indira Gandhi but also kept the hope of citizen alive that democracy is very deep rooted in India and India cannot become a “Banana Republic”. Lets first understand the context of “Banana Republic” so that understanding the flaws with government of India current functioning can be understood clearly.
Genesis of Banana Republic
This term was first used by American author O. Henry when he went to a central American country called Honduras. The country was dominated by cooperate companies who exploit the country indirectly. From the far-sight the country looks good with all the institution working well and country earning huge from their banana export. But as one sees the economy of the country in detail the devil appears. Devil was in the form of a company called “United Fruit Company”. The company use money and muscle power to take all the profits and cheap labour of the country.
Formally, in political science the definition of the Banana Republic is as follow: -
“A politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the exportation of a limited – resource product, such as banana, mineral, oil, etc.”
Similar
things have happened in India again, I am saying again as the institution of
India have absorbed the shock of its most grave years of emergency. Modi government
which came on a very popular vote but, even after that instead of concentrating
on real issues of unemployment, environment crisis, healthcare, education,
tribal issues, coastal regulation issues, the government was busy in creating a
very fine image of Indian democracy, just as the banana is look fine, firm and
regal from outside. But from inside the government was eroding the very
institution who were responsible for sustaining the democracy. The Modi
government started eroding the autonomous institution of India. Instances of such
kind are discussed below.
Instances of erosion of autonomous institution
1. In January 2018, four Supreme Court (SC) judges took a step which no judge had taken ever before, step of holding a press conference to voice their protest against arbitrary allocation of cases of benches by the then CJI. Whole media ran the story that Indian judiciary have no professionalism as they cannot resolve the internal matter among themselves. But, the truth of the matter was that it was not internal matter and the government was interfering in the functioning of the judiciary by assigning the cases in their favour.
2. The first signs of the fault line between the government and RBI appears when former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, suddenly resigned before completing his term, the post of the RBI governor was taken by this most able successor Urjit Patel, with his deputy Viral Acharya. It was Viral Acharya who brought to public in definite terms that there is a huge friction going on between the government and RBI, in his speech in 2018,
“Government that do not respect central bank independence will sooner or later incur the wrath of financial market, ignite economic fire, and come to rue the day they undermine an important regulatory institution; their wiser counterparts who invest in central bank independence will enjoy lower costs of borrowing, the love of international investors, and longer life spans”
Above are the concluding remarks of the speech made by Viral Acharya in this speech. It clearly shows that government was interfering with an autonomous institution which is responsible for the most important task in modern times. That task is managing the whole banking system and currency policy of the country.
Then come that last nail when government tried repeatedly to dip its beak in the RBI reserve, just to bolster its own balance sheet. Instead of making policies which should boost the revenue and income of the government and its citizen government tried to touch the emergency reserve of the central bank. All this was done by saying that the money is lying idle in the reserve accounts. This show the economic acumen of the ministers and the Modi government as a whole.
3. Election commission (EC) is a constitutional body that appears to have buckled under the government pressure, going by the media reports. At least two instances of flagrant partisanship have been displayed by the Election Commission, for instance: -
a. Its decision to delay the announcement of Gujarat Assembly polls schedule in 2017, allegedly to allow the PM and his party to continue distributing largesse in the state.
b. The hurried and unseemly disqualification of AAP MLAs from Delhi on the office of profit charge, after which the SC rejected the EC’s decision, on castigated it for not looking at the whole thing more thoroughly.
4. In July 2017, in a move to curb the use of Right to Information (RTI) to expose government malfunction, the Modi government had moved amendment to the Act itself, which do away with the present 5 years fixed term of the information commissioners both at the centre and state. This amendment enables the centre to prescribe the term of officer, salaries and allowances, and other terms and condition of the of service of the Chief Information Commissioners and State Information commissioner.
Modi government has attempted to subvert the RTI act and its machinery thorough pushing amendments – a legislative way of curbing transparency and accountability. In the process, the whole mechanism of information commissions will be made dependant on the government.
5. Mainstream media, the government have influenced the mainstream and influential news channel and instead of gagging those they have filled those media houses with filth and biasness. These news channel have become “lapdog media” of the current government who project the wrongs of government in the light of nationalism and patriotism and thus made PM of India, Mr. Modi as “Teflon Modi”.
This “Teflon Modi” image is responsible that Modi do not get blame of any wrong committed by him and his cabinet. Rather the whole blame was put to the past government. This is the narrative that the Modi government is applying since it took charge for in 2014. The most popular phase of the ruling party is: -
“Congress ke 70 saal”
Meaning, 70 regnal years of Congress Party
This attitude is not good as past government have done their share of mistake and success both in varying degree and when Modi formed government and took over the post of PM he also took the responsibility of the burden of failure and thrill of success. As a responsible PM he should had concentrated in understanding the problem of the past failure and made plans to remove those. But, Modi is doing just reserve of that, he is squarely blaming past government for every failure of the Modi government.
Further, the Modi government have use the nationalism and Indian Army to such an extend that now opposing Modi is synonymous to anti – national. This have a very dangerous effect on the democracy of India. This is stop the discussion in public domain of all the issues which plague India right now and focus the whole attention of glorifying Modi government.
Concluding I think just as our institutions took and shock of Indira Gandhi dictatorship the same institution will prove with worth again and bring down the rock-hard ego of current regime.
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