Eliminative Patterns
Various patterns in governance have emerged, or so the opposition claims have emerged over the last ten years. Hitherto not-so-common terms like Crony Capitalism, Majoritarianism, Clientelism, and Rent Collection have entered the public lexicon. Even new expressions like Antinational and Urban Naxal had to be invented to counter this discourse. Perhaps in more genteel times, such debates would be considered healthy democratic dialogues but not in these intolerant times of the new millennium.
A rather disturbing and novel pattern in governance has surfaced and this pattern or tendency is observable in most government policy pronouncements or actions. As the concept is relatively new, it has not been researched extensively nor has it been named. We will call this eliminative pattern or eliminative tendency and define it as a tendency to selectively implement the law or restructure the law with the express intent of eliminating or decimating alternate POVs that do not align with the government’s views. This pattern prevails across the two branches —the Legislature and the Executive. Let us look at examples to see how this eliminative pattern manifests across the two branches of the government.
The Legislature
The ruling coalition had a comfortable majority of 330+ members after both the 2014 and 2019 elections. Despite the comfort in numbers, the treasury benches felt threatened and resorted to some extraordinary manoeuvres to restrain the opposition, as evidenced by three cases in particular.
In the first case, a senior leader of the opposition was dismissed as he was sentenced to two years in jail. The dismissal order was legitimate, and the Lok Sabha Secretariat could not be faulted for executing the order. What made it remarkable was that the conviction was for an election speech of four years vintage, that the case was filed and adjudicated in a state other than the state where the speech was given, that the sentence of two years was unprecedented in defamation cases, and that the two years exactly met the criterion for dismissal.
In the second case, around 150 MPs, constituting around 20% of Parliament (Lok Sabha + Rajya Sabha), were suspended from the parliament. The presiding officers of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha must have had valid reasons for doing what they did. Still, it was very convenient for the government to pass three important bills during this suspension. Three laws governing the criminal justice system of the country were passed with minimal discussion — normally such bills would invite referral to a select committee and days of discussion.
In the third case, a most vociferous and articulate opposition MP was expelled from the Lok Sabha on charges of “Cash for Query” and “Security Breach.” Some may have felt that the materiality of the gift value was overlooked and principles of natural justice were ‘not applied by not questioning the bribe-giver’s intentions. But this remains as the most above-board of the three cases and the MP had to pay for her indiscretions. That it helped get rid of the government’s most virulent critic, was just an accruing collateral benefit.
The Executive
Eliminative patterns are difficult to detect and pinpoint in the Executive branch’s activities, but certain designs are noticeable. Watchdog positions like CEC, CVC, and Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) provide for checks and balances in the system. Earlier, these positions were selected by a committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition(LS), and the Chief Justice of India — this was a healthy tradition whereby the three branches of the government had an equal say. Even the CBI chief was selected using the same process. At present, this committee comprises the PM, the LOP, and a senior cabinet minister. So, the Executive has 2 votes, the Legislature 1, and the Judiciary has none — decisions are majority-driven!
Even absurder theatre is playing out in the Ministry of Education. In 2023, as a part of its “syllabus rationalisation,” NCERT made some revisions to the school curriculum. The three most talked about revisions were removing some Mughal History chapters from Class 12 history books; the removal of Pythagoras theorem from Class 10 mathematics textbooks; and the removal of Mendeleev’s periodic table from Class 10 chemistry textbooks. Without going into the claimed goodness or badness of these revisions, it must be pointed out that Education is a concurrent list item and the states may or may not take up NCERT recommendations. So, depending on their state of residence, the students will learn about Pythagoras theorem or not know about it.
These patterns are disturbing but they remain subjective conjectures and do not constitute actionable evidence. At the same time, patterns are critically important and society cannot ignore them. One can only hope and pray that the eliminative tendencies remain restricted to alternate POVs and do not lead to the physical elimination of the alternate POV holder. We, as a nation, have still not recovered from the consequences of such a physical elimination after 74 years. In 1948, the assassins were disowned and called fringe elements — status quo ante persists in 2024.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 26th, 2024 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Footloose. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
September 26th, 2024 at 10:44 pm
This is George Orwell’s doublespeak which we are seeing today. Indian politics has lost its moral bearings and what is happening is because of the lust for power.
Only when citizens ask had questions to politicians across all hues then only things will change. Politicians make merry while we suffer.
September 28th, 2024 at 10:20 am
This is autocracy with the mask of democracy guarding it carefully. It is an illusion of democracy. You did not count the countless opposition chief ministers who were in jail on baseless charges. Meanwhile the chief justice of the country celebrates Ganesh Chaturthi with the perpetrator of all this and publicizes it too.
September 28th, 2024 at 11:41 pm
Excellent observation and analysis