EDITORIAL

The fast undertaken by social activist Annasaheb Hazare to force the Central Government to adopt his version of the Jan Lokpal Bill through the Parliament is an exercise in coercive politics through use of street power. No government worth its salt should submit to the this kind of blandishment. The Constitution remains the most sacrosanct document and Parliament the supreme body of consultation and legislation in a democracy. They cannot be browbeaten into accepting a bill by a body or group of NGOs in the style being witnessed at Ramlila Ground in New Delhi. The collective wisdom of 800 and odds parliamentarians representing 120 crore people of India cannot simply be given a go by lending preference to measures being suggested by extra-legislative bodies. Legislation is the sole prerogative of the Parliament and those trying to usurp this space are clearly seeking to undermine the supremacy of the Parliament.
Corruption is however the most major malady that afflicts the nation currently. No amount of development will take its benefits to the lowest of the low people, unless the rapacity of the politicians and gluttonous greed of the already bloated bureaucracy are bridled. Undoubtedly, the graft has spiraled unprecedented heights during the UPA II regime. The need for bringing about transparency in the system and holding the babudom accountable was never felt more severely. But building consensus on major legislation has always been a painstaking process and no shortcuts are possible. Remember the 33% reservation for women is still in the cold storage. So any force-feeding of bills to the Parliament will only affect the credibility of the bill and the Parliament.
Whatever may be the integrity of Mr. Anna Hazare in Ralegan Siddhi or Maharashtra, he is playing with danger by stoking agitation against the current government. The agitation is being clearly steered by saffron forces whose role in similar movements is blemished with communal bloodbath. It will be in fitness of things if Mr. Hazare does not become a victim of the hype created around him by interested quarters among Opposition parties, media and civil society groups.

India’s fair record on de cracy front has often gathered stains owing to the way our trigger-happy cops behave with protestors, farmers, minorities and other underprivileged sections. It is now widely recognized that ideals of democracy, secularism and socialist would remain a mirage, unless the guardians of law and order are made to comply with the norms on the statute books. It is commendable that the Supreme Court has taken due notice of the deficiency on this count and recommended condign punishment for cops involved in extra-judicial killings, especially the fake encounters. While cases like Sohrabuddin and his wife and Ishrat at the hands of the Gujarat police under Narendra Modi government have highlighted the urgency, the ones in Chhattisgarh and Naxal-infested regions of Andhra Pradesh too have also etched the issue to broad relief. Several such cases from the perpetually disturbed North-eastern states too remain unreported. Some of the recent killings of innocent persons in Jammu and Kashmir too have provided an added reasons to plead for putting in place some law that ensures punishment for culpability for extra-legal murders.
That is of course one aspect. Yet another dark area that needs attention is the life-ruining pattern of picking of Muslim youth, torture, statements under duress, and in a vast number of cases, detention of such youth. While media had been targeting Islamic outfits with an ideological tirade following bomb blasts, the cops and investigative agencies have been happy booking innocents and making indiscriminate detentions from Muslim ghettoes. Evidence come to be falsified, detained individuals are paraded before the press much before their culpability is proved and officers go gaga over ‘nailing down the kingpins’. The mainstream media acts as an extended arm of the Government in manufacturing canards and spreading the calumny. While detentions hog the headlines, acquittals remain unreported. Consequently, the blemishes remain and the community takes the blame for all that is wrong with the investigation process. It triggers Islamophobia among the non-Muslim masses, triggers rebellious spirit among the youth and despondency and helplessness among the general Muslims. Hardly any case of the so-called SIMI and IM terrorist detained for bomb blasts have led to conviction. Fallacious and flimsy nature of evidence does not withstand the judicial scrutiny. Yet the two names of the two outfits are circulated ad nauseum with usual lack of embarrassment by the authorities at the helms and lapped up by the media. Interestingly, the Muslim youth booked for Malegaon Blast are still under detention while the Abhinav Bharat’s involvement in the crime has been established by the Anti-Terrorism Squad. The National Commission of Minorities has initiated steps with regard to Andhra Pradesh police which besides killing several namazis after the Mecca Masjid Blast had gone on a campaign to terrorise the Muslims in the Old City areas of Hyderabad. The steps are indeed welcome. But it will be fair to expect that state governments put in place laws that restrain the cops from indiscriminate detentions, torture, confession under duress et al. And wrong-doers among them are punished either by dismissals or suspensions, pay cuts or demotions. It is time investigation into serious and sinister crimes like bomb blasts does not get camouflaged by a campaign to tar the Muslims with a black brush and real culprits are exposed before the masses.