Tuesday, March 24, 2009

State of the nation after IPL fiasco

Pratap Bhanu Mehta delineates what the shifting of IPL states on the state of Indian democracy.
In his words, “the institutional articulation of democracy” in India still remains fragile if every election needs to be so covered with security in anticipation of elements of disruption within the system. He questions whether if these elections are inconclusive and the next elections clash with Commonwealth, would the Commonwealth be shifted abroad too?
The Indian state has lost confidence in itself and while it’s ok to be honest, this honesty has not come with any soul-searching into why we got into this state that we cannot provide security – one of any government’s five basic duties to its citizens – to even a public spectacle (“public spectacles are the visual representation that our public spaces are secure, that the rituals and forms through which we experience being part of a public are an occasion for celebration, not for anxiety.”). It just bluntly states – we can’t do it.

I agree with the author that “The authority of every state and the foundations of its legitimacy are, in part, deeply psychological” and that our much vaunted democracy “works only because the sinews of coercion keep the electoral process together.”
The Indian state has lost its moral authority and is a system through which citizens are abused and not served.
The author correctly correlates this to the sham assurances we give to the world that our country is not like Pakistan and we are a safe investment zone.

Acknowledgement of shortcomings has no meaning if there is no will and desire to correct itself. It just tates: “Haan main nanga hun, toh kya?”

Kholu, from what I have heard and read, Modi is allegedly a Vasundhara Raje man. I believe one of the magazines carried an expose on the same. Refer here and here. That might be the reason behind BJP's stridency.

2 comments:

Kholu said...

Gullu ur right there are quite a few articles on the net which say that he is pretty close to Raje, but had that been his only equation i don't see how BCCI could have allowed him to come up with IPL and very conveniently become the commissioner of IPL (Sharad Pawar was the BCCI president). So congress might be hitting at both Sharad Pawar and BJP by blocking IPL 2.0. Anyway what ever be the reason there is no denying that our incompetent politicos have once again made a fool of themselves, they have given the much needed booster dose to terrorist moral. I bet there are a few of them smiling and taking heart from the fact that they have created a phobia amongst the ppl who run the show in India.

Ramya said...

write more haikus no.