Sine qua non of Government

Sine qua non of Government

(With special reference to India)

K S VENKATARAMAN

Men have not, at bottom, been contending about forms of government. Writers and orators have; but the mass of nations do not enter into theories; they look to the practical effects. They have been seeking such a change as will render their lives more happy and less humiliating, with very little regard as to names and forms.

Cobbett

A Tamil proverb says, “The vessel may have a hole in it; it is perfectly all right if the cake is cooked well.” (Ottai chattiyaanaalum kozhukkattai vendhaal sari). What is the point in having a shining, beautiful vessel that does not help in properly cooking the dish? Our governments can be equated with showy vessels not only with a number of holes but also useless instruments for cooking.

I do not want to dwell at length on various theories of government. But there are some common expectations, irrespective of the form, about any good government. The ancient Tamil literature stipulates that a king (the head of government) should ensure that the citizens do not suffer in any way by ‘himself, his henchmen, his officials, internal and external enemies and wild animals’. The first and foremost need for the people is safety and protection; and these are the five sources of danger to the public safety and protection.

India is a country with a great history and culture. We, Indians are independent. We have the democratic form of government. We have rich natural resources and huge human population. As such basically and structurally there seems to be no problem. But why most of the people are poor and suffer untold miseries? Why Indian government is undoubtedly a disappointment?

The first and foremost duty of a government is to ensure safety and protection to all the citizens, without any exception. This is the fundamental and sacred duty of government. If proper law and order is maintained, if proper social values are not disrupted, the people would find themselves working together towards prosperity for all.

I have nothing against the governments encouraging research and other developmental activities. But there is a fixed priority for their functions.

First one wears underwear; then pant, then shirt, then overcoat and so on. If one wears overcoat first and does not think much of wearing an underwear, what to think of him? Our governments, both at states and center, behave like this. They are busy with very big things; the projects, which cost in billions, and in which there can be inbuilt scams involving billions of rupees; but simple and fundamental duties, are not of much interest to them.

I am not a person who is particularly drawn towards sad and negative aspects of life; but compelled by the need for driving my point home, let me narrate briefly an ‘incident’ that happened In Hyderabad in the early hours on May 31, 2010.

A woman of about 25 years is stabbed seven times by the assailants in the proximity of an apartment; she shouts for help, which is not forthcoming; the apartment’s watchman refuses to let her in; severely wounded, she crawls a few yards to a heap of sand and dies of profuse bleeding. The only humanitarian act was that the watchman gave her a tumbler of water before dying.

(Deccan Chronicle, June 1, 2010).

I don’t labor under the impression that the story narrated above would have created any emotional turmoil in readers. Most of you might have chuckled at best or worst. I am not blaming anybody. I am pointing out to a fact, i.e. to what abysmal mental conditioning most of us have been subjected to. Thousands of such incidents, many of them ‘quantitatively and qualitatively’ worse than this are reported in our dailies and where is the time for us to think about such things in detail?

The organized criminals do not have any fear about our enforcement system. They are not afraid of police. Only the law-abiding citizens have got to fear about both criminals and police! Is it not shameful that even murder cases take very long to get decided, sometimes more than a decade?

Our culture is that for having killed a calf, the prince had to die; for unjustifiably caused a murder, the king had to die. Okay, I am able to hear what you are saying; it is all old stories! But are they not our sources of inspiration? Should we not be guided by them? If we cannot achieve that level, at least should we not try to move in that direction?

India is the country that occupies the first place in a list. That is the list showing the number of persons dying because of dog-bite every year. Our ‘honorable first’ is achieved by losing about 40000 persons ‘annually’ to stray dogs. The distant second position goes to the more populated China, where about 4000 persons die every year. This is not something for our ‘rulers’ to cogitate upon, leave alone doing something. Doing something means talking to people, educating them, making them understand that human beings are more important than stray dogs and so on; it is really too much to expect our ‘representatives’ to take upon themselves responsibilities for such missions. And there are those who never have to get down from their air-conditioned cars, ever ready to talk against cruelty to animals, turning a blind eye to the cruelties to human beings. I am also not saying that we should be cruel to stray dogs; but why not take it seriously and formulate concerted measures to solve the problem. The lives of the poor people, who have to work in open fields, who have to return home during late hours in nights, do not command any value in our country. Only the lives of the VIPs and political bigwigs matter. 

If any of you ask me why I am talking about a single murder and dog-bite deaths, while thousands are dying in the hands of terrorists like Maoists, sorry, I do no have any counter point. Only our benevolent, development-oriented and efficient government can answer you.

With the forces at our command for enforcing law and order, if the government sincerely tries, is it impossible to bring down crimes and corruption to zero level? If so, I have no hesitation to say that we have a government that is strictly not qualified to exist; for the safety and protection of the people form the sine qua non of any good government.

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K S Venkataraman is the Associate Editor, Dynamic Youth Online Magazine dedicated to Global Youth Development and freely viewable in www.dynamicyouth.org

He may be contacted through e-mail: dynamicyouth_development@yahoo.com

http://www/linkedin.com/in/ksvenkataraman