Monday, June 25, 2007

Federal...are we?

I am back, with more political masala :)

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/202619.html

So Mr Moily and team recommend legislation to give sweeping powers to the center in case of 'breakdown of constitutional machinery'. If I were to list three most hated and most misused terms in India's post independence political history, they would be the emergency, the numerous instances of the so called breakdown...and the one that I have talked about in my previous posts..secularism...

the first and third tend to give dictatorial powers to the central government, and the second has defined post babari politics of India, although I must say that the literal meaning of the word is more than forgotten..but let's not digress here..i was talking of Mr Moily and his team's recommendations.

Prima facie, I would welcome the move to empower the center to deploy armed forces in extreme situations, but we cannot overlook history here...These powers will hardly be utilized in a godhara-gujrat scenario, or a more recent gujjar-raje-reservation scenario..they would be probably be used against naxalites, the north-eastern states..and wherever the central government sees an opportunity to grab power...

breakdown of constitutional machinery inevitably leads to president's rule in a state...I don't know why the government is hell bent on a new legislation for this scenario...if there is a breakdown, u impose president's rule, and send the armed forces..why bother with a new legislation...the only reason i can think of is that the imposition of president's rule has to be passed in the parliament's both houses, and this act would summarily bypass and such procedure...so the law and order in a state is in the hands of the central government while there is a puppet government in the state capital..aren't we giving the prime minister musharrafsque powers?

And while you ponder over (just in case), let me know your three most hated words in indian polity...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Caste, minority, reservation

Gary said...

Hey anon, thanks for sharing.
Guess wouldn't mind if you left your name here...

Anonymous said...

People should read this.