Forgiving Political Misdeeds: A Fatal Flaw in Democratic Accountability

For the past many years, politicians have found an easy way to fool the public by committing all kinds of misdeeds, misbehavior and abusive language.

Do all kinds of evil and criminal acts and then say forgive us. Doing this by an individual shows his stupidity but doing this by political parties is their well thought out strategy.

Political parties do not hesitate to do anything from uncivilized behavior to brutal misdeeds because they believe that the public has a weak memory and it forgets everything in a short time. Just apologizing after the incident is enough to calm the immediate anger of the public.

The horrific anti-Sikh riots sponsored under political patronage and the shameful Rampur Tiraha incident are two glaring examples for which the national political parties apologized. Such acts are intolerable and unforgivable in any civilized society but in India, political parties succeed in getting forgiveness from the public by pretending to apologize publicly. This behavior of the people of the country reflects their simplicity or stupidity or carelessness. Probably a mixture of all three.

It is important to understand that such tolerance of the public is fatal for any democracy. For a country which is moving towards social and economic development after getting freedom from centuries of slavery, tolerating or ignoring political false statements, propaganda and wickedness is a grave mistake.

The tree of political selfishness grows in the manure of lies and wickedness and over time, like a banyan tree, it covers the entire political field with selfish trees by producing new roots from its branches every day.

Neither the plants of progress can grow nor the flowers of development can bloom under the dense shade of the selfish tree. There is no question of the vine of freedom, equality and harmony flourishing.

The Constitution of India is known as an excellent model in the world.

In fact, when the Constitution booklet is studied, this belief is confirmed. There is another important truth, and that is that an ideal constitution is meaningful only when the politicians are also honest, if not anything else, then at least they are not wicked.

Remember that the seed of wickedness remains invisible everywhere, and it takes the form of a huge tree only when nurtured. The Constitution is not only for taking oath but also for compliance. Just waving the Constitution booklet is not following the Constitution.

Violating the rules of established parliamentary procedure, interrupting the unanimously approved program whenever one wants, not allowing logical debate, noise, sloganeering, walking out of the House, all this is not only a gross violation of the Constitution but also an insult.

The freedom of expression mentioned in the constitution does not mean that it is permissible to lie outright, to use abusive, vulgar and hateful words.

Parliamentary procedure does not mean that when you are in opposition in the parliament, you should oppose every plan and every proposal of the ruling party without considering whether it is right or wrong.

In the event of not having a positive debate on the legal and logical proposal of the ruling party, the opposition creating a ruckus in the parliament and walking out at their will is not only improper but also seems to prove the parliamentary system futile. If there is no logical debate and only a walkout is to be done, then what is the need of the parliament building. Abuses can be hurled in any street and alley, and there is no need for any constitution to shower abusive words.

From common people to intellectuals, by ignoring and forgiving the misdeeds of political parties, the seed of evil has sprouted and grown into a tree under whose shade the political field has turned into a field of selfishness.

On this land, crops of personal gain can be harvested but even the seeds of crops of public interest get destroyed. Even in this situation, the people of the country are forgiving the misdeeds of political parties, but will the country forgive the people?

Prof. H C Pandey is Honorary Vice Chancellor, BITS, Mesra