The New York Times (May 4, 2012)
Does India Deserve the Government it Has?
By RANJANI IYER MOHANTY
Elizabeth Dalziel/Associated Press
A woman gets her finger inked after she cast her vote during the
elections for the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly, in this Sept.16,
2002 file photo.
Once upon a time in France there was a poor man named Valjean who stole
because his family was starving. He was caught and put in prison. After
his escape and many tribulations, he became a successful businessman –
and more importantly, a very good man. Later, he even became the
much-respected mayor of his town. However, there was a police
inspector, Javert, who never forgot or forgave him and continued to
hunt him down for a large part of both their lives.
Victor Hugo wrote Les Misérables 150 years ago. Among various issues,
Hugo was exploring morality, justice, and how we can never really
escape our past. Today, however, in India, it seems that some of us can
indeed escape our past, and perhaps even our future.
Of 236 councilors elected in Delhi’s recent municipal elections, 49
have criminal charges pending against them, and 3 with charges related
to murder. At a higher level, the political activist Arvind Kejriwal
earlier this year alleged that 163 members of parliament have criminal
charges against them, the Hindustan Times reported in this piece in
February.
And these are, as Donald Rumsfeld would have said, the known knowns ;
including the known unknowns and unknown unknowns, the figures could be
higher.
The French philosopher Joseph de Maistre said: “Every country has the
government it deserves.” If so, the question is: are we, in India, so
bad that we deserve this one? One can only assume that it is all the
bad karma accrued from our past lives.
However, we need to accept some of the fault in this life as well: We
are the ones who put these morally-challenged individuals in office. We
proudly claim that we are the world’s biggest democracy. However, if
these are the types of people we elect, then it is questionable whether
we are ready for — and deserving of — democracy.
Why do we elect such people? There may be several reasons.
If we do it unknowingly, then the media and election watchdogs are
remiss for not highlighting criminal records when these candidates are
first proposed; in fact, the system is at fault for not disqualifying
them from standing for election in the first place. If we do it
knowingly, then perhaps our forgiving nature is at work. We feel they
are good human beings who were forced into criminal acts by dire life
circumstances – and that, given the opportunity, they will surely rise
to the occasion.
At one point in Les Misérables, when the police catch Valjean with some
silver that he has stolen from a church, the priest tells the police
that he had given Valjean the silverware, and that Valjean had in fact
forgotten to take the two other candle sticks. We like to see ourselves
— magnanimously but naively — as that priest, forgiving trespasses in
the hope of future improvement. But surely there are vocational courses
and placement agencies for reforming criminals; they don’t need to be
rewarded with an elected position and maintained at the expense of tax
payers.
Or is it that we feel that only a crook will be able to effectively
manage within a crooked system, to deal with the other crooks he will
encounter, and to get things done for our neighborhood? Given the level
of corruption within government, this strategy could be seen as
brilliant – or it could simply add fuel to the fire.
Finally, we may do it because we are so jaundiced that we believe that
it is immaterial whether a man has criminal charges against him or not.
This last one is the most disheartening.
Near the end of Les Misérables, the police inspector Javert, who has
been chasing the escaped convict Valjean for years, finally recognizes
Valjean’s numerous good deeds. Valjean even saves Javert’s life, and
Javert realizes that Valjean is indeed a good person. Unable to morally
reconcile his genuine respect for Valjean and his duty to the law,
Javert commits suicide by jumping into the river Seine.
As I see it, we now have three choices. We can continue to be
apathetic, thinking that it does not matter who occupies elected
government posts; criminals or not, they will all be equally uncaring,
corrupt and ineffective. Or we can accept the election results and hope
that these newly-elected councilors will develop some sense of
responsibility towards the people they will represent. Or, unable to
reconcile ourselves with this terrible thing we’ve done, we could throw
ourselves into the river Yamuna.
Ranjani Iyer Mohanty is a writer and editor on business and academic
issues. Details on LinkedIn and Open Salon.
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