Tuesday, December 6, 2016

In search of solutions - 3


"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
—Plato (Greek, 427-347BC)
Word for the day
Bruit (v)
To voice abroad; rumor. Used chiefly in the passive and often followed by about, e.g., The report was bruited through the village.
Malice towards none
In religious terms - when a person is taken as dead?
First random thought this morning
After UK and US, the popular sentiment in Italy has also rejected the new normal. People there have also voted for returning back to the conventional means. It is to be seen whether German and French voters will also reject the new normal and vote for the return to conventional means of socio-economic subsistence.
I am not sure whether the return to roots could be selective. The pre-globalized world was after all imperialist, polarized and always at war.
The positives could be that most modern day scientific inventions were made in those days. The new world order has perhaps seen slowest growth in the field of pure sciences and literature. The best art, literature and philosophical works were also produced in pre-globalization era.

In search of solutions - 3

To a person sitting in Mumbai, Bangaluru, Chennai or Hyderabad, the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) may not mean much more than – Taj Mahal, Varanasi, Lucknow, Kebab, taxi drivers and construction labor. Very few residents of the western and southern states appreciate that UP is as diverse as India itself. Various regions of the state, i.e., Awadh, Brij, Rohillkhand, Bundelkhand, Purvanchal, and Doab, have distinctly identifiable history, food, dialect, customs, deities, and problems.
People from Bundelkhand and Doab regions in particular have been agitating for a different political identity for themselves since long. The regions also differ in terms of caste, community, and religions dynamics. Differences in terms of weather, water and electricity availability, crop patterns, flood-draught cycle, political influence, urbanization, physical infrastructure, income disparities and other social indicators are also rather stark. Same holds true for many other states also.
Unjustifiable socio-economic disparities amongst various states and regions within states, materially different socio-economic status of various castes and communities in different states, has frequently led to demands and agitations for new administrative units (states and districts).
The legislatures have been mostly unsuccessful in developing and adopting a consensus framework for federal structure of the country (Though some attempts like Sarkaria Commission have been made). Certainly there has been a marked improvement in state-center relationship in past 25years, but this could be more due to political compulsions rather than any structural change. This has been the period when regional parties have played critical role in government formation at the center. The strains in center-state relations have reemerged as soon as a single party government got installed at center in 2014.
It would therefore not be unreasonable to say that the post independence political organization of the country designed primarily on lingual basis may no longer be relevant in the current context.
Moreover, the tradition to appoint by nomination rather than purely on the basis of election has killed meritocracy in politics and promoted inequality.
The political problem therefore is to develop a political organization that fully assimilates the aspirations of the people, addresses specific local problems, promotes mutual trust & harmony, bars incompetence and knavery from public office, and insures that the best is selected and prepared to rule for the common good.
For my seemingly Utopian solution to this problem of political organization - see this space on tomorrow.

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