The age of a single party (Congress) dominance over the Indian political landscape is now truly over. Ever since I learnt what is a Prime Minister, what is democracy, what the Constitution means, etc, I have never seen anything but a coalition government.
During the transition years from single party's democratic dominance of a multi party India to the coalition system (with well defined blocks), there was a lot of experimentation amongst various parties, and governments fell rather quickly. BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee's first term in office was a record low at just 13 days. However, now we can safely say that all parties in India have realized that the coalition system of governance is a democratic reality - and is not a hindrance, but a much needed boost for our democracy.
The following are broadly the coalitions that operate in the Indian political system.
1) UPA (United Progressive Alliance) led by the Congress party. Currently in power. Prime Minister is Manmohan Singh. Chairperson is Sonia Gandhi. It is a coalition of mainly centrist parties.
2) NDA (National Democratic Alliance) led by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Due to two consecutive defeats, this alliance is much weaker now. NDA's prime ministerial candidate was L K Advani in the past 2 elections. Now, since his retirement, the post is open for grabs, but I see good chances of Sushma Swaraj (Leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha) becoming the first woman PM candidate for the BJP. This is a coalition of mainly right wing parties.
3) So-called third front - it was a miserable attempt by the Communist parties to cobble together a national alternative to the UPA and NDA, by aligning themselves with caste based and religion based parties (speaks volumes about Communist hypocrisy). There is no doubt that the people of India nipped them in the bud, because first and foremost, these parties weren't even in agreement over who their PM candidate was!!
Then there are parties which come under neither of the above.
For my following discussion, I am going to underline the key differences between UPA and NDA. Since this discussion could encompass into multiple domains, I am going to restrict myself to the domain I am most familiar with - human rights. Eventually I will try to research into other policy differences between the UPA and the NDA, and write blog posts to cover them.
1) POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) - The NDA in 2002 organized a special joint session of the Parliament to enact POTA, a mindless law that resulted in severe human rights abuses (suddenly confession before the police became admissible as evidence). Since at that point in time I was young and not as mature in my views as I am now, I had supported this bill then. UPA made it a point in their 2004 election manifesto that repeal of POTA would be their topmost priority. And they kept their promise. POTA was repealed and UAPA was amended instead (minus most of the anti human rights provisions), to give more teeth to India's anti terror efforts.
2) Death penalty - Broadly, the opinions of both UPA and NDA seem to be more or less the same on this issue. Death penalty should be retained and practiced only for the rarest of the rare crimes involving extreme brutality. However, NDA supports expeditious disposal of mercy petitions involving terror cases, while UPA is unwilling to do that. So far UPA had resisted calls to hang Afzal Guru (who I blogged about earlier), but now the UPA has turned the ball in the President's court.
3) Freedom of information laws - NDA first passed the Freedom of Information Act in 2002. However, the law was famously criticized for being dilute, and providing too many exceptions. Consequently it never came into effective force. Later, the UPA passed the Right to Information Act in 2005, which was a landmark law, stronger than similar such laws in even some Western countries, such as Canada (can't give you the link since the article seems to be have expired). However, there have been some voices from within the UPA and pressure from the bureaucracy to dilute some provisions of the law, which due to fierce opposition from rights activists, and Sonia Gandhi personally, have never seen light of the day.
4) Welfare laws - While BJP gets most of its votes from the middle classes, the poor form the largest vote bank for the Congress. Reflective of that, Congress enacted several welfare laws with more in the pipeline - something which the BJP led NDA failed to do. UPA-I passed the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, while the UPA-II passed the Right to Education Act a few months back. Next in the pipeline is the Right to Food Act. These laws not only involve giving a rights based approach to the society's problems, they also create mandatory quality provisions and a system of oversight. It has been estimated that the RtE Act will cost India around $8 billion over the next few years. These laws would have been a total failure, if it were not for the Right to Information Act (this is not to say though that misappropriation of funds under these laws is not taking place).
5) Communal Violence - While the NDA refused to sack BJP's Narendra Modi, who to say the very least, is accused of being a "Nero", sleeping while his state was burning. The Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) had recently questioned Narendra Modi for over 9 hours over his role in the 2002 genocidal riots in Gujarat, a state which he still rules, where as per official records 750+ Muslims and 250+ Hindus died. While Congress too has had its hands soaked in blood (remember 1984?), UPA has slowly been making attempts to make communal rioting a thing of the past. UPA's Sikh Prime Minister Singh had said sorry to the country's Sikh community in the Parliament, for the atrocities committed against them in 1984. More importantly, UPA is preparing a bill to tackle with mass scale communal violence.
6) Social issues - Both coalitions groups can never ignore the fact that India still lives in its villages, where the society is mostly traditional and conservative. But on some issues, UPA has starting to take a positive stance. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act was passed in 2005, which even allowed women to stay indefinitely in their husband's / boyfriend's homes by claiming it as shared household, even if they didn't have a legal claim over it. The law also for the first time recognized live in relationships. A law was also passed to protect senior citizens and provide for their maintenance. In 2009, after the Delhi High Court ruled against Section 377 (a British import which institutionalized homophobia in India), the UPA took the progressive stance of not appealing the judgment. The draft surrogacy law (prepared by the ICMR under the express direction of the Health Ministry, which is yet to obtain Cabinet's approval) also recognizes the parental right of all people - single, married couples, and unmarried couples (perhaps same sex couples included) by seeking to have a child through surrogacy. The UPA also modified the passport forms to recognize the third gender (transgenders). To promote the welfare of lower castes and minority groups, the UPA is contemplating creating an Equal Opportunities Commission (yet to take shape). Where was the NDA on all this? Nowhere I suppose.
7) Prevention of state abuse - While the NDA had passed draconian laws such as POTA, UPA in 2008, amended the Cr.P.C (Criminal Procedure Code) divesting the police from the powers of arrest for crimes punishable with less than 7 years in prison, barring exceptional circumstances. This radical progressive change was opposed by the lawyer groups (who are virtually minting money by charging high fees from clients seeking bail, while the poor continue to languish as undertrials) and by several state governments. This amendment was never notified, and a new amendment has been moved by the UPA-II which is a watered down version of the earlier one. The UPA cabinet has also approved a Prevention of Torture Bill, which will impose stiff punishments for the extra judicial methods used by the police, quite often against the poor and the powerless. On the issue of repeal / reform of the AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Act), as yet not much forward movement has been made by the UPA, although I am personally hoping that UPA would be more sincere on this than the NDA.
8) Religious personal laws - While India is a secular state, the Constitution allows for non secular personal laws (marriage, divorce, custody of children, inheritance and maintenance, etc) to co-exist with their secular variants. NDA has always supported Uniform Civil Code (UCC), primarily with the aim to reform Muslim social laws, which at present are very backward in India, even more so than countries like Iran, where for instance if a married man wants to marry another woman, he needs to prove that he is financially capable of supporting her. On the other hand, UPA has left the most backward Muslim laws untouched, while it has further reformed the more progressive Hindu laws. As of 2006, Hindu women (married or otherwise) have absolutely equal rights to inheritance as their male counterparts. As a side effect, unfortunately, this has led to a spike in honour killings.
9) Freedom of speech - Strangely, UPA seems to be more backward on this than the NDA. While the NDA brought in telecom reforms, and barring a few exceptions (Tehelka), did not interfere with the functioning of the media, UPA has continuously tried to gag media. Okay, that might be an overstatement. But, say anything about Sonia Gandhi - and the Congress party will threaten to sue you for defamation. Want to show some superstitious activity on national television? Get a notice. Are you showing women topless (FTV)? You are banned for 10 days! UPA even tried to bring in a bill which could have impacted media freedom (esp at the hands of a dictatorial regime), but after a national outcry - particularly by the media companies, this proposal was withdrawn.
This conclude my analysis of where do UPA and NDA stand on various issues relating to human rights. According to me the score UPA vs NDA is 6.5 to 1.5. NDA gets 1 point for freedom of speech and 0.5 point for trying to bring in UCC, whereas UPA gets points for all of the above except freedom of speech and the death penalty and I subtracted 0.5 point for not doing anything about the UCC.
And it is for this reason, that I would continue supporting the ruling UPA. Go UPA go!!
During the transition years from single party's democratic dominance of a multi party India to the coalition system (with well defined blocks), there was a lot of experimentation amongst various parties, and governments fell rather quickly. BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee's first term in office was a record low at just 13 days. However, now we can safely say that all parties in India have realized that the coalition system of governance is a democratic reality - and is not a hindrance, but a much needed boost for our democracy.
The following are broadly the coalitions that operate in the Indian political system.
1) UPA (United Progressive Alliance) led by the Congress party. Currently in power. Prime Minister is Manmohan Singh. Chairperson is Sonia Gandhi. It is a coalition of mainly centrist parties.
2) NDA (National Democratic Alliance) led by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Due to two consecutive defeats, this alliance is much weaker now. NDA's prime ministerial candidate was L K Advani in the past 2 elections. Now, since his retirement, the post is open for grabs, but I see good chances of Sushma Swaraj (Leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha) becoming the first woman PM candidate for the BJP. This is a coalition of mainly right wing parties.
3) So-called third front - it was a miserable attempt by the Communist parties to cobble together a national alternative to the UPA and NDA, by aligning themselves with caste based and religion based parties (speaks volumes about Communist hypocrisy). There is no doubt that the people of India nipped them in the bud, because first and foremost, these parties weren't even in agreement over who their PM candidate was!!
Then there are parties which come under neither of the above.
For my following discussion, I am going to underline the key differences between UPA and NDA. Since this discussion could encompass into multiple domains, I am going to restrict myself to the domain I am most familiar with - human rights. Eventually I will try to research into other policy differences between the UPA and the NDA, and write blog posts to cover them.
1) POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) - The NDA in 2002 organized a special joint session of the Parliament to enact POTA, a mindless law that resulted in severe human rights abuses (suddenly confession before the police became admissible as evidence). Since at that point in time I was young and not as mature in my views as I am now, I had supported this bill then. UPA made it a point in their 2004 election manifesto that repeal of POTA would be their topmost priority. And they kept their promise. POTA was repealed and UAPA was amended instead (minus most of the anti human rights provisions), to give more teeth to India's anti terror efforts.
2) Death penalty - Broadly, the opinions of both UPA and NDA seem to be more or less the same on this issue. Death penalty should be retained and practiced only for the rarest of the rare crimes involving extreme brutality. However, NDA supports expeditious disposal of mercy petitions involving terror cases, while UPA is unwilling to do that. So far UPA had resisted calls to hang Afzal Guru (who I blogged about earlier), but now the UPA has turned the ball in the President's court.
3) Freedom of information laws - NDA first passed the Freedom of Information Act in 2002. However, the law was famously criticized for being dilute, and providing too many exceptions. Consequently it never came into effective force. Later, the UPA passed the Right to Information Act in 2005, which was a landmark law, stronger than similar such laws in even some Western countries, such as Canada (can't give you the link since the article seems to be have expired). However, there have been some voices from within the UPA and pressure from the bureaucracy to dilute some provisions of the law, which due to fierce opposition from rights activists, and Sonia Gandhi personally, have never seen light of the day.
4) Welfare laws - While BJP gets most of its votes from the middle classes, the poor form the largest vote bank for the Congress. Reflective of that, Congress enacted several welfare laws with more in the pipeline - something which the BJP led NDA failed to do. UPA-I passed the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, while the UPA-II passed the Right to Education Act a few months back. Next in the pipeline is the Right to Food Act. These laws not only involve giving a rights based approach to the society's problems, they also create mandatory quality provisions and a system of oversight. It has been estimated that the RtE Act will cost India around $8 billion over the next few years. These laws would have been a total failure, if it were not for the Right to Information Act (this is not to say though that misappropriation of funds under these laws is not taking place).
5) Communal Violence - While the NDA refused to sack BJP's Narendra Modi, who to say the very least, is accused of being a "Nero", sleeping while his state was burning. The Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) had recently questioned Narendra Modi for over 9 hours over his role in the 2002 genocidal riots in Gujarat, a state which he still rules, where as per official records 750+ Muslims and 250+ Hindus died. While Congress too has had its hands soaked in blood (remember 1984?), UPA has slowly been making attempts to make communal rioting a thing of the past. UPA's Sikh Prime Minister Singh had said sorry to the country's Sikh community in the Parliament, for the atrocities committed against them in 1984. More importantly, UPA is preparing a bill to tackle with mass scale communal violence.
6) Social issues - Both coalitions groups can never ignore the fact that India still lives in its villages, where the society is mostly traditional and conservative. But on some issues, UPA has starting to take a positive stance. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act was passed in 2005, which even allowed women to stay indefinitely in their husband's / boyfriend's homes by claiming it as shared household, even if they didn't have a legal claim over it. The law also for the first time recognized live in relationships. A law was also passed to protect senior citizens and provide for their maintenance. In 2009, after the Delhi High Court ruled against Section 377 (a British import which institutionalized homophobia in India), the UPA took the progressive stance of not appealing the judgment. The draft surrogacy law (prepared by the ICMR under the express direction of the Health Ministry, which is yet to obtain Cabinet's approval) also recognizes the parental right of all people - single, married couples, and unmarried couples (perhaps same sex couples included) by seeking to have a child through surrogacy. The UPA also modified the passport forms to recognize the third gender (transgenders). To promote the welfare of lower castes and minority groups, the UPA is contemplating creating an Equal Opportunities Commission (yet to take shape). Where was the NDA on all this? Nowhere I suppose.
7) Prevention of state abuse - While the NDA had passed draconian laws such as POTA, UPA in 2008, amended the Cr.P.C (Criminal Procedure Code) divesting the police from the powers of arrest for crimes punishable with less than 7 years in prison, barring exceptional circumstances. This radical progressive change was opposed by the lawyer groups (who are virtually minting money by charging high fees from clients seeking bail, while the poor continue to languish as undertrials) and by several state governments. This amendment was never notified, and a new amendment has been moved by the UPA-II which is a watered down version of the earlier one. The UPA cabinet has also approved a Prevention of Torture Bill, which will impose stiff punishments for the extra judicial methods used by the police, quite often against the poor and the powerless. On the issue of repeal / reform of the AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Act), as yet not much forward movement has been made by the UPA, although I am personally hoping that UPA would be more sincere on this than the NDA.
8) Religious personal laws - While India is a secular state, the Constitution allows for non secular personal laws (marriage, divorce, custody of children, inheritance and maintenance, etc) to co-exist with their secular variants. NDA has always supported Uniform Civil Code (UCC), primarily with the aim to reform Muslim social laws, which at present are very backward in India, even more so than countries like Iran, where for instance if a married man wants to marry another woman, he needs to prove that he is financially capable of supporting her. On the other hand, UPA has left the most backward Muslim laws untouched, while it has further reformed the more progressive Hindu laws. As of 2006, Hindu women (married or otherwise) have absolutely equal rights to inheritance as their male counterparts. As a side effect, unfortunately, this has led to a spike in honour killings.
9) Freedom of speech - Strangely, UPA seems to be more backward on this than the NDA. While the NDA brought in telecom reforms, and barring a few exceptions (Tehelka), did not interfere with the functioning of the media, UPA has continuously tried to gag media. Okay, that might be an overstatement. But, say anything about Sonia Gandhi - and the Congress party will threaten to sue you for defamation. Want to show some superstitious activity on national television? Get a notice. Are you showing women topless (FTV)? You are banned for 10 days! UPA even tried to bring in a bill which could have impacted media freedom (esp at the hands of a dictatorial regime), but after a national outcry - particularly by the media companies, this proposal was withdrawn.
This conclude my analysis of where do UPA and NDA stand on various issues relating to human rights. According to me the score UPA vs NDA is 6.5 to 1.5. NDA gets 1 point for freedom of speech and 0.5 point for trying to bring in UCC, whereas UPA gets points for all of the above except freedom of speech and the death penalty and I subtracted 0.5 point for not doing anything about the UCC.
And it is for this reason, that I would continue supporting the ruling UPA. Go UPA go!!
personally, i feel you left some very impt achievements of nda- golden quadrangular highways uniting the country, pradhan mantri gram sadak yojana, telecom deregularisation (16 rs incoming to 0), sarva shiksha abhiyaan, pokhran tests, agra summit (though failed but quite strong one).
ReplyDeletealso right to information was rejected by opposition UPA, but as soon as it came to power- it implemented it. Now since they are planning to impose a word limit on the application.
Although NREGA has been appreciated, it is indirectly affecting the working conditions, people have to be paid irrespective of the kind of work they deliver and more than 60-70% of it is misused.
It is becos of the parties in the NDA that we even have democracy today- they mainly fought the emergency :)
and scams are just incomparable- tehelka exposing bangaru taking 1 lakh and raja's 1.5lac crores are just incomparable. UPA also has another achievement- reservations!
one fact of yours is wrong- lk advani was the candidate for 2004 elections- it was atal only.
While writing this post, I had mainly issues of human rights in my mind. This explains the "I" in the title.
ReplyDeleteNow, about golden quadrilateral, other road projects, telecom etc - BJP did good work - and Congress carried forward its good work. So we can't really compare.
RTI was rejected by Congress - Can you give me sources? I am open to amending this post given facts.
NREGA - Criticism aside, this law creates a "floor" on the average rural household income per annum. That is a unique endeavor, the idea itself needs to be appreciated.
Emergency - I believe Congress has already regretted 1975.
Scams - I agree Congress is more corrupt.
Reservations - I support them! :)
LK Advani - Thanks for pointing out a factual error.
human rights- ya, i saw them in ur subsequent posts.
ReplyDeletegoldenquadrilateral for eg was completed 99% during nda but even today it has not reached 100%- just for your info
rti- i think u can search them on net- the whole bill was not rejected- no one does actually- some "flaws" were shown.
even i support reservations - not random reservations but economic/talent related reservations