Mountain of light

We as citizens of this country are often guilty of picking out our country’s faults and harping on them and not focusing enough on the positives. No matter how bad a situation is there are always bound to be some positives. While it is important to talk about the negatives and work towards constant improvement, I feel that we should also talk about the positives and give credit where it is due. I am also guilty on this count and from this post onwards I am going to look at a situation and talk about both positives and negatives, as they exist side by side.

We often talk about how our political systems don’t work. How the regulators, watchdogs of the system don’t do their jobs effectively. Most of what we say is by and large based on true facts. But what doesn’t meet our eye and I blame the media for it partly, is the fact that there are people out there who are fighting the corruption and the red tape in the system. They are fighting inspite of the fact that it could potentially endanger their careers, they could be transferred out every 6 months or so because their political masters find them to be a nuisance and they could find themselves in some god forsaken place looking after animal husbandry. They need all the support that we can give them in the same manner, as the people who form part of the corrupt system should be afforded as much resistance from us. But do we support the honest and do we resist the corrupt? No! We (me included) are too busy living our lives, earning our bread and butter, and climbing the corporate ladder and what have you. But in all this we do find time to criticize the system.

I have wanted to write a letter to our current Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) – James M Lyngdoh. Except I couldn’t bring myself to write anything in the letter. So I was just a silent admirer, closely following him through the media. This week I read that he has been awarded the Magsaysay Award for Government Service. The site says ‘ The Foundation recognizes “his convincing validation of free and fair elections as the foundation and best hope of secular democracy in free and fair India”’ These are strong words coming from an independent, external institution. We (citizens, politicians etc) keep harping on how we are the largest democracy in the world. But what does it take to be that democracy, who is the watchdog for the democracy and who ensures that the democracy doesn’t turn in into an idiocracy (I made this word up!). Among the watchdogs of this democracy is the Election Commission that is headed by the CEC.

Over the last year this very democracy was threatened on two counts. One on ensuring peaceful elections (it was never going to be free and fair) in Gujarat especially after the violence that had taken place and second, ensuring that elections in Jammu and Kashmir are free and fair so atleast we can live up to being a “democracy” and not have a sham of elections which had been happening there for the past two decades. One would agree that in such circumstances the Election Commission would need all the support that it can get. Except what did it get in instead?

What it got instead was - A legal battle in the Supreme Court between the Central Government and the Election Commission (EC) questioning the EC’s powers to postpone the election in Gujarat by 6 months. The court ruled in the favor of the EC and had a few things to say to the Central Government in the process. The CEC’s name and religion was thrown about in public and it was said that he was in co hoots with a certain politician of Italian origin. The kind of abuse that went around, and how his middle name was repeated again and again would make even a hardened ruffian squirm. Much was made of an incident where he called certain bureaucrats in Gujarat as “jokers”. I think Mr. Lyndgoh was being very civil with them because I would have called them murderers. The bureaucrats ofcourse were quite enraged on that comment and there was talk at that time of a defamation suit. I mean we all know that there are jokers but we can’t call them jokers.

The elections in Gujarat went off peacefully, the results were a foregone conclusion. But God only knows what would have happened if the elections had been held immediately in the aftermath of the riots. We would never know I guess. The elections in Jammu and Kashmir were a thumping success and even the PM, whose statements are very measured and controlled, and whose party lost the elections, said that these are the first free and fair elections in Kashmir after a long time. Those elections in Kashmir will hold us in good stead for a very very long time. I don’t think we even realize the implications that will flow in the next few years from just one set of elections.

So, did we nominate Mr. Lyndgoh for the Bharat Ratna? Ok that is too high an award maybe the Padmashree then. I don’t understand the rules and regulations too well. Maybe there is a rule that serving civil servants can’t get nominated for these awards (but they can get awards from outside?). Ok so what about a statement from the PM congratulating the EC on a job well done. You could say well he was only doing his job. The past two decades of elections in Kashmir were because of people who were only doing their jobs and didn’t have the courage to stand up to the politicians. Another award Mr. Lyndgoh got was a “Star of Asia”, conferred by the Business Week magazine in the policy makers category. He was placed on par with the Chinese Premier Hu Jintao for his commitment to fighting SARS. Can you imagine the honor? Business Week again is a prestigious international publication.

Did any Indian organization, company, group of individuals confer him with an award? Not that I know off, please do tell me if you know of something. Did we tell him through a citation that, Thank you sir! We as a democracy are privileged to have you managing our elections. Maybe now that he has got the Magsaysay, people will sit up and notice and decide to give him an award. This is like what happened with Amartya Sen after he got the Nobel. The government stood up and took notice of his research and he also suddenly started getting so many awards.

To end I quote from an article of Rajdeep Sardesai (NDTV) in Mid-Day. He had this to say about the elections in Kashmir.
“Every Kashmiri you spoke to, would hark back to the 1987 elections, widely believed to have been rigged, an election which was seen to have given separatist sentiments a new momentum. This 2002 election has partly, if not entirely, buried some of the ghosts of 1987 and revived a flicker of hope in the valley. For that alone, Lyngdoh and his team, who have personally visited the valley at least half a dozen times in the last few months, deserve full praise. Omar Abdullah might wonder what went wrong, but maybe even he in a moment of reflection might pause to admire the quiet revolution brought about in Indian democracy by a man of few words with a black belt in judo”

Mr. Lyndgoh, thank you.