The possibility of Martial Law in India
The corruption in India has become unbearably rampant during the past decade—it is palpably visible in all spheres of the socio-political life, especially in the Judiciary. The cases of Mr. Ramaswamy (a former Judge of the Supreme Court of India-- against whom a Motion for Impeachment was moved in the Indian Parliament) and Mr. Shamit Mukherjee (a former Delhi High Court Judge who was arrested in cases allegedly involving serious graft-charges, including womanising) are only a few of the well known cases.
Notable amongst those who have publicly lamented about this unbearable corruption in the Indian judiciary are:
Mr. KR Narayanan (former President of the Republic of India), Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee (former Prime Minister), Mr. VP Singh (former Prime Minister), Mr. GB Pattanaik (former Chief Justice of India).
Surprisingly, none of them belled the cat! Why did the aforementioned impeachment-motion, too, failed? The truth of the matter is that it is in the interest of those politicians who are themselves not above-board, to have a corrupt judiciary because no ‘honest’ Judge would ever grant them bail if & when these politicians were to lose their seats of governmental powers, and the party next-in-power goes around witch-hunting.
However, the common man remains acutely affected by the level of corruption in the judiciary because such corruption acts as a ‘force-multiplier’; it affords protection from prosecution to the corrupt police officer and to the corrupt bureaucrat—thereby abetting corruption. The nett result is that India is not viewed as a safe & hassle-free destination for Foreign Direct Investment because this corruption has furthered the much deprecated ‘Inspector-raj’ amongst the bureaucrats, and ‘goonda-raj’ around the industrial environment. So much so that the MNCs-- who are operating as FIs in India, are per force relying upon the ‘muscle-men’ for recovering their bad-debts/dues, instead of looking up to the judicial system. Even some judicial officers have, in their personal economic matters, sought help of the mafia—the reported case of Mr. Singh (an Additional Sessions Judge in Maharashtra) is a case in point.
The recent change of guard (the party in-power at the Centre) was not the result of any fascination by the voters for a particular party. Rather, it was the manifestation—albeit through the electoral process, of the frustration of the common man against rising corruption because the combined effect of this corruption and the consequential labour-unrest is:-
i) Corruption coupled with labour-unrest has choked the flow of FDI into the Indian industry-- while at the same time, as a result of the Globalisation of Indian economy, the Indian market is being flooded by much cheaper & qualitatively better consumer-goods which are available on easy finance offered by the aforesaid FIs.
ii) This, in turn, has led to acute reduction in employment-opportunities in India. And the same will be further reduced once Chinese goods, too, flood the Indian market and displace the labour-force in the Indian textile, electric goods & two-wheeler industries, too.
iii) The IT industry has only increased the Indian foreign reserves, but it alone is not capable of providing enough employment to the ever swelling ranks of the unemployed. Moreover, the kind of current demand in the IT industry, too, has a finite time-dimension.
iv) The late Mr. Rajiv Gandhi (former Prime Minister) had lamented the fact that out of every one rupee sanctioned by the Government for a poverty-alleviation project, only 5% actually reaches the beneficiary.
Let’s face the fact that amongst those who are affected by such corruption, are the kith & kin of military personnel and, many a times, the Armed Forces personnel themselves.
Interestingly, Article 34 of the Constitution of India provides a Constitutional mechanism for protecting the Armed Forces personnel from anything done by them during the period the “Martial Law” is in force. Therefore, in the current scenario the pressure upon the military to take over the reigns of Government is not unreal—rather, it may become a necessity for the purpose of preventing a civil-war. In addition, there is a great incentive for a military takeover because every Major (and equivalent rank in the Air Force & Navy) will take over as the District Collector and every Brigadier/Air Commodore/Commodore will assume the charge of the whole Metropolis like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, etc. And if the military offers to replace the existing police & judicial personnel with honest retired military personnel, then even the masses may welcome such a form of governance.
However, for the present, the feasibility of a change in guard with the help of the military is remote because:-
i) In answer to a question recently raised in the Parliament, it was stated that there is a shortage of about 15,000 officers in the three Services (Army, Navy & Air Force). [Whereas, surprisingly, the going rate in bribe for a job of a constable in the civil police in a Metropolis is about Rs.1,00,000/-.]
ii) The level of military training & discipline is apparent from the fact that in the recent past the total number of fatal casualties during the deployment of the Indian Forces along its Western border alone—within its own territory and without going to any War at all, was more than the number of fatal casualties suffered by the US & UK Armies (combined) during the actual operations in Afghanistan. Yet, the said massive deployment failed to check even “infiltration”.
When may this damp bomb start ticking is anybody’s guess.