Above the law

In the capital city, politicians of every hue try desperately to find a way round the law courts so that those who have broken building and zoning laws with impunity can escape the consequences of their actions. In Uttar Pradesh, a minister offers a ransom for murdering a foreigner""and no action is taken against him. In Karnataka, legislators are herded off to a holiday spot in a neighbouring state and kept in protected custody so that no one can be weaned away from the breakaway group through means that, if printed, might invite libel. And back in Delhi, the defence minister tries to argue that stealing military secrets is not treason. The politician's lack of concern for the law and what it demands has reached new heights, or depths.

On the other hand, civil society seems to be gaining strength and voice, and demanding accountability. The middle class gets increasingly vocal and impatient with the poor quality of public services, and with the bang that it gets for the government's buck. Parliament even passes a right to information law that is intended to act as a check on malfeasance. At some stage, the clash between these different forces will produce a tipping point. As yet, it is hard to predict which set of forces will emerge dominant. At one level, India is a modern economy emerging from the shadows. At another, it is regressing into political medievalism, where the operative word is not law but power.

This medievalism is characterised by the emergence of a feudal order whose chief feature is the emergence of what can only be called the mansabdari system of Mughal India. It's the size of the tribute and the number of horsemen (read MPs or MLAs) that determines political worth. If you have enough horsemen, you are de facto above the law, or indeed become the law. And so, as in Mughal India, power and politics have become the preserve of a few chieftains""like Lalu Prasad in Bihar, Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu, Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra, Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh, the Abdullahs in Kashmir, and so on. They will be in and out of office, depending on the vagaries of elections, but in a fundamental sense they are never out of power. And for that very reason, they and anyone whom they choose to support become members of that very special class of rulers who, increasingly, reflect the untrammelled rulers of old.

Why has this happened? There are many reasons. Democracy seeks to emphasise differences in order to build political identities for garnering votes. This has led to the emergence of chieftains who play identity politics and who, by becoming spokesmen for specific communities, command a political base that is independent of performance in office. Partly, it is a social problem because Indian society tends to be permissive and does not take its own laws seriously. Partly, it has to do with the ingrained notions acquired from Hammurabi and Manu that status determines a person's position before the law, and equality before it is an impractical ideal. Partly, too, it is a result of the disjunction between institutions. The judiciary assumes modernity when it tries to apply the law but, therefore, the executive becomes even more feudal. Overall, it is neither a pretty nor a coherent picture.