Ravish Kumar: अरुण गोयल का चुनाव आयोग से इस्तीफ़ा | Arun Goel resigns from the Election Commission

बीजेपी का संपर्कवाद संविधानवाद पर हावी हो गया है। विपक्ष में परिवारवाद और बीजेपी का संपर्कवाद। आप देख नहीं पा रहे हैं लेकिन आपकी नाक के नीचे संस्थाओं के घाव का मवाद सड़कों पर बहने लगा है।

अरुण गोयल का चुनाव आयोग से इस्तीफ़ा | Arun Goel resigns from the EC

NB: A theme that I will return to, and which is latent in all the critical commentary especially in the independent YouTube outlets, is that of the wholesale disregard, indeed, contempt for legal, constitutional norms; and even ordinary decency on the part of those in power in the current dispensation. These malignant trends were present during previous regimes as well. But the BJP/RSS government has thrown to the winds even the pretence of norm-governed behaviour.

Many examples could be given, but I do not need to put them down in this note. I will, however say this, especially to the officials: bureaucrats senior or junior, police officers, judges, and defence service officers (my late father was an officer of the Indian Army, as were two of my uncles): you swore an oath of loyalty to the Indian Constitution, not to the government of the day. And to the political leaders who change their ‘ideology’ at the drop of a hat depending on convenience (who do you think you are fooling?); plus the leading lights of the dominant political party – you seek to consolidate yourselves as the stable commanders of the Indian establishment, but why do you think that a style of leadership which involves intimidation, blackmail, secret funding and misuse of the justice system will raise your status among ordinary people? Is this the sacred maryada of the tradition which you keep referring to?

Do you think the practice of bullying critics will win you a lasting place in the hearts of the Indian people? Read these comments by Kautilya on the causes of discontent in a polity. Wake up. Enforced homogeneity in culture or belief leads to the opposite of the desired result. The ruling elite gets fractured rather than united. The imposition of an autocratic version of ‘unity’ results in disunity and rebellion, not meek obedience. Crushing justice in the jaws of executive compulsion, and reducing it to ‘might is right’ results in loss of faith in rajdharm on the part of the public at large.

The Tsarist Empire launched a policy of religious and linguistic ‘Russification’ in the 1890’s which led to complete disintegration in under three decades. Pax Britannica dissolved under the impact of the aspirations of its colonial subjects. The rulers of the informal American empire set up after the Second World War have found that the prolonged application of military force led not to the security of the so-called American way of life but the endangerment of that way of life by forces within America. The Chinese dictator has made himself President for life: it won’t preserve his rule indefinitely. For people of my generation, the USSR was imagined to be a permanent feature of the world order, but it disappeared into thin air. And no one was to blame but its own ruling class.

Here’s some advice for those Indian Big Brothers who are today inebriated by a belief in their own eternal potency: Stop dreaming. Dismount your high horse. Discard the destructive mode of power that you have adopted: it will be disastrous for India, for us all. “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely… There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it”: Lord Acton (commenting on Popes and Kings in 1887) – DS

जिस दिन चुनाव आयोग अपनी वेबसाइट पर इलेक्टोरल बॉन्ड की जानकारी प्रकाशित करेगा उसी दिन दो-दो चुनाव आयुक्तों की नियुक्ति की कमेटी विचार कर रही होगी जिसमें सरकार का ही बहुमत है। एक तरह प्रधानमंत्री ही चुनेंगे कि चुनाव आयुक्त कौन होगा। ठीक लोक सभा के चुनाव से पहले अरुण गोयल का चुनाव आयुक्त के पद से इस्तीफा देना, बंगाल के दौरे के बाद देना, बंगाल के चुनाव और चुनाव आयोग के संबंधों को भी रौशनी में लाता है। इस राज्य में चुनाव आयोग को जिस राजनीतिक संदेह से देखा जाता है और क्यों देखा जाता है, हम इस पर आज के वीडियो में बात करेंगे। है। नए आयुक्तों की नियुक्ति पर सबकी नज़र होगी, क्या वही बनेगा जो पहले से संपर्क में होगा, क्या बाद में भी संपर्क में होगा?

अरुण गोयल का चुनाव आयोग से इस्तीफ़ा | Arun Goel resigns from the EC

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Alexandre Koyré: The Political Function of the Modern Lie (1943) / John Keane: Lying, journalism and democracy

Supreme Court Gives State Bank of India a day to furnish Electoral Bonds data, Warns of Contempt Proceedings on Non-Compliance

Mafiacraft, or how to do things with silence. Toward an ethnography of crime

Socrates: If the whole is ailing the part cannot be well / Kautilya: Disaffection among Subjects / Darkness at noon, felled by the judiciary

The Broken Middle

Kautilya’s observations on the causes of discontent in a polity

Of Shankaracharyas and Cameracharyas

Ex-Civil Servants Urge Election Commission to prod SBI to Furnish Information on Electoral Bonds Before Lok Sabha Polls

A Professor’s Supreme Court Bail Hearing Is A Bellwether Case For Govt’s Use of India’s Anti-Terror Law

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