THE RULE OF LAW

THE RULE OF LAW

        Another “Republic Day”! In all it’s glory!

        It means many things to many people. ‘A long week end’ is the commonest! Or ‘Oh My God, A Dry Saturday! What a nuisance!’! Or a chance to see old patriotic films/songs on TV & feel a bit nostalgic, or occasionally, buying a plastic Tricolor from the kids at the traffic signal & carrying it around for a few days on the dashboard of one’s car!

        In fact everything, except what it actually is!

        What it really stands for is 1.Our acceptance by common consent, of a ‘Democratic, Federal, Republic’ form of government to rule us & 2. As a corollary, our consent to obey all it’s laws to be able to live in a civil society.

        What a laugh!

        Not even an illiterate farmer or a school-going kid now believes that we have a ‘Functioning’ democracy. Oh, we vote all right, or are at least supposed to! Regular as clockwork, elections are held for Gram Panchayat to Parliament. But what we actually enjoy (or suffer, depending upon your view point!) is an Oligarchy of Rogues, draped in various shades of the political rainbow. All of them busy together in gleefully pillaging the country regardless of the side of the power divide they belong to! That, as you might rightly say, is nothing new!

        What amazes me more is why we are so reluctant to obey laws!

        We as a society seem to take some obscene pleasure in breaking all sorts of laws, big & small, and think nothing of it. None of us is an exception. Whether it is a question of waiting a few seconds at a red traffic light, wearing helmets or seatbelts, standing patiently in any queue till our turn comes or, not disclosing a bank account to the IT department; we are ready, nay eager, to break laws at the drop of a hat; as long as we think we can get away with it.

        And I am talking about educated, honest, cultured, civilized, god fearing people like you & me. When I try to talk about it, the commonest response is ‘So what? Such a small thing! What does it matter?’ And the commonest defense is ‘Everybody does it! Just my obeying the laws is not going to help’! There are various versions in between. Like ‘I know it is wrong, but what can one do? I don’t want to be left behind’ (whether in traffic or in Life!)

        What a petty, self serving attitude to have!

        It is the “In” thing to blame politicians & the police for every ill besetting this country. But, if we ourselves are not prepared to make those everyday, small sacrifices needed to build a civil society, to obey the rules & laws meant for ordinary citizens, do we have the moral right to demand model, exemplary behavior from the political class? And the police? If the elite of this country is intent on breaking every law in sight, how can they be expected to fulfill their duty, and give us a reasonably secure, crime-free society to live in?

        While all this is logical, straightforward & pertinent what interests me more is it’s genesis.

        How did we become like this? We are a cultured people, with the benefit of more than 5000 years of the most advanced civilization in history, behind us. A glorious heritage of which we are justly proud. Even today, in every country where we choose to settle down, we are welcome as one of the most hard working, productive and law-abiding ethnic groups. So why is it that, the moment we are left in our own country, on our own, we start breaking laws, left & right?

        It seems to me that there are two reasons for this phenomenon.

        In their eagerness to paint a rosy picture of the utopia that was to be post-independence India, our leaders must have given an incorrect picture of what ‘Democracy’ means. Before that, throughout our known history we were only ruled by kings (native or foreign). We had never even heard of ‘Self Rule’. For such people, the idea of democracy must have seemed like a drink of heady wine to a traveler coming out of a desert after months of thirsty wandering. No wonder it went to our collective head! Somewhere along the line, the idea of ‘being your own master’ got perverted into ‘not having to obey anybody or anything’. We were never told that the idea of a strong democracy depends entirely upon the sacrifice of the small (and sometimes even big) interests of the individual for the sake of the greater common good. Democracy is more about duties and less about rights. I know that in today’s cynical world, all this sounds like meaningless, laughable, pompous, & platitudinous. But for all that, it is still the Truth!

        The other factor is that, the newly emerging ruling elite started the trend of creating exceptions for themselves from every rule, may be as a proof or show of their ‘Importance’. How else would you explain the huge hoardings displaying the list of people exempted from paying the toll at every toll booth? These worthies sure are not so poor that they can’t afford the 20/30 Rs toll! Neither is paying the toll likely to prevent them from performing their sacred duties as ‘Servants of the People’! That mentality, while percolating down to the masses has, somewhere along the line has transformed 'breaking the law' into a status symbol! The more laws you can break and the more rules you are exempt from, greater your social status! No wonder we, all of us, seem to be in a race to disobey every law in sight and break every rule we can!

        Coming back to the Republic Day, as a matter of curiosity, please find out, how many of your friends attended the flag hoisting ceremony today? Did you? And if it is a symbol of our patriotism, what does it say about us and our great country?