Two score and ten years ago, India´s founding fathers gave the country a parliamentary democracy with a fine system of checks and balances. Half a century into freedom and most of its institutions lie in shambles. The people elected to keep them going are burning themselves out on the treadmill trying to retain their position, power and means of personal aggrandisement. One no longer anticipates visionary legislation of far-reaching consequence from the elected representatives. Neither has the executive shown itself to be capable, either in the Centre or in the states. Tales of scams and widespread corruption are too well known to warrant repetition.
Two score and ten years ago, India´s founding fathers gave the country a parliamentary democracy with a fine system of checks and balances. Half a century into freedom and most of its institutions lie in shambles. The people elected to keep them going are burning themselves out on the treadmill trying to retain their position, power and means of personal aggrandisement. One no longer anticipates visionary legislation of far-reaching consequence from the elected representatives. Neither has the executive shown itself to be capable, either in the Centre or in the states. Tales of scams and widespread corruption are too well known to warrant repetition.
Only one institution appears to have withstood the 50-year test—the judiciary—the watchdog of the other two arms of governance. The Constitution of India expressly balances the three organs and allows the judiciary to interfere with the powers of the executive and legislature only when the liberty of the individual is at stake. However, the justices are today stepping in to make laws, establish policy, and initiate action to cover for inept and inactive ministers and parliamentarians. It is the courts that are formulating rules to run prisons, homes for destitute women and the mentally ill; again, it is the courts that are setting schedules for examinations, ensuring resettlement of evicted pavement dwellers and displaced persons from dam sites, and saving national monuments, rivers and forests from environmental degradation.
The judiciary has also taken upon itself the task of cleaning the Augean stables of political corruption in the country. At least six cases dealing specifically with political corruption are before the Supreme Court of India, the most celebrated being the Jain Hawala case in which bribes were paid to prominent politicians through a business family with laundered money. The judges have literally been forcing the executive to report to the court on this matter. The judges have also declared their intention of wiping out black money from politics.