There are many people trying to get the word "socialism" out of the Preamble to our Constitution so that it disappears from the Representation of People Act and genuine classical liberal and libertarian parties enter the fray. Chief among these objectors who have gone to court is SV Raju of the Indian Liberal Group, and his PIL has been pending before the Bombay High Court for over 15 years. The ILG are remnants of the old Swatantra Party.
Now, the Supreme Court of India has let down all these hopes by ruling that the word "socialist" should remain and only socialist parties allowed entry into Indian politics. Read the full story here. Note that the bench was headed by the Chief Justice.
I get the feeling that the Chief Justice and his cohorts are being "patriotic": they are saluting the flag - the CONgress flag - they are saluting Nehru and his descendants, they are saluting an idea they know in their hearts has failed. But they are saluting the idea nevertheless, in a patriotic way - that is, "the last refuge of the scoundrel." They are being "loyal" to the regime.
"Where there is no Property there is no Justice," wrote John Locke in 1691 - and there is no justice in India because of socialism, socialist legislation and socialist judges.
However, the Chief Justice must also know something about practical politics. It takes a political leader to make a political idea take hold of the public mind. Nehru performed this function for socialism. But who is there to perform this function today? The judges are hoping for a miracle that will never happen. Never will Chacha Manmohan S Gandhi, Boss Sonia and Baby Rahul manage to sway public opinion to socialism once again. As a practical political idea, socialism is truly dead in India.
Anyway, it seems to me that there is some good news to take out of this bad news - and that is, the Supreme Court has fallen off its high pedestal. It should be viewed as just another arm of The State. Another chamcha of the Gandhis.
The Supreme Court in the matter of deleting the word'socialist' seems to have taken refuge under a technicality to avoid a judgement. According to the report the Justices said that they will revisit if and when a political party is refused recognition because of this clause and raises an objection . They imply that a mere NGO which has no intent of contesting a election has no locus standi in the matter and need not bother about such things when even political parties which do fight elections have not made any objections. I hope libertarians in the country take note of this and immediately test the Court by forming a liberal party and approaching the election commission for registration.
ReplyDelete@Sauvik
ReplyDeleteBut there is still hope since the SC stated the following:
"The court will decide such a question as and when a political party which is refused recognition by EC raises it"
I guess the point being made here is if a political party, say ILG (if they institute themselves as a political party),is denied by the Election Commission, the ILG can bring a PIL in SC against the Election Commission.