Since 2014, the political scenario in India has changed drastically. While the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in complete majority in the Lok Sabha (lower house of the Parliament) and has a wafer-thin majority in the Rajya Sabha (upper house of the Parliament), as of November 2022, the BJP is in power in 14 States of India (out of 28) and with Jammu & Kashmir under the President’s Rule, the BJP can be said to have a greater influence there. The balance states are ruled by a hodge-podge coalition of local political parties with the notable exceptions of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi and Punjab, TMC in Bengal and the Communists in Kerala.
Essentially, at both levels; Union (federal) Government and State governments, there is no real opposition party to observe or oversee the performance of the government in power. It’s very necessary in an active and vibrant democracy that there should be a powerful opposition (or shadow government) to have oversight on the government in power. Unfortunately this is not the case in India. Without strong opposition parties, our democracy has become weak and there are dangers that it may head to autocracy in the future years.
With the political parties in disarray, it’s the responsibility of voters and citizens to assume the role and responsibility of keeping a watch over the government. For sake of simplicity, let us name this activity as ‘Citizens Audit & Responsibility Oversight’ [CARO]. This should ideally start at block levels and work its way up to State and Union level. The function of CARO should be to determine facts about government policies and present it to the voters in a non-partisan manner. It will take time for an effort like CARO to become influential and powerful, but if there is enough long-term, non-partisan contribution by the citizens in this effort, then it can achieve much more that can be imagined today.
The credibility of this model will be in its political neutrality and being apolitical in its work, with no connection to political parties, politicians or political philosophies. CARO has to work only towards nation-building, civil unity and social integration; and cannot depend on support or approval from the government at any level. Its disassociation from political parties would be its strength as an independent auditor.
The above stated idea is not new. CARO has existed in various forms over the last 250 years (maybe more), and our country has always been strong and powerful when citizen auditors are highly active. When the citizen’s participation wanes, CARO fails. In these present times, the responsibilities of CARO have been put onto activists active on social media and main stream media. Unfortunately, both these entities are no longer credible and are known to pursue their own agenda at the cost of reporting facts.
Readers of this article may wish to start their own CARO efforts and become civil influencers in the near future.
Jai Hind.
