Editorial: Rectify Roles

One hears frequent complaints that “virtues” of accountability, transparency and decency have become almost alien to the political culture, but when was the last time you heard of the electorate standing its leaders against the wall and demanding accountability [at least in delivering on the roles endorsed on them by the people]? Mudslinging, unrestrained criticism of opponents and the total lack of accountability for what one does or says have become an almost routine phenomena in what goes by way of ‘politics’ now. Although not unique to Sikkim, it is the trend here that concerns us. The last election was some years ago and the manifestos have since been returned to the cold storage. Meanwhile, the favourite whipping horses are being flogged afresh with an angle decided by which political alignment is driving the comments. It is obviously the lack of a clearly thought out ideology among political parties, both national and regional, about their plans for Sikkim which forces them to choose rhetoric over logic or significance. While this might work for the charged times of election campaigns, people tire of these shenanigans in the more peaceful 5-year reprieve that they get in between. Even the new acquisitions of RTI and PILs are now losing their potency to generate even interest, let alone involvement, because of their ad-nauseam duplication. While the tools of democracy and its institutions are available to all, even if they are ‘misused’ to pursue political and/or political ends, when the public domain gets proliferated only by such noises, the real issues stand at risk of getting sidelined... important debates remain unaddressed.
For example, the Opposition’s single-minded pursuit of making corruption charges against the Chief Minister stick, comes at the price of reducing the challenge of corruption to an individual. Irrespective of how this legal process ends, it would not have addressed the real challenge of corruption in the system. And while the Opposition remains focused on targeting the Chief Minister, important public issues get ignored. Central Direct Taxes, for example, have been in the news of late with regard to the demand of the old settlers to be treated as Sikkimese and granted exemption. Apart from the State Government and the ruling party, this demand has not engaged the interest of other players in the political front. Without such involvement, consensus will not be possible. There are also several special schemes and initiatives underway in the State, which, if monitored properly [through scrutiny by the Opposition and social vigilance by the people], could deliver exceptionally generous results. Initiatives like capacity building, CMRH, CATCH, to name a few, have the potential to be more than sops or token efforts if they received wider attention and stock-taking. This has not happened, exposing these schemes to avoidable compromises. Unfortunately, even the post earthquake reconstruction efforts continue sans Opposition interest. The ruling front, on the other hand, should display more maturity in how it handles allegations or the media’s penchant for sensationalism. It has to also accept that “healthy criticism” is just a euphemism. There is no healthy or unhealthy tint to criticism; at least not on the part of the critic, it is just criticism. It is up to the target to decide in which spirit it is taken. The ruling party has been awarded a complete mandate by the people and the only awkwardness for it in the Legislative Assembly is of its own making. As far as the people are concerned, even if they appear distant in their refusal to jump to the government’s defence against allegations, they have handed the present dispensation the complete responsibility of governance and left no room for excuses. Should the ruling and the Opposition choose performance over rhetoric [no matter how eloquent] and public interest over score-settling, both would benefit a lot and the Sikkimese would profit the most. Any takers?