CM speaks:-
Keynote lecture presented by chief Miniter Pawan Chamling at Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi, on 25 April, 2011
Respected Prof. Najeeb Jung, Vice Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, Pro Vice Chancellor Prof. SM Rashid, Prof. Shree Prakash, Director of the Academy of Third World Studies, Prof. Sanjoy Hazarika, Director and Saifuddin Kitchlew Chair of the Centre for North East Studies, faculty and students, media, friends from New Delhi, Sikkim and the rest of the North East India.
I am thankful to the Jamia Milia Islamia for the invitation extended to me to speak on the subject “Regional Parties and their efficacy in advancing Nation Building”, which is appropriate and has gained prominence now in the Indian political discourse. Our Country is so vast and diverse that it is virtually impossible to reach out to every nook and corner. The ethos and the social fabric of each corner of the country thus remain unheard of or unattended to. Our forefathers have designed the Constitution well, where the hopes and aspirations of all citizens can be transformed into reality within its framework.
The Sikkim Democratic Front Party, of which I am the Founding President, is governing the State of Sikkim for the last seventeen years. The people have reposed confidence in my party in overwhelming terms. I respectfully bow to this honour. My commitment has been to rise to their expectations as their first servant to improve their quality of life. I am relentlessly pursuing this goal with all the energy and enthusiasm at my command. Since the people are the masters, we can go full course to take all possible measures in socio-cultural upliftment on all issues falling under the State Subjects in the Constitution of India. Thus, duly advancing and ensuring an environment of social equity, equality of access to rights and opportunities with particular focus on the welfare of the weaker sections.
I am, therefore, fully aware that I might be better positioned to make a claim that Regional Parties do, in fact, have greater leverage and innovation in advancing effective nation building.
I take this opportunity to refresh you briefly the history of how we became the 22nd State of the Indian federal system. The events prior to the independence of the country in 1947 had a deep impact in the minds of our forefathers in Sikkim. The people of Sikkim then wanted to emulate the achievements brought about by the Freedom Fighters like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, Sardar Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose, Dal Bahadur Giri and Maj. Durga Malla, and such other host of Indian leaders. This led to a democratic upsurge in the Kingdom of Sikkim in 1949. Much later, the seeds sown thus bore fruit under the astute leadership of L.D. Kazi, the first Chief Minister of a democratic State.
I, as a teenager deeply impressed as a democratic soldier was swept into the popular people’s movement for self-determination and self rule. Therefore, based on free choice and collective wishes of the Sikkimese people, Sikkim entered into the federal structure of the Indian union in May 1975. From both a national and a regional perspective, I can imagine no greater proof of national integration and patriotism than this.
Today, our State is known as progressive, peaceful, green and innovative. Flourishing tourism travel to our State is indicative of this. We are therefore showing greater result oriented leadership amongst smaller States. This has a lot to do with the way we have brought about a high level of social justice. All pro-people policies have to have a strong element of social justice. Therefore all sections of our society are woven into a single identity of being Sikkimese. We are deeply proud of this fact.
I would like to add that our government has successfully redefined the concept of a border State. Peace, communal harmony, security, growth and development are indicators of this. Our people are free from insurgency, terrorism and fear psychosis. We have proved this in these actual terms thus making a great contribution towards advancing nation building.
The Nation is already 64 years into independence and democracy. Now we have enough grounds to argue and conclude that issue of contribution towards nation building is irrespective and independent of mainstream party or regional party, large party or smaller party, party at the centre, region or otherwise. All parties have contributed as much as so many other people and institutions.
Two questions need to be considered. One is whether deepening of democracy, which is always good thing, is furthered by initiatives at the regional level and by regional parties? The other is whether regional parties are better suited and positioned to further the goals of development like eradication of poverty, providing better healthcare and access to quality education?
Briefly, I would say that at the micro level and in the eyes of the common man, nation building means providing basic necessities for sustaining the lives of the millions in our country. In addition, we need to provide a healthy ecosystem for our youth to be able to get gainful livelihood opportunities. There are other aspects to Nation building but we need to look at it from the perspective of the general masses.
Regional parties in the length and breadth of Country have come to being as expressions of people’s aspirations which is both constitutional and democratic. Hence, they do manifest deepening of democracy and not taking anything away from it. I will try and argue that both the questions are well served by the Regional Parties. There are three dimensions that I will deal with in my argument.
Knowledge and proximity
Regional parties, by its very definition and nature, will have the advantage of having firsthand knowledge of the local situation. Hence giving full backing to the Panchayati Raj Institutions is a pointed response to this knowledge. PRI has been playing a great role in making development happen in the villages of Sikkim. We were privileged to be awarded the first Nirmal Rajya Purashkar by the President of India. Our endeavour has been to make our villages as self-sufficient units which are also self-governed. This is definitely a major contribution in deepening of democracy. Another interesting aspect is the global challenges that are looming large. This makes local and regional challenges even greater, for instance, with climate change. A policy has to be made centrally but action on the ground has to be done locally. Besides what can be done in the mountains is very different from coastal areas. Mahatma Gandhiji had all along stressed the need for local action and planning. It is only now, after so many years, we are finding that he was correct.
Our other actions in banning grazing in the forest areas, reducing use of plastics and the subsequent efforts in greening Sikkim through harit kranti, green mission and ten minutes to earth, adds tremendously to the rich biodiversity. With over 85 percent of forest cover, I feel proud to have been recognized as the Greenest Chief Minister of India by the Centre of Science and Environment. While we guard the Himalayan borders with other countries, we also add to environmental and water securities for the country. We therefore forego many development options generally available with lowland States. We however, find that at the national level, these sacrifices we make are hardly accounted for.
All these achievements clearly suggest that our appreciation of the ground realities is so much better. It is not coloured by central level politics or national parties and this helps. National parties cannot adequately appreciate the problem of mountain areas, like Sikkim, which has come to the mainstream much later. The sweeping parameters and policies adopted by the national party and national leadership do not generally factor in the hopes and aspirations, needs and requirements of regional and smaller States. On the other hand, we can appreciate local problems and are better suited to represent the larger interest of citizens based on the situational analysis of a particular region or area.
This should be considered positively as a mark of widespread political consciousness growing among the citizens. Mainstream parties should be able to understand that this is a happy development to see that the regional parties are contributing towards nation building in a better and effective manner in their region and their States.
Regional parties with certain defined political programs and slogans based on region specific or area specific needs can always promote emotional proximity and physical compactness in terms of advancing national integration.
I have experienced obvious advantage of leading my party and government in terms of a more focused development intervention at a very local level based on the felt needs to bring about speedy progress. This has led to my Government making significant progress in sectors like social justice, education and health. We have ambitious targets of poverty free mission, kutcha house free mission, Organic State mission and so on by 2015.
Regional aspirations and smaller States
What are problems being faced by smaller states? What are the downsides of being regional or regional player? Problems besetting smaller states are not proportionate to the size of the State in question. Smaller states have same degree of paraphernalia like we find in bigger states. Budget formulation and annual plan finalization is done as per the Gadgil Committee formula taking population ratio as the criteria. Due to scanty allocation, we get little elbow room to manoeuvre our development options in the State. Our voices fail to reach the corridors of power in the Centre. In the Parliament too with only one Lok Sabha MP and one Rajya Sabha MP, everything becomes rather difficult.
We feel the pinch as major benefits are taken away by the Ministries headed by MPs from larger States. Sometimes we pine that a new system should be formulated for allocating number of MPs on the size of small states and larger states and not on the basis of population in the states. While we follow all the central policies and the guidelines but at times, perforce, we have to think in terms of protecting our demographics from the growth of people coming from other parts of country.
Smaller states have little or no influence over the policy direction undertaken by the Central Government. Party with greater number of MPs has greater say over the running of the Central Government. For example, after Sikkim’s merger with the Indian Union in 1975, not a single Cabinet berth has been allotted to Sikkim’s MPs and not a single Sikkimese has been appointed to any constitutional post. Smaller State like Sikkim has no representative in the Central Government. This tends to puncture our self esteem and a sense of dismay settles over when any regional aspiration is seldom honoured.
Unless there is overall development and safety ensured for all people living in villages and from the poor sections of the society, the country cannot prosper. For this to happen, people must have easy access to widespread opportunities, rights and power including larger interest group like the tribals, dalits and other backward classes. Why is there a burgeoning demand for regional identity and new statehood demands? This is basically to seek security and development among the marginalized section of people. Instead of browbeating and subduing popular aspirations, it is necessary that justice is done to all the citizens of the country.
Understanding of Nationalism
Under Indian federalism, a cordial centre-state relationship and cooperation is a must and everyone should respect people’s mandate both at the state and centre. This will mean respecting democracy in letter and spirit. However, when there is unfounded contest between parties as being bigger or smaller, influential or less influential, this will lead to weakening of Country itself.
In order to strengthen our understanding of national unity, we may need to revisit stereotype thinking and obsolete outlook both in terms of country’s strength and understanding of nationalism. In the same context, I suggested earlier and still say why not substitute the word ‘Sindh’ in our National Anthem with the word “Sikkim”? The basic fact is when India became independent Sikkim was not in the national mainstream. Now has not that fact altered? This will further cement the edifice of emotional integration and justice done to the peace-loving citizens of India. Please forgive me, if I am blamed for inviting storms into a tea cup!
While we are emerging as one of the leading economies of the world, there is problem of general disenchantment among people when they look upon the political system in the country. People are losing faith on the political establishment and political leadership. But is the political leadership alone to be blamed? Can sweeping generalization not do injustice to ideal politicians in the country, who have been working so hard sincerely, honestly and so diligently? How do we repay them for their selfless service to the country? The people are responsible for providing an alternative. While choosing their representatives, are not people accountable for making the right choice? People need to live with rights and responsibility. Unless they are capable and competitive to live as responsible Citizens, it is wrong to blame the system and leadership alone. This is no solution and we are, therefore, finding that the Constitution itself is under threat.
Nation Building is a complex exercise. Regional aspirations and their democratic outpouring is healthy and does help in making regional parties more flexible and innovative in listening to and addressing the aspirations of the people.
Having had the enduring experience of leading a regional political party and the government since 1994, I have overcome temptation and incitement for moving away from remaining regional in character and spirit. This has, indeed, strengthened our regional claims towards consolidation of national governance, collective well being and overall prosperity of the Nation at large. And next time, I stand with you, I will have not changed my mind, my ethos and my political position.
At the end, while taking the debate forward, I would always welcome your suggestions to make our exercise mutually beneficial to benefit our people, our region and our Nation.
Thank you
.JPG)
