By: Shahid Majeed Mir
Contemporary societies have evolved certain distinguished attributes since times immemorial. These attributes shape and reshape the makeup of society to reorient social attitudes, preferences and beliefs. Our society rests on secular and Democratic credentials where equality and liberty are inalienable to man’s life. This century rests on the belief of Humanism which accords central place to individual in society. In this respect Montesquieu’s separation of power is supposed to play prominent role. The distinction in spatial extent of official jurisdiction to three branches was brought by the theorist to duly regard Liberty as inalienable. It laid down the conditions for different branches necessary for smooth working without undue interference. The executive branch has grown in size and weight in modern governmental structure. This branch is supposed to implement the policies, programmes , laws framed by legislative organ of government. There mandate is to ensure that what government desires reaches to people at ground level. They are accountable to make it successful. To a slightly perverted form it appears as if the day for executive branch is poor. The rising incidences of corruption have downgraded morale and essence of policies in general and repute of whole executive machinery in particular. Herein Kashmir, the oft repeated episodes involving top brass officials in corruption have became norm of the day. Is it moral crisis or materialistic boom or a combination of the two?
The rational deliberation of contemporary decision making approach is attributed to scientific understanding of things. They are believed to be governed by reason. When this orientation manifests in human beings who are supposed to work out the implementation of a given policy, the question of its success is bound to arise. Whenever such a deliberation reaches stage of impartial analysis what we encounter is perversion of the whole policy. The higher rung officials claim commensurable hush money for any work expected to be their obligation. They concoct the whole case to compel applicants for such payment.
The Oxford dictionary defines corruption as “Something that is evil but is supposed to be good”. However the manifestation has varied application because it takes care of monetary as well as moral aspect of corruption. Is this perversion of Rationality of 21st Century?
Reason teaches man to respect the rights of others when authorized to keep the trust of power for temporary period of time. However the crisis of this reason in that man came at the heels of materialism which teaches the saga of ‘Mine and Thine’ and inseminated the ideology of individualism. The people in office exploit the opportunity on the basis of this twin character but to its dismal picture the actual state of affairs presents the contrary and opposite thesis in reality. The people oblige to take care of implementation stage of policy exploit the gravity of situation.
Here, in Kashmir the oft repeated incidences are correlated to rank and file in almost all offices. The worst hit are ‘Block Development Department’ and ‘Recruitment Agencies’. The huge investment through prim pumping of government especially through NREGA creates avenues for the inimical elements to operate. Is this the duty of executive or perversion of the real duty expected out of them? The irony of the fact is that despite numerous checks and balances in place like RTI, the agencies vested with the job seem to be a part of the whole nexus.
Summing up the discussion, the illegitimate actions on part of executive are unworthy in century given the sobriquet of reasonable civilization. The discrimination faced by people at ground level because of the service providers is actually mockery of modern bureaucracy. The pejorative sense of respect it gets isn’t out of choice but out of its own karma. The diversion of public funds towards illegitimate sectors due to corruption adds more burden because what is intended to be of change comes at the heels of hush money. The Revenue department in our backyard has reached such an extreme level that acquiring a mere certificate costs around a thousand bucks and the checks and balances in place are inefficient to put a break on these elements. There’s a need to reorient the approach towards this socio economic disease.
The writer can be reached at mirshahid363@gmail.com
