The commemoration of the 60th year of independent India’s Parliament by all members of both houses of the legislature cutting across party lines on May 13, should have been a gala occasion nationwide. Instead, the festivities were muted and confined to Parliament while the rest of the country introspected upon the reality that contemporary India is a deeply flawed democracy characterised by pervasive corruption and a dysfunctional legal system. Unfortunately, during the past six decades after the then newly independent nation adopted the “socialistic pattern of society”, the socialist man defined by his resentment of private enterprise and property and committed to administration by arbitrary government diktat with scant respect for institutions of governance, has come of age. The precedent for transformation of the people of India — once reputed for their honesty and respect for contract — was set by the newly independent country’s socialist governments. Way back in the early 1950s, a pledge made to the Untied Nations to hold a plebiscite in the Kashmir valley was obfuscated; in 1967, a solemn compact made with the princely families of pre-independence India to pay an annual privy purse in exchange for their accession to the Indian Union was reversed; in 1969 private banks were nationalised without compensation to their shareholders, and the fundamental right to own property was abolished. Simultaneously the Supreme Court was packed with a “committed judiciary” which dutifully endorsed the imposition of the infamous 19-month Emergency of 1975-76. The example set by the Central government of routinely breaking solemn agreements contracted with foreign and domestic investors and businessmen has been dutifully followed by state governments. Multinationals such as Cogentrix in Karnataka, Pohang Steel and Vedanta in Odisha, among others, have been seduced into making large investments only to witness their projects bogged down in procedural red tape which can be cut only by massive bribes and pay-offs. Similarly, government rolls out the red carpet for indigenous entrepreneurs only for it to be quickly substituted with red tape and fine print provisions of mala fide legislation designed to extort bribes from businessmen. This is true even of the education sector. This contempt for the sanctity of contract exhibited by the Central and state governments has rubbed off on the people. These days it is routine for lay citizens and businessmen to renege on payments and contracts, secure in the knowledge that it’s not worthwhile to file money recovery suits in the clogged lower courts. Unsurprisingly, India is ranked No.182 (from among 183 countries) on the parameter of ‘enforceability of contracts’ on the World Bank Group’s Ease of Doing Business Index 2011. Even as Parliament, if not the people, celebrates its diamond jubilee, state-sponsored socialism and the coming of age of the amoral socialist man have imposed a heavy burden upon Indian industry and the economy. And this burden weighs most heavily upon the poorest citizens struggling to survive in a nation of dysfunctional institutions. Urgent need for new land acquisition act In most democracies ownership…
