March 9, 2009

Ready for Perestroika and Glasnost in India??

Recent headlines in papers has brought out the debate once again... Is it time India moved to a Presidential form of democracy? Like it is with any option, I mean pros and cons, I would tend to believe it does appear to be favourable to have a Presidential form of governance a la USA.

Increasingly, regional parties are calling the shots and if this trend continues, we will have a pot pourrie of parties wrestling in the centre with a huge jumbo cabinet and ministers will be minsiters for the designation and status it carries rather than any work!! Not that things are very much different now, just that I think it will be worse, if that's possible..

I think our country will be a much better place if we could all vote for the President... he or she can then choose his/her team based on competence and do away with this 'carrot and stick' approach. Vote bank politics has touched a all time high with increasing say of regional parties with as little as a single seat... We can also do away with the highly decorative and meaningless and highly dispensable post called 'Governor'...

I propose a President, directly voted by people, who will pick a team and form the Cabinet and the states will continue to be governed by Chief Ministers voted by the state citizens and I also propose a more de-centralized federal structure with more autonomy given to states...

I don't say, this is going to be an Utopian, fantastic governance... but I do think it is time we deliberate on this subject and move towards a directly elected President in India

3 comments:

Meena said...

We positively need a change from our ' Demoncrazy 'to a system that makes politicians more accountable / responsible . A die hard optimist that I am, we are in for sweeping changes to the better , perhaps a system very unique to suit our diversity.

Narendra shenoy said...

Very strongly agree with this. The only problem is that none of the regional parties will support it. And in the current scenario, there is no way any constitutional amendment will go through without their ok.

In the immortal words of jim hacker, it is like asking an alcoholic to blow up a distillery.

Devi said...

Well put Narendra. But its time we citizens act as one big pressure group and get noticed.. I agree, its too radical for most politicians to accept this change but they actually will benefit in the long run.