The She Tughlaq of India: Only 1 Copy Available (An Old and Rare Book)

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

There are numerous books on the Emergency. Mine is entirely different. I have viewed the problem as a historical culmination of factors inherent in our body politic. One of these factors is the corruption, in general. The other is the inbuilt incentive to corruption in our politics and economy. To cite an example, the office of Prime Minister has been rendered an unassailable position not merely by virtue of the popularity of the man holding this office, but by the strength of the Constitution which empowers him to choose his Cabinet from among the elected representatives. These representatives do not speak for their electorate but as their master bids them to speak. He has a bait for them from him they have the hope of picking up a crumb or two, thrown by him during the tenure of the legislature. This is what I call constitutional corruption. With such strategies the rulers can turn our democracy into a one- party state or even a dictatorship or a "dicto-democracy" where a dictatorial stance is shrouded by surface democratic precepts, all in connivence with the elected representatives. If a Nixon could corrupt democratic values, there was no harm in the thinking that overtook America in those days, that the Constitution of the country ought to be amended to forbid the US President to run for a second term. The unlimited period allowed to a President earlier was reduced to two terms merely because the people had seen in this a dictatorial tinge. Concentrating power into one person's hands is like putting all one's eggs into one basket which may fall and with it may crumble the edifice of the country's hopes and aspirations. Diffused power, political and economic, is not so easy to destroy.

Red in tooth and claw the Indian Emergency, as witnessed by each freedom loving individual, has laid bare before the world that the fundamental rights of the citizen can be sacrificed at the will and whim of the Prime Minister without sanction from the Cabinet, without sanction from Parliament or courts.

**Contents and Sample Pages**