CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNANCE: MORALITY AND ETHICS GONE FOR A TOSS?

A person is known for his morality and the values he upholds. This correspondence is similar to the society that we live in. Governance on a macro-micro continuum requires not only an effective constitutional and legal framework but also the values that we cherish and the morality that we uphold.

1. Outline

Democratic governance is the essential paraphernalia for creating, maintaining, enforcing, and sustaining a rightful order for society backed by security, equity, and justice. It is not that everything operates in a vacuum, but more significantly, the constitutional and legal framework through which we are evolving More particularly, the constitutional and legal framework that is being framed through deliberation, discussion, drafting, review, finalisation, and adoption through appropriate stakeholders That framework may be called the fundamental law of the land. In India, we call it the Constitution of India. It was adopted on November 26, 1949, and came into effect on January 26, 1950.

2. Achievements

It created and adopted certain structures and processes based on legislation, execution, and adjudication in correspondence with the legislature, executive, and judiciary. At the national level, these are the Parliament, the Prime Minister in a cabinet form of government, and the Supreme Court. Correspondingly, at the state level, we have the state legislature, the chief minister in a cabinet form of government, and the high court.

We have a very brilliant constitutional and legal doctrine with no appropriate framework of values, ethics, or morality to sustain and enforce the constitutional and legal doctrine. That huge vacuum is still being felt even after 75 years of independence. That is why we are experiencing a pathology of bankruptcy and corruption in our legal and financial governance.

However, in spite of such shortcomings, we could still manage to achieve certain advancements across regions, spheres, and sectors due to our knowledgeable and skilled human resource base.

The significant part is that we are moving as a people, as a society, and as a country. There is no looking back. The empowerment process is underway through significant advancements in the knowledge and skill base of our human resource component across the regional urban, rural, and sectoral continuum. Digitization through technological advancement and adaptation considerably bridges the distance and reduces the time lag in decision-making, thus boosting the need for on-time requirements. The potential of our soft skill base is well recognised. It is a march towards empowerment in exercising choice and making decisions on one’s career potential based on employability, entrepreneurial initiative, and so on. Physical distance and movement are being reduced considerably through virtual and online modes. Operational scaling up is enhanced by speed in oversight, control, assessment, evaluation, and enforcement, be it in security, law and order, education, health, service, manufacturing, trade, or business across sectors and regions.

3. Shortcomings

Lagging behind, however, are certain fallouts from the process of rapid technological advancement and adaptation. As some move forward with better speed and some lag behind, creating a gap between various regions, sectors, structures, processes, and elements. It seems we are moving away from oversight to manage our own resources. The more the digitization process was affected by high-level corruption and fraud involving our natural and public resources,

The noteworthy are: the Punjab National Bank scam relates to a fake letter of undertaking worth more than Rs 10,000 crore to benefit certain fraudsters like Nirav Modi, et al. The ABG Shipyard Ltd.ud, in Gujarat was involved in the biggest banking fraud worth more than Rs 22,000 crore. Besides, we also witness a number of other scams in the mining industry in Odisha, Jharkhand, Goa, Karnataka, and so on. 

4. Remarks

The issue is not our constitution or laws but our own people, who are the trustees of such public responsibilities. If morality and ethics are going down, no law or legal remedy will come along to checkmate these dastardly acts by certain irresponsible public officials who care a damn about anything other than money.

How can this be addressed? Let's ponder it.

-Asutosh Satpathy 

 

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