:: Antara Dev Sen

Cosmetic austerity

Antara Dev Sen

Sept.17 : Cosmetics have their uses. They can help you look better, even younger and healthier. Of course they cannot actually make you younger or healthier. In fact, they can be really bad for health, ruining your skin and hair and eyesight, triggering allergies and even slowly destroying your life, like with Michael Jackson.

Sadly, our government is unaware of this. Always excited about cosmetic enhancement, it has now turned to a flamboyant austerity drive that is doomed to fail, instead of long-term cost-cutting measures or curbing corruption — that frightful drain on public resources that impedes governance and sucks the lifeblood out of the poor.

But being obsessed with ostentatious lifestyles and cosmetics is part of Delhi’s charm. You get used to it, especially to the expensive, diligent, posh make-up that offers the "natural" look. I grew up in blood-red Bengal, where there was no need for austerity — there was no ostentatious spending, the Communists lived simple lives in simple homes even if they did enjoy their Scotch in private moments. They came largely from the upper strata of society, usually had a bar-at-law degree from England, and tried hard to be one with the masses. That has not changed very much even now. And the new challenger to the throne of Bengal proudly flaunts her lower-middle class identity in her ordinary cotton sari, rubber chappals and jhola. Neither group needs to call for austerity. Yet both are guilty of seriously wasting public money — through bad governance, apathy, bandhs, destructive protests and, of course, corruption.

In short, if we wish to end the waste of public money, we need more than cosmetic changes. The austerity drive is fine for local colour, pretty much like lipstick or kohl, but we could do with some real change. And the political will to end corrupt customs, clean the system and plug loopholes that drain public funds. Like home minister P. Chidambaram’s call for police accountability in the face of muscle-flexing by the state governments.

"It is a matter of deep regret that many police officers have been reduced to a football, to be kicked here and there, from one post to another", said Mr Chidambaram at a meeting of senior police officers this week. But he did not see the police as victims. "Why do you remain silent when arbitrary postings and transfers are made by the state government? Is it not your duty, as police chiefs, to raise your voice not only on behalf of your officers but also on behalf of the people that you are duty-bound to protect?"

Meanwhile, law minister Veerappa Moily was also protesting state interference in the delivery of justice. It was about the fake "encounter killing" of teenaged Mumbai student Ishrat Jahan and others by the Gujarat police in 2004. After metropolitan magistrate S.P. Tamang ruled that Ishrat Jahan, Javed Ghulam Sheikh, Amjad Ali and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani were not linked to any terror group and were killed in cold blood, the Gujarat high court stayed the order, accusing Tamang of overstepping his jurisdiction. "This is the first time a government has found fault with a report given by a magistrate and has sought a stay", said the law minister. "He was also transferred the next day. I am concerned with the course of justice. Which judge can work with independence when there is so much interference?"

Political interference diligently keeps governance at bay, and usually through the police. One can hardly expect justice when the police are corrupt and working as the private army of politicians. Factor in political influence on the judiciary, the trickledown effect of corruption at every administrative and judicial level, and you have a system so unhealthy that you need surgical masks to protect yourself. The privileged classes can access the mask. The underprivileged quietly succumb to this festering systemic disease. This is the real "swine flu" that we need to guard against.

Police reforms have been pending for decades, there is no political will to make the police independent or hold them accountable. We are still governed by archaic British laws that look upon citizens of this democracy as subjects to be controlled. Combined with political influence, false cases, fake "encounter" killings and rampant corruption, it makes the police not the protector but the enemy of the people. The less power you have, the more you are exploited and harassed by the police.

In fact, protesting police violence has often led to the consolidation of forces against the state and strengthened the hands of Maoist rebels. Traditionally, the Naxals supported the weak against the unfair demands of the powerful and tried to straighten out social justice through the barrel of the gun. In areas where government failed, Maoists replaced the police. And soon replaced police atrocities with Maoist atrocities.

For some years now, our government bosses from the Prime Minister down have been complaining about Maoist violence being the biggest threat to Indian security. Unfortunately, it stops at the complaining and is countered only by more force. To complicate matters further, we are stuck between the Centre and the state and a lot of jargon. Because security comes under the Centre, but law and order and the police are state subjects. And without proper policing we cannot aspire for reliable internal security.

Three years ago, in September 2006, the Supreme Court had delivered a historic judgment in Prakash Singh vs Union of India, that laid down practical mechanisms for police reform. If state governments had honoured the court’s directives it would have given some functional autonomy to the police, through basic professionalism like security of tenure, transparent and streamlined appointment and transfer processes, etc, and could have brought in police accountability, both for collective and individual misconduct. The court’s directives were to be implemented by December 31, 2006. Unfortunately, though some states attempted to obey the court, many did not.

States like Uttar Pradesh, for example, believe that the police and bureaucrats are part of the chief minister’s feudal staff and personal militia. Senior civil servants are shuffled at whim, transferred for not being respectful enough, sidelined for doing their duty. States like Gujarat have the police killing citizens — especially if Muslim — either in fake "encounters" like Sohrabuddin and his wife or Ishrat Jahan and her friends, or by tacit assistance to the mob in engineered "riots" like in 2002.

Hopefully, Mr Chidambaram’s call for police accountability will trigger real change. We need that far more urgently than beauty aids like the austerity drive.

Antara Dev Sen is editor of The Little Magazine. She can be contacted at sen@littlemag.com