pakistan: could this happen in India?

[Padmanabha Rao K V <kvprao@igidr.ac.in>]

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A fundamental mistake often seen in the reactions of the populace to
political happenings is the emphasis given to Institutions over
Personalities; something that, I believe, goes against the very basis of

Institutions!  I would like to record my understanding of this here
hoping
to clarify it through the forum.

Institutions are artefacts representative of a communal/national culture

(confining ourselves here to the political/apersonal institutions).
They
are sought to be sustained forever and made an Enabler of well-being for

the actual and exact people who deigned it useful to themselves to
establish the Institution upon them as a matter of group behavior.  It
is
presumed that the people here includes each and every one existing in
that
community/nation.  Having sanctified an Institution, a people ordinarily

find the means to put it into practice and derive the Real fruits
expected
thereof.

In the case of an Institution known as 'Democratically installed
Parliament' the people ordinarily find a PERSON(s) and supply her/him
the
moral authority to use force on any member breaking the primary Contract

of the polity. The simple point is, the real and actual harvest of the
Institution begins and ends with the *person* occupying the Institute.
I
do not think there's any worth in refering to 'The Prime Minister' or
'The
PMO'; it is meaningful only if referred to as 'Shri. Atal Bihari
Vajpayee', the real 3-D bodied and brained male we have installed as our

'Prime Minister'.  It is meaningful only and only when referred to Shri.

Nawaz Sharif, to Shri. Pervez Musharaff, to Smt. Sheikh Hasina...  And
yet, I wonder, whence the logic for those impersonal representations?!

In the case of Pakistan it *appears* that Mr.Sharif has lost the
confidence of the political entity he sought to represent.  And in that
light he had no reason to wield any power.  Additionally it *appears*
that
the pakistanis would be happy to enlist the services of Mr.Musharaff at
this moment.  If this isn't DEMOCRASY then the english langauge needs an

overhauling.  The important distinction here though, is the veracity of
the claim that Mr.Musharaff is popular.  And here it truly doesn't
matter
how many academics, balldancers, corporates or zoologists vehemently
oppose Mr.Musharaff...are they in greater number is all that *counts*.
Indeed Indian foreign policy would do well to maintain this definition
of
democrasy, simply because there's more of such coups to come from the
Second and Third world.

In the case of India it is sufficient to tally the popularity of
Mr.Vajpayee in the country to realise the meagre potential for coups.
And
equally if not more, we have to graph Mr.Mallik (the COAS) the real 3-D
organic man to neatly understand the remoteness of such possibilities.
It
is the men/women who matter and so it is the Character of these
men/women
that any populace should be scrutinising to its satisfaction.  It makes
no
sense to potray Institutions as greater than the men/women representing
the Institute. Why is this absurdly simple fact lost sight of in the
general discourse?! What prevents us from zooming in to the real
men/women
in the polity national and international (or for that matter in the
social/personal) institutions too?

Have I been wrong in the first place? I would implore you to look into
the
real men/women representing the institutions of Bureaucrasy, the
Judiciary, the UPSC,....and ponder on what the insistence on
Institutions
instead of Men/Women can do.  It is not the Chair but Character that
should count....not the Deputy Commissioner but the Mr/Ms.abcxyz that
matters.

Any debate here?

/padmanabha rao



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