Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | We still deem us as ‘subjects’ not ‘citizens’ and Indians in government as ‘masters’ -Kannan Gopinathan

We still deem us as ‘subjects’ not ‘citizens’ and Indians in government as ‘masters’ -Kannan Gopinathan

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Jan 17, 2021   modified Modified on Jan 19, 2021

-National Herald

While Americans take themselves as citizens and demand responsibility and accountability from power, Indians are still slavish, says Kannan Gopinathan, who resigned from IAS

What happened in Washington DC at the Capitol Hill Building was watched in horror and everybody said, “Look democracy can fail even in America.”

To me it looked like the triumph of American democracy. Attempts to overturn the Presidential election failed. State after state stood up to power. Court after court thew out petitions challenging the election. In many other countries, those rioters would have been shot dead. But the law is taking its course.

Unfortunately, Indian institutions have ceded ground. Imagine this, an entire state was told that you cease to be a state from tomorrow. Earlier, only a declaration of Emergency could take away citizen’s rights. But this government has shown that citizens’ rights can be taken away not just in Kashmir but throughout the nation.

By invoking the Disaster Management Act centrally, by taking away citizens’ cash through Demonetisation, by getting migrant labourers beaten up by the police merely because they were trying to go back home, by commanding individuals to obtain permission before getting married, by questioning their citizenship– we can see how the government has weakened citizens, and how institutions are not able to protect them.

I was a Collector in Dadra Nagar Haveli, and I remember how people from the tribal communitywould refuse to sit on chairs in my office. They preferred to either stand or sit on the floor. In their own country, in an office run by their taxes, in front of an officer whose salary is paid from taxes, they did so because in our minds we are still subjects and not citizens.

Empowering individuals to become citizens began during the UPA government with rights-based laws like Right to information, Right to Work, Right to Food, Right to Education and so on. But this government on the other hand does not believe in giving citizens, rights. It diluted all those empowering laws we gained after years of struggle but did not add anything new.

Please click here to read more.


National Herald, 17 January, 2021, https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/opinion/we-still-deem-us-as-subjects-not-citizens-and-indians-in-government-as-masters?fbclid=IwAR2EqAAHDPVZbiKOS7Va6QW80AnU5SGa0-uSql-v-xZc9mc-OnQBhPVKksA


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close