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The more things change ...Periodically it comes up - the debate over whether India should trade in its current parliamentary system for th...

The more things change 8230;
Periodically it comes up 8211; the debate over whether India should trade in its current parliamentary system for the presidential form of government. In the past it would be an occasion for a few leaders in the newspapers, some seminars and the matter would fade away into the background. But with the Bharatiya Janata Party proposing to set up a commission to review the Constitution however, the debate has acquired a more urgent dimension.

Doubts have been raised over the issue, one feeling being that the ruling party is seeking a short cut to political survival particularly given our recent bouts of unstable governments. As the President said in his Republic Day speech last week, it is not the Constitution that has failed us but we who have failed the Constitution. There is also a feeling, despite the Prime Minister8217;s assurance that the basic structure will not be tampered with, that major changes such as centralised rule and removal of Article 370 are on the agenda. Thateven if the BJP8217;s proposals do not go through at the present time they will set the stage for an overhaul at a later date.

Do we really need a change? Over the next few months the question will probably be intensely debated. But apart from the familiar arguments for and against, there is another element that could wield some influence on the outcome which is society8217;s changing attitudes towards the concept of the rule of law. There has been, particularly in recent times, a growing impatience with laws, rules and self governing codes of ethics. Take the judiciary for instance. In the past it was expected that to be perceived as just and unaffected by factors such as popular opinion judges would impose certain restrictions on themselves such as avoidance of publicity. These days however, it is not uncommon to see interviews with senior judges and photographs in personal settings. Or take the press.

One of the first stories I was asked to research when I became a journalist about fifteen years ago was acover story on ethics and the press. Many of the things we wrote about then sound unbelievably quaint in today8217;s circumstances.

Contrast the horror over cub reporters accepting gifts at press conferences to a situation where even senior journalists would think nothing of attending and giving oodles of free publicity to launch parties for luxury goods. The separation of advertising and editorial seems a poor joke now with managements talking of newspapers as products and marketing vehicles rather than the purveyors of truth.

What I am trying to describe is not the old clichacirc;euro;scaron; about how values have declined but the increased tendency to cast aside rules as being insignificant and the pursuit of short-term gains being sufficient reason to cast away the rigour of the legal or correct8217; process.

The recent action of the Central Vigilance Commissioner 8212; putting names of bureaucrats facing inquiries on corruption charges on the Net regardless of the fact that the charges have yet to be proved is a clearexample. The same impatience with the law has been evident among the Mumbai police with more dramatic consequences since the mid-Eighties. I am referring of course to the practice of encounters8217; 8212; a euphemism for getting rid of alleged criminals in staged shootouts.

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One can argue, with reason, that people are always bound to fall short of the ideal. But the point here is that there is social approval for what might earlier have been considered a compromise in the pejorative sense. Few today, I think, would question the propriety of judges giving interviews. In conversations with non-journalists I find no disapproval for instance on the notion of, for instance, a publication or TV channel owning other media channels or profitable enterprises and using its editorial space to plug the same. And talk to most middle class citizens in the country8217;s commercial capital and you would find a considerable degree of consternation as to why encounters8217; are not right when the people being killed are claimed to begangsters.

The courts take long, publications need revenue are arguments usually put forward to support short cuts. Irrefutable but hardly new.

The idea that laws or ethical guidelines are framed to ensure a balance, in this case, between justice and human rights8217; profit and credibility and that the exclusive pursuit of one would be at the cost of the other is one that finds less and less appreciation. Any law, even the most enlightened is but an option. There are always loopholes and alternatives. What gives a law validity in a democracy is the acknowledgement by the majority that the option, with all its faults, is that best guarantor of the greatest good.

The concept of what constitutes the greatest good is of course, subject to change. No law need be immutable. And the Constitution has been amended before, and often. But when the idea of voluntarily surrendering to a law or a code for a predetermined direction itself being under threat, there is a possibility that a review of what was meant to bea charter for the country for many years to come could be taken less lightly than it deserves.