The highest law making body in our country is the Parliament. The Parliament has three prongs: the President, House of People (Lok Sabha), and House of States (Rajya Sabha). In democracy, the laws are made in the Parliament. The opposition parties are vital to the survival of the democracy because one of the aspects of democracy is the Government by discussion. Without discussion, the policies can not be formulated. The laws and acts are made by the Parliament, but in India, the laws and acts are now made by BJP Government using anti-democratic methods.

The discussions are avoided and the opposition parties are bypassed to pass the laws that help the cronies of the party in power, which is the BJP-led NDA.

The Finance Bill of 2017 passed by BJP government in the Parliament was like a Trojan horse.

In the guise of Finance Bill, various amendments were brought in the Representation of People Act and Adhaar Act. The amendments to these acts were brought through the Finance Bill. Perhaps this Finance Bill is much less dealing with the finance but more with how the political parties can be funded by the private capitalists without any accountability and with how to control citizens through Adhaar Card.

The Adhaar card will become an important tool to track the citizens and survey them, which will lead to profiling of the citizens into so called “Good” and “Bad” citizens. The important acts must be discussed in the Parliament and they should be freely available for the citizens to comment upon, just like the constitution of India, which remained a public document for a considerable period before it was debated and finally enforced.

The BJP government will put in place many laws which will lead to consolidation of its ideology. One of such laws is the Enemy Property Act passed in the Parliament with only 60 or so members present. This Act takes the property of Muslims whose ancestors had some connection in the Pakistan even before Pakistan was formed.

This act is slated to seize the property worth 1 lakh crores from the Muslims who has nothing to do with Pakistan and others who has nothing to do with China. Pakistan and China are India’s declared enemy nations. But India’s enemy nations are now building a common economic partnership which will make Pakistan an emerging country. There are already signs of it. One of the effective policies will be to allow free play of trade with these countries which will not only make the region a dominant economic power but also it will help the region to become an important power in the world.

But before India takes on any policy course, the matters must be discussed from all angles and for that Hitlerian approach to Governance will not make our democracy work.

Author – Mangesh Dhaiwale, Human Rights Activist