Mobilenews24x7 Bureau(Spl)
In a democracy it’s very important that we allow questions to be asked, criticisms to come. One sided attributions are not the solution.
After the disastrous rail accident in Odisha the demands or suppositions asking for the resignation of the Railway minister has a space.
Whether the minister does it or sidestep such moral lines is up to him. It is okay that resignation by itself can never be a quick fix solution to the creaky affairs of the Indian Railway infrastructure or even a legal mandate, it is still pertinent to examine arguments of its efficacy.
Ashwini Vaishnav, let us be frank, resigns or not is after all a political decision. Moreso, may be personal as well.
On the other side, a democracy, the political ‘voice’ of the opposition is as important as the dispensation of the day to hold the powers that be, to accountability, responsibility, and ultimately to corrective actions.
Educational qualification is fine but, there is also merit in the argument that educational accomplishments by themselves do not guarantee better governance as there are other issues of personal propriety, integrity, and assertiveness that may or may not accompany an educated or an ostensibly less-educated Minister. There is no silver bullet on this, but education should generally be welcomed.
We cannot altogether run down the precedence when ministers of high repute took the moral path to reign from their posts as warranted by that time.
It would be pertinent to recall that both Lal Bahadur Shastri and VK Krishna Menon were senior Congress Ministers, though diametrically opposite in personalities, who nonetheless had Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s trust. Their first ministerial stints were in Railways and Defense, respectively.
Two fatal train accidents (1956) had led the then Railway Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, to tender his resignation both times, immediately. It was rejected the first time and on his insistent plea for early acceptance the second time, finally accepted.
The accidents were obviously a technical issues and not one of Shastri’s personal doing, and many parliamentarians beseeched Nehru to pull up the concerned Railway staff instead, but the wise Shastri did not budge knowing that for demonstration of accountability, the buck stopped with him personally.
While a leadership standard was set by Shastri’s selfless act, it wasn’t to be the last of such Railway accidents, but suddenly and more importantly, the principle of governance responsibility got institutionalised in Indian politics like never before.
Like in the case of the unconquerable V Krishna Menon `
The shame of 1962 and its consequential pressures from all quarters led to the forcing of VK Krishna Menon’s ‘resignation’ (not with the same spirit of Lal Bahadur Shastri).
Both Lal Bahadur Shastri and VK Krishna Menon instilled disparate instincts and templates into Indian politics, and history judges both.
Now, returning to the current issue of the Railway Minister and to the larger context of Kavach-like defense afforded onto any questioning of any governance decision like demonetisation, Chinese aggression, COVID handling, hate speeches by senior governmental functionaries, the protection afforded to tainted ministers, etc., by the government in recent times – has there ever been the requisite humility, grace, or dignity of accepting a misstep or mistake in any decision making in recent times?
Resignation is a far cry
However, that perhaps necessitates a political culture of accepting human fallibility and the quest for constant improvement as opposed to dangerously misplaced notions of perfection. But, in an era where to simply ‘question’ the dispensation is almost seditious, imagining or hoping for humility to tender resignation is a far cry.
