By Anirudh Prakash
India today is increasingly conscious of the need for a renewed phase of economic reform and revitalisation of its economy that comes out of it. Simultaneously, there is also a perceptible level of awareness about the need to deal with security as a prime national priority.
Perception of these two clear priorities notwithstanding, the question is whether either economic reforms or national security measures can be pushed through by the Union and State governments without evolving a consensus on national safety ethic, which is people-centric and not process-centric.
The life of an average Indian has been threatened by a variety of factors. These range from road and rail accidents, fires, collapses of bridges and buildings to deaths from food poisoning, illicit liquor trade, inadequate public health delivery system and other natural and man-made disasters. India’s security personnel as well as civilians are losing their lives in the war against terrorism and insurgencies of hybrid variety. These multiple challenges to national security can be met effectively only when an enhanced safety ethic is ingrained in India’s civil and strategic systems and mechanisms.
The national safety ethic, evolved through participatory consultations at the levels of the central and state legislatures, should be binding on the Union and state governments. This will facilitate putting into place, systemic moves and measures that make the people of India relatively safer and more secure in all walks of life.
The UPA government, which has recently launched its mammoth food security initiative to bolster its declining electoral prospects, must realise that without infusion of such an ethic, its move would not only push back the process of economic reforms but also endanger elements of national safety.
Regardless of the political capital, it might or might not accumulate for the ruling dispensation, food security or security for want of nutrition cannot be achieved in the absence of a national safety ethic that empowers people to monitor its implementation on ground. In the absence of it, the massive exercise will only lead to further corruption, wastage and public disenchantment.
It is unfortunate that even 63- years after the enunciation of the Constitution, the level of awareness about national safety as a subject of focus remains abysmally low even among our lawmakers. Though the derivatives of national safety have been clearly mentioned in the Directive Principles of the state Policy, neither the Union nor the state governments have shown any zeal to push forward action to promote it.
Without relentless focus on national safety ethic, the contours of Indian democracy will remain shallow. Neither the war against terror nor the war against hunger can be effective in its absence.
It is time that a reasoned and well measured campaign for national safety ethic should be launched. The campaign should be reckoned as integral to a global prioritisation done at the behest of the United Nations. New Delhi will do well to take a cue from the United States and the European countries that structurally maintain very high standards of safety for their people.
The tragic death of school children after eating mid-day meals demonstrates the consequences of ignoring the safety ethic by the governments.
The incident may have nothing in common with an equally shattering disaster that struck Uttarakhand recently, resulting in death of thousands of civilians. But the common refrain in both the cases is that there were early warnings in both the cases that the governments concerned could have prevented, or at least mitigated, the damage. In both the cases, these early warnings were ignored for want of a national safety ethic.
The want of a holistic approach to a problem and absence of national safety ethic can also lead to flawed policy designs that can lead to unintended consequences. The food ordinance promulgated by the Centre, for instance, provides subsidised food grains to India’s poor. But its over emphasis on cereals and refusal to address the problem of malnutrition will hit India’s poor on two counts. It will discourage the much needed diversification in agriculture to increase production of proteins, dairy, fruits and vegetables, whose consumption will redress mal-nourishment. And the huge increase in centralised procurement of food grains will lead to rise in their market prices, spurring inflation and affecting the real poor outside the country’s leaking public distribution system.
Another illustrative example of how lack of a national safety ethic twists our response is the government’s response to road accidents. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s interventions, the process and quantum of compensation for victims of road accidents have been liberalised. However, an equally engaging issue of enforcing global standards on the quality of roads and safety with deterrent punishment for those who do not comply with these standards has been ignored.
An ideal national safety ethic involves setting up mechanisms and systems for preventing threats to a citizen’s safety through vigorous enforcement of the laws. It also makes the law enforcing authorities — and this does not mean only police and security forces but also social organisations responsible for implementing social welfare measures in education, public health accountable. INAV