The previous vp additionally pointed to the “growing authoritarianism” the world over.
“Last week a writer in The New York Times noted that around the world authoritarianism is ascending. And added that the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance has noted recently that over the past six years, the number of countries moving towards authoritarianism more than doubled than the number of those moving towards democracy,” mentioned Ansari.
The previous Vice President referred to as Kumar’s ebook “a set of writings depicting a contemporary vision of our democracy”.
Kumar, who had served because the Union minister of Legislation and Justice within the Manmohan Singh authorities between 2012 and 2013, on his half made a collective jibe on the Opposition.
“It is wrong, for example, for the Opposition to find small pick holes here and there in foreign policies or defense-related things,” mentioned Kumar, including, “It was wrong for the Opposition to condemn the government security at the time of pandemic”.
The previous Union minister had give up the Congress final 12 months, claiming the occasion had misplaced contact with floor actuality.
Wednesday’s ebook launch was additionally attended by former Supreme Court docket Choose Madan Lokur, Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha, ThePrint journalist Jyoti Malhotra, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister of Dr. Farooq Abdullah, Communist Get together of India (Marxist) normal secretary Sitaram Yechury, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda, Congress MP Karti Chidambaram & Lok Sabha MP Danish Ali.
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‘Worst thing when parties call each other names’
Hitting out on the opposition events, Kumar, a former extra solicitor normal of India, mentioned, “the point is you can’t beat some people on their turf. If you are claiming a qualitative distinction for your politics, you can’t get into the competitive game with them”, hinting that the Congress and different opposition events want to seek out their very own distinct identification.
“The worst factor that you are able to do to your democracy is when political events name one another’s names. Right here it has been our custom that you simply don’t name an individual can not see ‘blind’, however you name him ‘Soordas‘ [a blind, 15th-century poet],” said Kumar.
Jha, a member of the opposition party Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), agreed that the Opposition did need to introspect on certain issues.
“The very conversation between the government and the Opposition is a conversation based on animosity. Look at the language they [the ruling party] employ and awfully we also apply the same language,” said Jha. He added that the ultimate sufferers are not individual members of any party but the “idea of democracy”.
In his Kumar also writes that “Despite a proclaimed commitment to the rule of law, the country’s authorized processes have failed justice in a number of methods, prompting the best courtroom to lament the ‘morality of justice at the hands of law’.”
He provides: “The politically expedient but ill-conceived reversal of the presumption of innocence as a cardinal rule of criminal jurisprudence in several statutes has facilitated the State’s overreach in a continuing diminution of the republic’s libertarian ethos”.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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