We have read a lot about the Baba Ramdev and the related stories. There is no doubt that the move by congress to use force on peaceful protestors was atrocious. I hope you would be glad that if I mention that this post is not exactly about that incident.
Instead of evicting Ramdev, I feel, congress could have genuinely considered some of the demands of Baba. Though many points raised by him are valid, it’s not practical to implement it.
However two major demands raised by him appeal to me
1) Bringing back the black money stashed abroad in tax heavens and
2) Electing the PM directly.
It is easier said than done to bring back all the black money stashed abroad. Congress has been in power for the past 60 years. I am sure that most of the money would belong to the congress ministers / party members. No wonder 4 of the senior ministers went to the airport (or at least they were planning to) to convince Baba either to drop the demand or to convince him. The issue of graft has been haunting congress for quite some time now. DMK which has been a part of the congress ministry has also criticized Baba. I believe, if you note the parties which criticize Baba and trace the amount of black money stashed by the members such political parties, 80% of such black money can be brought back to India. It would be foolish to expect the government (any ruling party for that matter including BJP and congress in particular) to act on this as they would be directly affected by this. Who would bell the cat?
If people elect the Prime minister directly, he would have more power and authority. The PM would then be directly answerable to the public when it comes to important issues. However in the current scenario you can have a dummy person as a PM. However good he may be, he would not be in a position to act independently. Again it’s not easy to implement this. There would be several issues. For ex. What would happen if a person from one party gets elected as a PM and another party gets majority? Would he be heading the government, while the ministers would be from other parties? That would be chaotic.
I believe if we address the second point (somehow) we can easily address the first one quite easily.
