ON SUBMISSION

SHARMILA BOSE
Phone : 98 119 15670
Email : bosesharmila@rediffmail.com



24th February, 2009

The Prime Minister of India
New Delhi.

Kind Attn. : Dr. Manmohan Singh

Sub : ‘On Submission’

Dear Sir,

‘On Submission’ is my concluding paper on State-Society relation, in which I am evaluating the entitlements of the community and the parameter of the governance. For this, first I will discuss the criteria of citizenship, secondly the framework of the representation and finally, the harmonious governance of the law, power and faith towards common good within the dejure regime.

Man(Human being) is born free and attains its natural rights by nature is a doctrine of all political philosophies. But the man was bounded with himself with his sets of requirement i.e. food, shelter and sex. Since a man is not complete in himself and hence dependent. The interdependency creates community. To attain his sustainability man has to contribute to the community so that he can claim his survival. This contribution authenticates its membership in the community. Hence man has to earn his community membership. Community is micro and Society is macro. The membership in the society that has state governance is called Citizenship. It is not natural. It has to attain. By not just mere born in the said sovereign but it is acquired.

I view citizenship is not guaranteed. Man is born free, but the State or the Society has bond. To be a part of a society or state, man has to surrender its absolute freedom and hence become interdependent. This interdependency is known as duty. The eligibility of the citizenship is on the criteria of duty. Once this criterion is met, then he can claim the rights from the State as citizen. Similarly, statehood is also not absolute; it is further bonded with duties. The duty of state is the rights of citizen. The state that overlooks its duties under-qualifies as statehood.

How to attain citizenship? Citizenship should be given on criterion and on renewable basis. This will bind the people within the parameter of law. This will strengthened internal security and check anti-national elements. This will enhance the sovereignty of the law. Paying tax should be basic criteria since it indicate submission to the law and hence recognize the statehood.

The second aspect is representation. Political representation in present time lacks accountability. The province representation has given many erroneous results such as irredentism, separatism, self-determination and autonomy crises i.e. influenced by caste, language, religion and ideology. Hence, became tools for mass mobilization to attain power. This has fragmented the legislative body and created identity crises. Since, the representation is territorial, so the abuses such as money and muscles become major influence to attain power than credibility. When muscles and money become tool to retain political aspiration, then the corruption and criminalization becomes the characteristics of the politics.

The territorial political representation lack general accountability to the whole country except for its own territory. They also lack the ability (knowledge) of governance. Governance needs structural knowledge whereas, territorial representation is mass mobilization. Due to multiple party systems, the mass-mobilization gets segmented. This led to a coalition government. The differences in ideology lead to crises in policy making and its implementation. Hence, the territorial representation has given many flaws than virtues.

In my view another form of representation that can substitute the flaws of territorial representation, i.e. structural representation. The four major structures i.e. cultivators /workers (grass root), economy, bureaucracy (administration) and scholars (judiciary, academics and religion/culture); a broad description and need intricate studies. The said structural representation has no territory and hence will have credibility for the governance. This will have no party system and will lead to direct democracy. The executive of the structures (four) should have veto power. This will check the subjugation of any community or structure.

The said structural representation is not absolute and hence a parallel to territorial representation. The territorial representation will check the absolutism of structural representation and structural representation will control the flaws and inadequacies of territorial representation. When there will be Structural representation, the judicial activism will automatically reduce. Further this will bring the legislation in the parameter of dejure regime. The success in leadership in the Railways’ governance (structural) and the failure of the same leadership in the territorial governance seconds my analysis that the ‘flaw in the design of the representations than in representatives’.

The bicameral of the parliament will have the two forms of representation. The structural representation will be responsible for making laws and implementing policies, whereas the territorial representation will be in the liaison with the community. Both will have the popular will. (This is an abstract work and need a thorough analysis). Both should have equal powers. This will further act as check and balance to each other and also a complementary to each other as well. This will further curtail multiple party systems.

In this system, there will be a limited scope for pressure groups for strikes, bandhs or cultural hooliganism etc. How the structural representation will curtail them? All the crises such as strike or bandhs arise from pressure groups such as medico professional, law professionals, truckers, farmers, teachers etc. No community comes out for strike or bandh, rather they are the victims of the strikes and bandhs. The said strikes occur due to negligence in the adherence of the requirement for the said group by the government. If there is a structural representation, the said crisis can be taken care of their own sustainability. Since there will be a veto power with the legislative executives there will be an overall consideration for any legislation.

On Submission is an approach towards a congenial relation between Society and State. Due to lack of accountability, the state system is shattered and the society is wavered. The State and the Society have no mutual trust or its dependability. This mistrust has created many anti-human elements to pave its way and influence the governance. This has further shortened the state control. This led to a bigger space for power and faith.

The governance of power and faith are legible since society has diversified governance. The people do not relate with the law get shelter with the power and those people who are not equipped with the law or power seek the governance of faith. All are the institutions of the nature, i.e. law, power and faith. The institution of faith is as powerful as the institution of power and as well the institution of law but nothing can be substituted. These virtues are not contradictory to each other, rather interdependent. Faith acts as catalyst to emotions (power) and reason (law).

Faith (religions/culture) enhances human values/morals and thus becomes a platform to the submission to reason (law). It will be very difficult for reason (law) to govern emotions (power) without faith (religion/culture) and hence become catalyst for these two virtues. Further, faith checks the absolutism of reason (law). The superiority of reason (law) checks the blindness (flaws) of the faith. That is why there is an existence of faith ever since the evolution of human society. Reason and emotions are always in conflict, but it is faith that binds them together. Just the way man (reason) and woman (emotions) bind in the marriage (social contract) in the holy rituals (faith) in every community. Lack of faith will never make these two virtues meet in a same point just like the differences between ‘Gandhi and Dr. Ambedkar’ or ‘Gandhi and Tagore’. If there would have been catalyst of faith in their virtues, then we would have had better India in 60 years of independence. During that period faith became a political entitlement and hence remained a big flaw in acquiring sovereignty.

The significance of the submission is to check the absolutism of any virtue. The governance is always based on reason (wisdom) and to make the governance generous, the virtue of emotion (power) is very essential. Faith (culture/religion) binds them. Sovereignty of law on all these virtues i.e. law, power and faith is based on tax (tribute) that will enhance the submission and recognize the state-hood. This is the macro citizenship.

With best regards,



(SHARMILA BOSE)