How the institutional pillars were pulled down?

JUDICIARY came under a cloud when four Supreme Court judges held a press conference to point fingers at the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Mishra, over allocation of cases in January 2018. Even an impeachment motion was moved against the Chief Justice in the Rajya Sabha. Undermining the Supreme Court happened when BJP President said the court should not have given the verdict that it gave on the Sabarimala case

PARLIAMENT has been repeatedly insulted by Modi and the high point was that the Union Budget of 2018 was passed without a discussion. Established Democratic Conventions were thrown to the winds by making the 2019 Election Year Interim Budget read like a regular annual budget with announcements of substantial measures

ELECTION COMMISSION, under Modi rule, was found violating conventions on the announcement of dates for elections to the States. It delayed the announcement of date for Gujarat wilfully with a view to enabling the state government come up with last minute schemes and flood relief work to impress voters that would not have been allowed under Code of Conduct. One instance in which the Commission was found behaving like a government department was when its disqualification of 20 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs of Delhi was thrown out by the Delhi High Court. There are many others like some decisions on Tamil Nadu Assembly after the death of J Jayalalithaa

RESERVE BANK OF INDIA was discredited by the demonic decision to demonetise high value currency notes in November 2016. Not only the bank lacked in competence to deal with the crisis that followed the note ban, its autonomy was crushed. Then the government diktats made the bank issue various notifications that were changing dates and rules for exchange of old notes, which corroded its credibility totally. The RBI officers and employees wrote to the government in January 2017 pointing out the operational mismanagement

PLANNING COMMISSION was summarily dismantled by Modi though the institution has a historic role to play in the development of India since Independence. NITI Agyog that replaced Planning Commission has been found to be ineffective

CENTRE-STATE RELATIONSHIP has always hung by a slender thread through Modi’s tenure. There had been many instances of Prime Minister and Chief Ministers having vituperative exchanges. The West Bengal Chief Minister resisting a CBI raid was one that hogged the national headlines but Modi had badmouthed Karnataka’s Siddaramiah, backstabbed J & K’s Mehbooba Mufti and has been having a running feud with Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal. Also Kerala’s Pinayari Vijayan was insulted with a paltry aid of Rs 100 crore when the state was ravaged by floods in 2018

THE NATIONAL SAMPLE SURVEY OFFICE, whose reports had a lot of credibility among the educated classes, was needlessly undermined by the Modi government for speaking truth: Unemployment in 2017-18 was at an all-time high in the last 45 years

DEFENCE FORCES were politicised by the Modi regime by by-passing seniority in appointing the army chief and invoking pride in the military engagements for political propaganda. The 2016 surgical strikes along the Pakistan border and a military raid of Myanmarese rebels by the armed forces were indiscreetly revealed for blatant use in election propaganda, deepening the threat to national security

CABINET, which is collectively responsible to Parliament, was repeatedly trampled upon by the Prime Minister, who has been usurping the duties of the Ministers concerned. He would travel to various countries and not let the Foreign Affairs Minister go anywhere, only inform the Finance Minister of demonetisation and not even inform the Defence Minister of the Rafale deal that he struck in France. He would inaugurate all trains even if there is a railway minister. The list goes on

GOVERNORS appointed by the previous regime were forced to resign when Modi became Prime Minister and those who left were all replaced by persons associated with the RSS. The list is long but it has been established that Modi government has filled up Raj Bhavans with obedient RSS acolytes. This goes against the grain of democracy and more precisely against Supreme Court observation in 2010 that the government cannot arbitrarily transfer appointed governors without compelling reasons.