Criminalisation Of Politics

The word Politics has today become one and the same with disloyalty or opportunism. It has degraded into a shameless business. Everything is reasonable in politics. The result is that honest and noble people try to keep away from Politics. However, Democracy stands for the rule of law and the holding of free and unbiased elections to make certain the will of the people. But in quite recent times this peaceful method of community change has been much vitiated. Brutality, rigging and booth-capturing have become the order of the day. This actuality was highlighted during the elections to the local bodies including District Boards, Municipalities and Municipal Corporations as well as elections to the Lokshabha along with a number of state legislatures. It was found that confirmed criminals and even those who were behind the bars were given tickets by different political parties. What is more shocking is the fact that they won the elections. There was cruelty on a large scale in a number of places and hundreds of lives were vanished. The cult of the gun prevails and criminals are often hired for the purpose of capturing booths and violent behaviors or threats of violence. Without a doubt the entire democratic process is neglected. All this indicates the criminalization of Politics today.

The Government and law enforcing authorities seem vulnerable in modern day Politics. Today MPs and MLAs are either have close associations with criminals or are men with criminal records. Criminals have gained access to socio-political survival and the expectations on democracy appear to be panic. Gangsters move about freely in order to eliminate their political opponents and creating fear. Unfortunately, nobody has the motivation to put down such immoral actions with and iron hand.

Criminalization of Politics is the greatest jeopardy that faces democracy these days. Leaders of all political parties and intellectuals want to remove criminals from the electoral process but anti-social elements are involved to ensure their success. Quite often the appeals are put forward for a protective measure against the activities of the anti social elements. But the menace is that the electoral process would pass into the hands of anti social elements. The access of criminals into the political field has caused chaos in the sphere of the administration or government.

Democracy desires command and an enthusiasm to stick to a set of laws of self-control. We need the rule of law and a suitable agency to enforce it. Such an agency is furnished by the courts. Criminal law may be considered as the most effective weapon of social defence. A large number of politicians take aids of muscle power during elections either to coerce voters for securing their votes or to degrade the opponent contestants. The consequence is that the exploit of muscle power has become a habitual characteristic of the electoral procedure. The cerebral may complain about this practice, the newspapers may transmit lengthy critiques in condemnation of it, the public strong-willed human beings may depict it as a refusal of free and reasonable elections but the fact remains that the vice leaves and one cannot flee from unsympathetic actuality. The electoral process thus leads to close linkages between the anti-social constituents and the elected officials. The close linkages of anti-social elements with the local politicians operate as a frightening feature for the law enforcement agencies from ensuing and taking sturdy deed in opposition to them. According to newspaper reports about 100 elected members of the legislature during the last five years had illegal records. We can well visualize the panic of policemen while dealing with such facets. Incident also enlightens us that just the once an individual gets elected to a legislature the election secures for him not only some kind of amnesty from legal course of action for his precedent actions but also affords him implicit invulnerability from further proceedings against him for violation of criminal law.

It is no suspicion and accurate that this is not legally acceptable and the law does not tolerate such circumstances of concerns but systems are at all times found to thwart the law. Once the consciousness exists that it is complicated to secure the assurance of an accused in a court of law, the sufferer of the offence of their close relatives, look to extra-legal techniques to reconcile score with the offenders. Such a state of affairs means a collapse of criminal justice and it outcomes in a situation of the turmoil and lawlessness. The efficiency and influence of the administration of criminal justice can be guaranteed only if we can abolish or at least curtail political and other inappropriate hindrance in the analysis of offenses. Indian democracy must be saved from the eminence of criminals and all the wickedness that it implies. Under no circumstances should law be taken into one’s own hands. However in this respect the leaders of the country themselves are not liberated from charge, for they have been blameworthy of stirring the people to take alternative to aggression.
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