Government isn't accountable alone; Society is also invariably accountable...!

ASHWANI KUMAR CHRUNGOO
Comments 0
25 Nov 2025

We have often read, heard, believed and discussed that the government/governments is/are accountable to the people and the society. It is a common phrase that the government & administration need to be aware of their responsibilities and they should be transparent in all their deeds supposed to be dedicated to the public cause. The aggrieved people take the governments and the administration to the Commissions, Courts and Tribunals for the redressal of their grievances. Governments are surely the product of society and the constitution framed by the society; however, it is imperative for the society also to be invariably accountable to itself. Here, we will discuss the subject in the prevailing socio-political scenario of our country. Verbal attack on institutions, democratically elected forums including the highest constitutional bodies, lawfully appointed constitutional authorities, police and even military and paramilitary forces has become a common usage in India over the last some decades. This evolved as a normal routine with the rise of the role of non-governmental organizations, civil society activism, human rights movement, intellectual contributions and media presentations. Politicians of various hues take it as their birthright to engage in such a diatribe. Political vicissitudes, differing political opinions, ideological differences and interventions of extra-territorial forces in the internal affairs of India further multiplied the impact of the attacks mentioned above. We have witnessed extreme and radical violence, secessionism, religious fundamentalism, terrorism and crimes against humanity occupying our precious time & space during the last four decades. Some developments have taken place recently that have exposed the concerned society of a region, state, religion, faith, caste and other denominations in this regard. We have some instances in this connection to debate here that will take the discussion to a meaningful conclusion. In context of the recently held Bihar elections, there was hardly any news portal, channel or newspaper that debated the elections in tune with the results that emerged later on the date of the counting of votes. These organs of the society made a willful attempt either to hide the facts from public or to avoid appearing to be on a particular side of the scenario or to keep on spreading their own biased opinion about the election scenario as per their ideology and political affiliations. In this context, it was essentially their failure to speak the truth about the situation. Some defeated political parties and their leaders, even after the resounding results, tried to play a blame-game than to accept the defeat openly that could have led them to introspection, reform and repair of the damage in future. They remain so obsessed with their narratives of blame-game and making excuses for the defeat and failures of their planning, thinking, strategy, methodology to fight elections and finally their connect with the voters. The actual issue that emerges from it is that these leaders and political parties which claim themselves as essential organs of society don't want themselves to be transparent and accountable to the society while asking every other forum to be so. Some odd 272 prominent citizens of the country including retired judges, former ambassadors & bureaucrats and other important people from various fields of activity wrote an open letter to the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha (Rahul Gandhi) to maintain decorum of the debate and discussion in the public domain about his accusations in regard to the constitutional bodies of the nation. His unfounded allegations against the constitutionally elected or appointed authorities and institutions in the country don't reflect the democratic, civilizational, traditional and rational norm of the society which we are a part of. Instead of weighing the arguments in this regard, his party criticized the letter, contents of the letter and the authority of the writers to do so. It is important here to note that such open letters were written earlier as well but were directed against the ‘opponents of Congress and their allies’. People calling themselves prominent citizens of the country went to the extent of writing to the US administration to stop giving visas to Narendra Modi, the then Chief Minister of Gujarat. They went out of their way to send their ideas about the issues that had internal dynamics in India to a foreign government and exposed the failure of their own society before the world. Earlier on several other issues including the issues pertaining to terrorism and secessionism, some other groups of such prominent people wrote open letters to the government and the international bodies without any inhibitions and remorse. In this context, the letters written by the prominent citizens about the Kashmir scenario during the last thirty five years and in particular during the 1990s is a classic example. In their letters, in the capacity of the civil society, intellectuals, former judges, ex-bureaucrats, human rights activists and journalists, they directly and indirectly justified the acts of secessionism and terrorism in Kashmir. Their doing so provided an intellectual and political space and platform to the terror operatives in the country to take their nefarious designs to various other centres throughout the country. It was exposed during various investigations over the last more than a decade that these activities were hugely funded by various means outside the country and even the narratives were sometimes borrowed from extra-territorial sources. How these narratives and activities damaged the social and national interests can be gauged from the fact that those responsible for murders, kidnappings, terror related activities and crimes against humanity found ways to enter corridors of power at the highest level. They were even invited by the Prime Ministers of the nation for discussion and negotiations in the PM's residences and offices. Hurriyat, comprising a number of leaders directly and indirectly responsible for terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, was invited by the PMO that accorded huge recognition to it at the cost of the society and the nation. The dreaded JKLF chief Yasin Malik, one of the key figures responsible for terrorism in Kashmir, was invited by the PMO to meet the then PM Manmohan Singh at his office. It was a shocking act of the Prime Minister of a nation that was in the fight against terror for the last several decades and which had taken the issue of Pak-sponsored cross-border terrorism to the international forums several times. Media channels after channels did telecast and broadcast Yasin’s elaborate interviews on their screens and speakers. Print media also didn't lag behind and made a hero out of him. This was a grave blunder committed by all 'proud organs of the society' so far as the issue of their responsibility, accountability and transparency was concerned. It is for the victims of terrorism and particularly the victims of Yasin Malik's and his comrades' terror acts to describe how they stood the mental pain and anguish that was caused to them by the irresponsible acts of the important organs of the society. In the TADA court, recently, a couple of eye witnesses testified about Yasin Malik, Javed Mir-Nalka, Rafiq Nanaji and Showkat Bakshi being involved directly in shooting and killing four officers of the IAF in Rawalpora-Srinagar in 1990. They were also involved in several kidnappings and killings of a number of women and members of the minority Kashmiri Pandit community in Kashmir which played a huge part in their ethnic cleansing from the valley. The ‘kidnapped’ Rubaiya Sayeed also a couple of years ago identified the main accused Yasin Malik as her kidnapper in 1989. She testified before the court about it after three decades. It is obvious that she should have confided this to her father and the other members of her family as well after her release from the kidnappers consequent upon the agreement with the government that five dreaded Kashmiri terrorists were released. This was a measure turning point in the growth of the terror regime in Jammu and Kashmir. Her father Mufti Sayeed and her sister Mehbooba Mufti never disclosed the identity of Yasin Malik in this connection though being at the top of their political and government posts for a long time. In the case of recent bomb-explosion in Delhi and other such activity, the involvement of a large number of Kashmir based terrorists operating as doctors, engineers, religious preachers, paramedical staffers, teachers, professors and other professionals at different places in the country have further exposed the failures of the society. There was no public denouncement of the heinous acts in which these Kashmir based professionals were apprehended, detained or investigated by the concerned agencies. Instead some prominent politicians and social activists in Kashmir came out in support of them and made failed attempts to justify their link with the terror network. They took the plea that there was ‘need to ascertain why all of them joined these nefarious activities’. It was in fact an attempt of providing covering fire to the terror regime by these senior politicians and the social activists. This is a typical case of failure of the society which wants to live in permanent denial and delusion. There were no protests this time as was the case when the Pahalgam massacre took place though a large number of observers recognized them as ‘theatrical and stage-managed’. The utter failure of the society to be accountable and transparent to itself is a deeply regrettable scenario. Kashmir society and its helmsmen have created a history in this context. Responsibility, accountability and transparency are perpetual imperatives for any society in the world to be successful. In this particular regard, as a matter of fact, we as a nation failed to assert positively. There is great necessity to change the course of history and this generation holds the responsibility to correct the passage of events in this regard for the generations to come. (The author is a senior BJP & KP leader, Human Rights Defender, author & columnist and can be reached at ashwanikc2012@gmail.com)