Why in News: 

The 21st century is host to multitudinous crises impacting different sectors.

A succession of unrelated crises has heralded forebodings of still graver damage not only to the economy but also to the body politic and people everywhere.

Syllabus: -GS 2: Social Justice

• The impact of COVID-19 has been far reaching, which has included an economic tsunami, upheavals and dislocation affecting every sphere of human activity, an accompanying health crisis which has not spared any nation, and the fostering of a crisis mentality.
• A churn in the post-1945 Westphalian order is only too evident.
• Across different continents, we are again witness to a series of political and strategic crises.
• Disinformation and distortions caused by an overload of fake information are creating an impression that the world is facing a systemic and multidimensional crisis, the consequences of which are unpredictable.
• The combination of circumstances is exposing the fragility of today’s party-based democracies, leading to questions about their ability to deal with newer problems.
• The situation demands a great deal of introspection followed by conscious action.
• Finding an optimal combination of authoritarian, populist and democratic trends, to ensure the material well-being of the majority and achieving economic development is, however, not easy.
• Concerns are that it could lend itself to the rise of new political oligarchies, masquerading in the garb of defenders of democracy, and the creation of new elites professedly seeking to defend democracy.

Fair polls under threat

• Elections have of late become a kind of a no-holds-barred battle for power, irrespective of whether it is being held in a large State, a medium-sized State or even an Union Territory.
• Levels of electioneering increasingly lend themselves to abuse, rather than a highlighting of issues or policies. Innuendoes and personal remarks dominate political debates.
• Money power is all too evident, and violence is the leitmotif in many segments.
• The most threatened aspect is the concept of fair and free elections. Concerns whether the verdict reflects the true will of the electorate are, hence, bound to persist long after the results are in.

Crisis in India: –

• The real existential crisis that India confronts — in a period dominated by the pandemic and bitter electoral battles — is the virtual collapse of systems of governance in many States, as well evidenced by the events that took place recently in India’s Maximum City, and the nation’s economic capital, viz., Mumbai.

Recent Example; –

• The Mumbai incident (Mukesh Ambani Bomb Scare Case) should be seen as merely the tip of the iceberg of what is the current reality, which is not confined to Mumbai city, but extends well beyond Maharashtra to other States in the country.
• Established norms of conduct are sometimes given the go by during difficult periods, such as communal riots or other violent upheavals, but the extent of falsehoods indulged in by individuals in this instance has degraded not only the police force but also the entire system.
• This is the real existential crisis we confront today.

An alliance with a difference

• The reality is that it takes more than a courageous police leadership to stand up for the right policies, including not protecting officers who have clearly done something wrong.
• Consequently, we need to look at newer alternatives. Repeating ad nauseum about reforming the police and establishing yet another blue-ribbon committee to undertake a thorough overhaul of the police machinery is a recipe for yet another disaster to come.
• Police commissions cannot alter the milieu in which the police are compelled to operate, in which everyone — the politicians, bureaucrats and everyone in authority or presumes to have authority — seeks a police force that they can bend to their will.
• Added to this is the widespread corruption that casts a larger-than-life shadow over not only police functioning but every facet of public life.
• What is, perhaps, needed, or needs to be attempted, is an informal alliance of people and institutions, irrespective of ideology or interests which should come together to coalesce into a mighty stream of public-spirited action and activity.

Questions: –

Creating and executing a national public awareness campaign embarking instead on a determined campaign to stamp out the canker that is thwarting democracy and democracy-related procedures and actions. Discuss.