Article - 69 Week 29
No Law vs Bad Law
"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so." Mahatma Gandhi
India has Law and China has Order. Saw this in one of the twitter posts. We have so many laws. And sadly many of them are bad laws. China has a few laws; most are meaningful and purposeful. For an example, if you buy a vessel and get it registered in India, you will be slapped with 5% customs duty - applicable if you wish to bring her home. So long as you keep her outside India, there is no duty. If at all, you are compelled to bring her home, you need to prove that it is temporary in nature. Then, you may be exempted. I wonder if temporary has a qualifying meaning within the ambits of the law! If there is no qualification, then it is left to the discretion of some Babu. The Babu can define even 10 years as temporary, if he wishes to. Or if he does not like your face, he may not even consider one month as temporary. So the doors to corruption and connection is split wide open with this law. After all, we need a whole lot of cabotage vessels for our coast and people will find a way to meet this need, so long as it is commercially profitable.
This law, simply tells you to bribe and manage. Or else, use foreign flag vessels for the Coastal trade through dispensations, which is more damaging to Indian shipping. And remember that dispensation does not come free. You have to grease the wheels of bureaucracy generously with plenty of ego massaging and connections in the top. But all this great struggle to carry our own cargo on our own shores using foreign vessels and killing our own shipping industry? What a shame on this sham law!
No Lokpal Bill can touch this. We say yes to stricter and fairer laws and yes to quick redressals on the infringements. But along with them, we must demand to remove all bad laws. Simplify them. Make them congruent with the betterment of the industry and broader national interests. It is time, we the people, realize that "We are not party to this national graft mess by choice, but rather arm-twisted into them by bad Laws". These are the crafty laws, leaving us with no option to honesty and nation building.
Let's scream and shout at bad Laws! Let no one point his dirty finger at us with the accusation that we are guilty of breaking bad laws and therefore a party to the 'Corruption Cauldron' of our all-consuming bureaucracy & polity!
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Brgds
Capt Rath
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