Some Priorities For Legislative Business In India

Some priorities for Legislative Business in India:

1:

Women's Rights to Property, with a focus on gender equity. With each child to have the opportunity to choose their own religion, or not choose a religion, and opt for pre-religious ways, or evolve new ways or faiths or beliefs or non-beliefs of their own.

Legally speaking, in India, all are bound by the Constitution, which honours the Personal Law of all faiths, codified or uncodified (relating to property, succession, adoption, marriage/social structures or non-structures), as long as these so-called personal laws are within the ambit of the spirit and letter of the Constitution of India, especially from the point of view of the Fundamental Rights guaranteed to all citizens.

All necessary steps should be taken, to make the necessary adjustments and bring about such a legislative framework. Any corrections, policy-wise, to be made in the area of judicial over-reach in the said domain may be made by the rightful legislative and executive authorities. (For example, if required, further clarifications on the aspect of equal rights to Princesses, to their ancestral properties, as well as equal rights for the children of tribal women who marry outside the community, to be clarified to be on par with the rights of the children of tribal men who marry outside the community).

2:

The diversification of the definition of Intangibles as calculated in the process of National Income Accounting, and the amendment of all relevant laws and policies to reflect this. This move would be a small step towards correcting historical injustices against the exploited, such as the unorganized labour sector, women and children in society, and so on.

This to then be reflected in the laws (and, indeed, the entire paradigm), pertaining to resettlement and rehabilitation of people for private gain, or gain in the name of "public purpose".

The very definition of public purpose as spelt out in innumerable court judgements, and in the fine-tuned (and most significant) reading of legislations (Acts), to be debated by the public after they are made aware of these legal positions, as they will then realize how unfair the law as it stands today, is, against the poor and the disadvantaged, and against women.

3:

A different approach towards the criminal justice system, keeping in mind the reasons for crime causation, and simultaneously addressing those causes. In a more immediate sense: Depoliticization and removal of corruption from the Police Force as well as Prison Reform (if prisons have to stay in a transitional phase). And most importantly, to recognize the inhuman and biased and scientifically flawed methods of gathering evidence and questioning witnesses in the course of investigations.

4.

Democratic local governments with evergreen cultural and ceremonial figureheads, with well-functioning bodies like the election commissions, disaster management authorities, the biodiversity management committees, river basin authorities, judicial bodies, micro-banking and micro-finance co-operatives, the Forest Rights Act, the various and systemically evolving fora for alternate dispute resolution, all make for a strong and appropriate pre-existing framework from which to expand the country's benign influence.

(Other minor points like prohibition of alcohol: all Peaceful societies take some amount of pride in the concept of Discipline. What greater way to teach and learn discipline than that of regulated drinking of alcohol. In tribal communities, home-made toddy (from the fishtail palm), is fine. My grandpa used to allow me to dip my finger into his whisky glass when i was four years old...and social drinking in moderation is not a bad thing. In any case, prohibition does not solve any problem. (It is another matter that one hardly drinks).

VSD.