By Tarunkumar Singhal, Raman Jokhakar, Chartered Accountants
fiogf49gjkf0d
Five hundred years ago, in feudal England, the nobles had private armies and their own livery. The king depended on the nobles for money and for horsemen to fight wars. Henry VII changed all that when he came to power in 1485, ending the 30-year Wars of the Roses (essentially, an endless feud between rival groups of feudal lords). He abolished the private armies, reduced his dependence on the nobles by drawing support from the rising middle classes and the trading community, and established a modern nation-state. Some version of that needs to be done in contemporary India.
The parallels become obvious when we see that our “nobles” today are the state satraps — They each have their horsemen and livery (parliamentarians with party tags), and their power in the Delhi court depends on how many “horsemen” they can bring to our contemporary version of the Wars of the Roses.
So long as the king is dependent on these nobles, each of whom has quasi-autonomous power in their duchies and earldoms, no central power can assert itself. The private armies in pre-Tudor England essentially pillaged and plundered; likewise, some of our nobles today honour horsemen (knights?) who have a record of murder and rape, they indulge in mass transfers of officials to make them toe the line, arbitrarily arrest cartoonists and those who ask questions… (you know the rest of the list). The king in Delhi does nothing because he gets unseated if the nobles withdraw support. It doesn’t help that the “king’s party” has no local presence to mount a challenge to the nobles in their duchies. So how does the nation-state function if every national issue is hostage to the nobles, and dependent on their consent — including which head of state can visit the country?
(Source: The Business Standard dated 22-09-2012)
