03-15-2005, 03:13 AM
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story....t_id=66392
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Call this a democracy? Donât!
India is not democratic even though it has the largest democratic elections
K. SUBRAHMANYAMÂ
Although recent developments in Goa and Jharkhand have caused much outrage and the politics in Bihar and leadership elections in Haryana have reduced the exercise of democracy to a farce, there is no introspection in our media and academia as to why democracy in a country that boasts of being its largest practitioner has been reduced to this sorry state.
The practice of democracy involves the following steps. Selection of candidates by various parties to contest the elections, free and fair polls, the election of a leader of the legislature party if it commands a majority by itself or a coalition of parties elected to the assembly, followed by the formation of the government. A country can call itself a democracy only if at every stage of this chain of events democracy is practised. In India, thanks to the Election Commission (EC), only the polling and declaration of results of polling are free, fair and democratic. Every other step set down here is largely undemocratic in practice. That is the reason why it has become difficult to have stable governments in many states.
Let us go over the various processes, one by one. The first step is the selection of the candidate to contest the elections. In all mature democracies where legislators are elected on the basis of territorial constituencies, parties will select candidates on the basis of their having nursed their constituencies. Nursing constituencies is a long-term process and it is only through this does the candidate acquire a representative, character vis-a-vis his/her constituency. In India this does not happen in a majority of cases. The central party headquarters decides at the last moment which of its nominees will contest elections from which constituency. This is the very negation of the principles of representative democracy and leads to the phenomenon of rebel candidates in cases where a constituency has been nursed by a candidate and his claims to represent it are ignored by the party. The number of rebel candidates of a particular party is an index of the authoritarianism prevalent within it. In the majority of cases, candidates do not necessarily have roots in their constituencies. Because the elections are contested on a first past the post basis, the party label, caste, communal factors and the ability to mobilise muscle and money power play significant roles in getting candidates the 30 to 35 per cent of votes they need in order to win. This process leads to a situation where elected members have little or no stake in their constituencies.
Having got its members elected to the assembly, parties do not permit freedom to their elected members to elect in turn their leader. The legislature parties meet and pass unanimous resolutions requesting the party fuehrers to nominate their leaders. Since the legislators do not elect their own leaders they have no sense of responsibility for electing leaders nor any loyalty to the leaders sent down by the High Command. The moment a legislature party leader is nominated by the High Command, various plots begin to have him toppled and replaced through palace intrigue. Democracy has no role in this system.
This was not the original Congress party culture. In 1946, Gandhi and Nehru had to accept the Madras Congress legislature partyâs decision to reject their preferred candidate, Rajaji. T. Prakasam was elected as their leader. During the Nehruvian era, there were no observers to monitor state legislative parties electing their leaders. This practice of party fuehrers being requested to nominate legislative party leaders is an Indira Gandhi innovation. Communists always practiced such âdemocratic centralismâ. Other political parties had no difficulty in accepting this undemocratic practice. When democracy is not practised in the selection of the candidate for election, nor in the election of the legislative party leaders, it is no surprise that legislators have no respect for democratic norms.
Political parties in a legislature are expected to regulate their conduct with due respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. Our political parties have respect for neither. Therefore the legislature becomes anarchic. Legislators are not bound by the rules of procedure and Speakers are continuously defied. The ruling party resorts to unfair use of state power and the Opposition parties to agitational politics in the legislative chambers and in the streets. Not infrequently the Government and the Opposition does arrive at compromises based on their respective calculations of party interests, but very rarely because of their respect for the rule of law. In our entire âdemocratic processâ there is only one regulatory authority â the EC â which enforces free and fair elections. All the other processes are meant to be self-regulatory and our political parties have demonstrated their incapacity for self-regulation by reducing the chairman of the Rajya Sabha and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha to abject helplessness. If political parties would abide by the provisions of the Constitution, there would have been no need for the Jharkhand issue to go to the Supreme Court. If at all India is still considered a democracy, the credit should go to the EC and the Supreme Court and not to our legislatures or political parties.
The culture of our major political parties is authoritarian and not democratic. That is demonstrated in the scant availability of inner party democracy in the majority of our political parties and their behaviour in the legislatures. One would believe their democratic credentials only when the leaderships would impose discipline and respect for the rule of law on their legislators within the legislatures and permit the parties at the state level to elect their own leaders and form their own coalitions. If elected legislators are kept in custody pending confidence votes in legislatures, there is no need to be surprised about the kidnappings of children and doctors in Bihar and elsewhere. It is far more important to discipline our political parties to respect the rule of law than to allow them to make opportunistic deals in the name of democracy, which will lead neither to stable democracy nor to good and effective governance.
Meanwhile let there be no illusions about India being the largest democracy and our political parties being democratic. We only have the largest democratic elections enforced by an EC which, thank God, is not elected!<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Call this a democracy? Donât!
India is not democratic even though it has the largest democratic elections
K. SUBRAHMANYAMÂ
Although recent developments in Goa and Jharkhand have caused much outrage and the politics in Bihar and leadership elections in Haryana have reduced the exercise of democracy to a farce, there is no introspection in our media and academia as to why democracy in a country that boasts of being its largest practitioner has been reduced to this sorry state.
The practice of democracy involves the following steps. Selection of candidates by various parties to contest the elections, free and fair polls, the election of a leader of the legislature party if it commands a majority by itself or a coalition of parties elected to the assembly, followed by the formation of the government. A country can call itself a democracy only if at every stage of this chain of events democracy is practised. In India, thanks to the Election Commission (EC), only the polling and declaration of results of polling are free, fair and democratic. Every other step set down here is largely undemocratic in practice. That is the reason why it has become difficult to have stable governments in many states.
Let us go over the various processes, one by one. The first step is the selection of the candidate to contest the elections. In all mature democracies where legislators are elected on the basis of territorial constituencies, parties will select candidates on the basis of their having nursed their constituencies. Nursing constituencies is a long-term process and it is only through this does the candidate acquire a representative, character vis-a-vis his/her constituency. In India this does not happen in a majority of cases. The central party headquarters decides at the last moment which of its nominees will contest elections from which constituency. This is the very negation of the principles of representative democracy and leads to the phenomenon of rebel candidates in cases where a constituency has been nursed by a candidate and his claims to represent it are ignored by the party. The number of rebel candidates of a particular party is an index of the authoritarianism prevalent within it. In the majority of cases, candidates do not necessarily have roots in their constituencies. Because the elections are contested on a first past the post basis, the party label, caste, communal factors and the ability to mobilise muscle and money power play significant roles in getting candidates the 30 to 35 per cent of votes they need in order to win. This process leads to a situation where elected members have little or no stake in their constituencies.
Having got its members elected to the assembly, parties do not permit freedom to their elected members to elect in turn their leader. The legislature parties meet and pass unanimous resolutions requesting the party fuehrers to nominate their leaders. Since the legislators do not elect their own leaders they have no sense of responsibility for electing leaders nor any loyalty to the leaders sent down by the High Command. The moment a legislature party leader is nominated by the High Command, various plots begin to have him toppled and replaced through palace intrigue. Democracy has no role in this system.
This was not the original Congress party culture. In 1946, Gandhi and Nehru had to accept the Madras Congress legislature partyâs decision to reject their preferred candidate, Rajaji. T. Prakasam was elected as their leader. During the Nehruvian era, there were no observers to monitor state legislative parties electing their leaders. This practice of party fuehrers being requested to nominate legislative party leaders is an Indira Gandhi innovation. Communists always practiced such âdemocratic centralismâ. Other political parties had no difficulty in accepting this undemocratic practice. When democracy is not practised in the selection of the candidate for election, nor in the election of the legislative party leaders, it is no surprise that legislators have no respect for democratic norms.
Political parties in a legislature are expected to regulate their conduct with due respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. Our political parties have respect for neither. Therefore the legislature becomes anarchic. Legislators are not bound by the rules of procedure and Speakers are continuously defied. The ruling party resorts to unfair use of state power and the Opposition parties to agitational politics in the legislative chambers and in the streets. Not infrequently the Government and the Opposition does arrive at compromises based on their respective calculations of party interests, but very rarely because of their respect for the rule of law. In our entire âdemocratic processâ there is only one regulatory authority â the EC â which enforces free and fair elections. All the other processes are meant to be self-regulatory and our political parties have demonstrated their incapacity for self-regulation by reducing the chairman of the Rajya Sabha and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha to abject helplessness. If political parties would abide by the provisions of the Constitution, there would have been no need for the Jharkhand issue to go to the Supreme Court. If at all India is still considered a democracy, the credit should go to the EC and the Supreme Court and not to our legislatures or political parties.
The culture of our major political parties is authoritarian and not democratic. That is demonstrated in the scant availability of inner party democracy in the majority of our political parties and their behaviour in the legislatures. One would believe their democratic credentials only when the leaderships would impose discipline and respect for the rule of law on their legislators within the legislatures and permit the parties at the state level to elect their own leaders and form their own coalitions. If elected legislators are kept in custody pending confidence votes in legislatures, there is no need to be surprised about the kidnappings of children and doctors in Bihar and elsewhere. It is far more important to discipline our political parties to respect the rule of law than to allow them to make opportunistic deals in the name of democracy, which will lead neither to stable democracy nor to good and effective governance.
Meanwhile let there be no illusions about India being the largest democracy and our political parties being democratic. We only have the largest democratic elections enforced by an EC which, thank God, is not elected!<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->