The Hindu : Festival of the people

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Sunday, Mar 07, 2004

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Festival of the people

General elections are out finest republican rite which beckons every Indian to renew himself as a citizen and in turn generate purifying collective constitutional energy, writes Harish Khare.

"HIS ELECTION campaign can only be described as a fury of activity. Like an arrow, he shot through the country, carrying the Congress message to remote hamlets in the hills and on the plains. He covered some 50,000 miles in less than five months, using every conceivable means of transport. Most of the time he travelled by car, train or aeroplane, occasionally by horse, camel, steamer, bicycle or canoe, and where necessary on foot through the trackless dusty plains. Even the elephant was harnessed into service. All told, about 10,000,000 persons attended his meetings and millions more lined the route to catch a glimpse of the Congress crown prince. Many gatherings exceeded 20,000, some attracted 100,000, mostly peasant men and women who walked from distant villages to see and hear their much-loved Panditji."

That was in 1937. The "crown prince" was none other than Jawaharlal Nehru. This sense of communion with the masses, according to a biographer, Michael Brecher, was an exhilarating experience for Nehru. Like him, hundreds of other leaders had fanned out and came back feeling nobler and enriched after this invigorating encounter with the ordinary men and women of undivided India. This was first time India was experimenting with democracy, albeit with limited franchise of the kind permitted under the Government of India Act, 1935. But the principle was established firmly and unambiguously; the leader's claim to leadership, his acceptability and legitimacy stem from his willingness to submit himself before the people of the country. No divine right, no colonial mandate, no dynastic entitlements; the rulers will be elected by the ruled. This was a new, heady experience in this ancient land. We have had the humbling sight of overbearing Chief Ministers, powerful Cabinet Ministers and even one imperious Prime Minister biting the dust because the voters did not like any display of arrogance.

And since 1950, this principle has got enshrined in the Constitution of India, which "we, the people of India" gave to ourselves. General elections are now our finest republican rite, a secular equivalent of the `kumbh mela,' which beckons every Indian to renew himself as a citizen and in turn generate purifying collective constitutional energy. For the `kumbh' pilgrim, the salvation is personal and spiritual: for the citizen, the five-yearly electoral `mela' induces a sense of participation and empowerment, and produces public consequences.

And because the consequences are public and determine who gets to rule the country for five years, it is only natural that the political rivals should try to influence — fairly, and often unfairly — the manner in which the citizen-pilgrim participates in this republican rite. Ideally all political parties are expected to address themselves to the citizens and tell them what they intend to do for them; in other words, give the voters a good enough reason either to throw out the incumbent ruler or renew his mandate for another five years.

That, of course, is the ideal situation. And we do live in imperfect times. Political rivals rarely engage in clean and honest fights. Even in the first "mass" election of 1937, the Congressmen were found contesting, undermining or sabotaging fellow-Congressmen's prospects; since then, our politicians have learnt more and more bad tricks on how to stay put in positions of power. On the other hand, the polity, and increasingly civil society, have sought to institute devices and mechanisms to ensure that the fight is fair and fought on a level-playing field. The Representation of the People Act of 1951 has repeatedly been refined and interpreted to plug the legal loopholes that encourage aberrations and unfairness.

But a gigantic electoral exercise for a country of one billion cannot simply be an elaborate burlesque of legalities. It has to be a morally defensible exercise. It must necessarily be a demonstrably fair and transparent expression of public will and mood. The first requirement, then, is to ensure that the ruling party of the day is not allowed to misuse its position to influence the electoral outcome. In fact, when the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, went to the Rashtrapati Bhavan on February 5 to advise the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, that the 13th Lok Sabha be dissolved in order to pave the way for a new election, Mr. Kalam wanted Mr. Vajpayee to resign and henceforth function as a caretaker Prime Minister. It is a different matter that the President did not press for Mr. Vajpayee's resignation, but the notice was served that the National Democratic Alliance Government would be watched closely lest it be tempted to take undue advantage of its incumbency.

Admittedly, the process of governance does not — and cannot — come to a standstill. Nor does the rest of the world stop going about its business just because India may be in the midst of an election. Indeed, last time the country found itself having to go through the electoral ritual a caretaker government also had to fight a war in Kargil. And it could not be faulted for reaping electoral dividends out of the jawans' martyrdom. Even without a war, there are hundreds of ways in which the government of the day can try to influence the electoral contest by favouring political players. Take for instance, the Vajpayee Government's use of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in recent weeks — it decided not to let the CBI file a special leave petition against former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and BSP leader, Mayawati, who is embroiled in a number of legal entanglements.

Apart from the advantages that can accrue to a ruling party, all political players try to get away with unfair practices. Corrupt practices come in many forms ; money, muscle, mafia, and media are used in most innovative ways to unfairly influence the election to one's advantage and to the rival's disadvantage. It becomes a grand test between the Election Commission, its collective human and material resources and its determination, on the one hand, and the million mischief-makers out to tilt, and if possible rig, the process in favour of their patrons and pay-masters: a thousand illegal wits and unlawful impulses get pitted against the Commission's rules. And, it has been the pride of the Indian Republic that in the end the institutional players have invariably upheld the law and met the canons of fairness. Because of this institutional neutrality, energised by a vigilant Election Commission, the outcome has always been accepted. No ruling party has ever been accused of "stealing" the elections.

It is because of this track record of fairness of our poll process that every successive Lok Sabha election has witnessed the involvement of more and more political parties and candidates. And in recent years, any number of groups from civil society have sought to intervene to make the expression of public will a matter of informed choice made in a fair and an open manner. In the weeks to come, the rest of the world will watch with fascination and envy as millions of Indians will find ways of fixing the arrogant and the duplicitous.

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