'One Nation, One Election' call ignores grassroot concerns and constitutional realities

What is it about democracy and governance that they often tend to contradict each other and make us dust up old quotes of departed wise men?

As India furiously debates the 'One Nation, One Election' call more-or-less endorsed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party through a committee to examine the issue, it becomes pertinent to examine why the subject is contentious.

The committee led by former president of India Ram Nath Kovind, a long-time BJP activist, is packed with protagonists who favour the simultaneous holding of state and central legislature elections. The panel seems focused more on governance and economics than social and constitutional realities. You can therefore expect dissent, disagreement, and disruptions from other quarters -- and that is already quite visible and audible.

Let me correct myself. Are we not supposed to say the "Union" instead of the "Central" government elected by the Lok Sabha?" There begins the controversy, rekindled in recent months by Tamil Nadu chief minister and DMK leader MK Stalin who gently reminded Indian citizens that the Constitution refers to India as a "Union of States". Since the Constitution demarcates both powers (through clear lists of subjects under Union and state legislatures) and structures (through legislative assemblies), the commonsensical view would be that separate elections are needed for a reason. Don't people need to vote separately with clear agendas in mind on what they are voting for and not just who?

Enough has already been said about how a single election would undermine India's federal character and how a one-shot poll would only favour a centralised, personality-driven, authoritarian rule (Read: Modi). But one man's authoritarian regime is another's "good governance project". Stability, in Modi's political lexicon, spells better development.

Perhaps it is time to examine democracy itself as an idea and how the Constitution views it. Since the Constitution's Preamble promises "social, economic and political justice", the canvas is broad enough to suggest that what people feel depends on the national mood. However, for moods to become lasting law, and that too one which fundamentally alters the political process, the country requires a national consensus that is lasting enough not to cause upheavals and unrest that would make frequent elections look like small blips. In other words, we can't let the cure for a flawed democracy become worse than the malady.

Now, let us examine a few quotes on that issue to locate the context.

Urdu poet Allama Iqbal famously said:

Jamhūriyat ik tarz-e-hukūmat hai ki jis meñ

bandoñ ko ginā karte haiñ taulā nahīñ karte

(Democracy is that form of government in which heads are counted, not weighed).

Headcount pessimists like that poet often have an elite bias in which knowledgeable, decisive people make fine decisions that keep spirits high and costs low. The fact that frequent elections increase costs is a favourite argument of those who believe that economics is central to the whole debate.

But it is equally pertinent to quote Kanshi Ram, founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), who articulated the worldview of Dalits representing the lowest in India's Hindu social hierarchy: "Hamein mazboot sarkar nahin, majboor sarkar chahiye" (We don't want a strong government, we want a government under pressure).

We may as well supplement that with rockstars David Bowie and Freddie Mercury belting out their classic "Under Pressure" to echo the Dalit condition:

It's the terror of knowing what this world is about

Watching some good friends screaming, "Let me out!"

If that is true, the purpose of frequent elections can be seen as a positive way of keeping the elite responsible for the poor. After all, poor voters have less media clout and even less money power. For them, a button pressed on the electronic voting machine is a silent scream meant to reach the high and mighty. In their lexicon, an election freebie is a goodie that somewhat eases life's pressures.

Between Kanshi Ram and Iqbal lie the words of Abraham Lincoln: "Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, and for the people". If that is true, it should logically also mean accountability "to the people" — which is what happens every time there is an election.

No wonder then that Jayaprakash Narayan, who led the famous "JP Movement" in the 1970s that led to and fought against the Emergency rule by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in principle advocated an extreme form of frequent elections called "Right to recall". JP said common people must have the right to dislodge their representatives which he said was an “unwritten right, which the people can exercise if and when necessary” because that is what is needed when the representatives "fail in their duty and become corrupt, oppressive and inefficient”.

Those quotes lead us nowhere in a constitutional context in which a lot depends not just on the national mood but also on the letters and the spirit of the constitution. We have already had the Supreme Court of India ruling against any tampering with the "basic structure" of the Constitution including parliamentary democracy. Given that we have a multi-party system, a diversity of languages, religions and political demands, both flexibility and fluidity are written into the social fabric and are reflected in India's political culture.

Cynics will argue that the One-Nation-One-Election panel will exploit or seek to introduce constitutional loopholes that enable a strongman rule favoured by Modi. Optimists will see it as an opportunity to reform an inefficient political system. Hardcore realists who sit somewhere in the middle would say that the current debate is more likely to be a poll rhetoric issue in the run-up to the general elections in India in 2024 for the BJP to consolidate power.

Overall, the one-election call may be a springboard for Modi to push the envelope of the constitution as part of a long-term plan to establish a top-down conservative agenda championed by Hindutva ideologues. Bottom-up politics, on the contrary, begins by politically empowering the people at the grassroots of society.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)

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