Panic in Pakistan
PAKISTAN Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has lost the swagger he acquired after taming a President and bending the judiciary. He is now beleaguered, with his options drying up by the day.

Curse of torture
IT is hardly surprising that the International Symposium on Torture held in Delhi did not receive the attention it deserved.

Wooing spree
THE way Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala has been distributing populist sops left, right and centre, it would seem that Assembly elections are very much round the corner.

E.C.’S POWERS AND CONSTRAINTS
The grey areas in Article 324
by Poonam I. Kaushish
WHAT are the powers of the Election Commission? Is the commission the be-all and end-all on election matters?

Privatisation holds promise
by Anurag
WITHOUT being judgemental about the superiority of private enterprises over the state-owned ones or, for that matter, laying any claim that privatisation is desirable for its own sake, even a casual observer of the world economic scene can discern a decisive shift from state ownership of business and industry towards privatisation, over the past two decades.

The hazards of imposed political stability
by P. Raman
NOW THAT the opinion poll predictors are vying with each other to give a near two-thirds majority for the BJP coalition, it is time to seriously examine the various suggestions that have come up for sweeping changes in the system. If all these soothsayings prove to be true, it will give a free hand to the alliance partners to push through far-reaching changes in the electoral system and Constitution.

Wrote, writ, written off
by Chaman Ahuja
MY grandchildren admire my penmanship — not the contents or style of what I write but the way I move my pen with a flourish. In return, I envy the neatness of their exercise-books. No, I have never written with a quill-feather; I am old but not all that ancient. My first instrument of writing was a reed-pen called “qalam”.

75 Years Ago

September 28, 1924
Mr. Bray’s Mistake
IN our last issue we published on the authority of Dr. Satyapal a statement to the effect that only a few Mohamedans were under arrest at Kohat, and not 300 as stated by Mr. Bray in the Assembly.

Panic in Pakistan

PAKISTAN Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has lost the swagger he acquired after taming a President and bending the judiciary. He is now beleaguered, with his options drying up by the day. His two actions last week were an admission of his weakening political hold and the search for an outside propo. First, he rushed his brother and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to the USA with an appeal to intercede and issue a warning against any “extra-constitutional change” in the power structure in Pakistan. That statement from Washington angered the military top brass since it insinuated that the army nursed anti-democratic impulses. Army chief Pervez Musharraf met the Prime Minister and more or less demanded a strong protest against the US warning but the latter did not oblige. He just could not since it would look ridiculous to first seek an anti-coup intervention and then denounce it. So Mr Sharif opted for another way to mollify the military top brass. He again deployed his brother to explain to the angry army what precisely happened in Washington and the background to the unusual statement. An earlier meeting between the Prime Minister and the country’s President, Mr Mohammad Rafiq Tarar, and a series of meetings of the joint chiefs of staff have surcharged the air with rumours of growing differences between the military and the political leadership. As is their wont, newspapers are adding to the confusion. There are daily denials of sensational speculation but very few take them at face value.

The latest faceoff started with the curious revelation by former Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik that a historic breakthrough in the Kashmir dispute was sabotaged by the army by its Kargil misadventure. In the face of the army rejection, he has withdrawn the remark but in an unconvincing manner. His disclosure, however, ignited the entire opposition to combine the Washington humiliation (the July 4 accord to pull out the intruders from Kargil) and the order for the actual retreat to lambast the Sharif government, demand its dismissal and mount a nationwide agitation. The incipient anarchy provides a perfect backdrop to a coup if the army were to toy with the idea. This is not such a crazy idea as it appears, and the powerful ISI chief Ziauddin has lent voice to it. Now on a visit to the USA he has told congressional leaders there that Pakistan needs urgent help to rein in the various bands of religious terrorists and fundamentalists from turning their malevolent attention to the domestic arena. This is a frightening confession if he has made it at all, and indicates that the violent groups which the ISI bred and boosted have either gone out of control or are threatening to do so. Pakistan today is the home of armed and committed Islamic fundamentalist fighters like the Taliban, well-trained and equipped mercenaries as those trying to enter the Kashmir valley and assorted gangs of Sunni and Shia marauders who specialise in sectarian violence. Each one of these groups has acquired an autonomous character with a will and wild dream of its own and that is the undercurrent which can further complicate the problems Pakistan is faced with. It is a disturbing development under Mr Sharif who was the most powerful Prime Minister that Pakistan ever had until a few months back.

Curse of torture

IT is hardly surprising that the International Symposium on Torture held in Delhi did not receive the attention it deserved. India’s poor record in preventing the law enforcing agencies from using third degree methods on suspects for extracting confessions of crimes they may not have committed is no secret. It is among the few countries, along with Pakistan, which have not yet signed the United Nations protocol against torture. The reason for the diffidence to sign the treaty for the protection of human rights of even those believed to be involved in criminal cases has something to do with the power the international monitoring agencies would acquire to probe specific instances of abuse of state power by member countries. Former President R. Venkataraman, who spoke at the symposium, painted an utopian picture in which the responsibilities of officers investigating crimes may be given a Gandhian orientation. Even if they are not able to wean criminals away from crime, they may change their own third degree methods of investigation. It is an established fact that the use of torture for extracting “confessions” have often led to the conviction of innocent persons. Mr Venkataraman observed that “the curse of torture is as old as the hills. The state agencies in charge of law and order resort to the shortcut of extracting confessions from the accused through means of torture”. Several commissions have examined the issue and have made useful recommendations for giving the police force a people-friendly image. By far the largest number of custodial deaths occur because of use of brutish methods for extracting confessions. The courts too have pulled up erring officers and constables in specific cases for causing the death (or serious disability) of suspects through unwarranted use of force during interrogations.

The participants urged the political leadership to show greater sensitivity in their response to specific instances of torture and the general demand for giving the draconian methods of crime investigation the order of the boot. The various non-governmental organisations and the existing state and national level human rights bodies too would have to be more assertive for taking the anti-torture message to the people. The indifference of the political class to the demand for taking such measures as may be necessary for improving the country’s human rights record is hardly surprising. No party or leader has made even a passing reference during the entire election campaign to the need for improving the country’s image in the comity of nations by signing the UN charter against torture and removing the domestic draconian laws from the statute book. The alleged torture of a maid by an Indian diplomat in Paris exemplifies the importance the political executive and the bureaucracy attaches to the demand for abolishing all forms of torture across the globe.

Wooing spree

THE way Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala has been distributing populist sops left, right and centre, it would seem that Assembly elections are very much round the corner. In fact, the bonanza announced by him at a massive rally in Hisar to mark the 86th birthday of his father, Mr Devi Lal, the other day has given rise to a distinct possibility that he is all set to recommend dissolution of the State Assembly and hold fresh elections soon after October 6 when parliamentary poll results would be out. And the big crowd that thronged the venue that day must have encouraged him further to take the plunge. It was Mr Devi Lal who had started the old-age pension scheme. Mr Chautala has now doubled the amount to Rs 200 per month. The modern-day Santa Claus of sorts has more goodies for almost every section. He has announced a new scheme of gifting Rs 5,100 as “kanyadaan” to every girl belonging to the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes on her wedding. He has also announced the abolition of octroi. This was one issue very close to the heart of the BJP but it could not persuade Mr Bansi Lal to do so, who cited insurmountable financial constraints. Mr Chautala has thus managed to win over the trader community. It is learnt that the decision was taken at the last minute. What all these bounties to various sections will do to the already precarious finances of Haryana is obvious. The additional burden will all but break the back of the State.

Mr Chautala knows that he owes his ascendancy to his father’s popularity to a considerable extent. So, during the rally he played the obedient son to the hilt. The “Tau” asked the public to support “Om Prakash” while he himself would continue to tweak his ears. The message was clear: the Chief Minister had the total blessings of the former Deputy Prime Minister. Coming back to his bag of goodies, Mr Chautala has decided to reinstate the employees whose services had been terminated by the former Chief Minister “in a vindictive manner” under ESMA. As if all that was not enough, he also announced the formation of an artisan development board on the pattern of Karnataka. It is learnt that Mr Chautala was keen to announce free water and electricity supply to the masses as well but did not do so after stiff opposition from the bureaucracy. So, he only focussed on the better supply of water and electricity. If only the State’s finances were in good shape, all these announcements would have passed off as welfare measures. But since it is facing a grave financial crisis, the gesture can only be called a blatant attempt to win over voters. Many years ago, Mr Devi Lal used the loan waiver stunt to great effect. Mr Chautala has proved that he is a worthy son. But, at what cost?

E.C.’S POWERS AND CONSTRAINTS
The grey areas in Article 324
by Poonam I. Kaushish

WHAT are the powers of the Election Commission? Is the commission the be-all and end-all on election matters? Are its powers limited to that of an ineffective referee blowing an empty whistle? Is the holding of polls the exclusive responsibility of the commission or not? How independent is an independent commission? Can it become a law unto itself? Is the Chief Election Commissioner, M.S. Gill demanding something for his own glorification?

The latest fracas was over the commission banning the publication of exit polls on the ongoing election on the plea that it would influence the voters in the next stage of the polling. Specially, the fence-sitters, who may then back the winning party. This could lead to a “bher chaal”, given our feudal mentality, especially in rural India. The matter reached a head in the Supreme Court when the commission went in appeal against the Madras High Court order allowing the publication and telecast of exit polls.

The commission’s argument rested on the powers vested in it vide Article 324 (i) of the Constitution. However, the court averred: “At the end of the day, you (EC) may go home with a perception that you have far less powers than the public perception of it.... The problem is your own creation. You should have seen what your powers are before issuing these guidelines. It is absurd to say that the EC will issue the guidelines but if somebody violates them, the Supreme Court will take action.”

Going by the facts, it can be safely construed that even though the Chief Election Commissioner may have intended only to hold free polls, the methods, or call it the ways he adopted left much to the desired. With the result that various motives have got appended to his intentions. Loud whispers were heard that he was being partial to the Congress. The spotlight then shifted to Bihar. Defence Minister George Fernandes shocked the nation by stating that bogus ballots had been printed and cast in the first phase of polling in the volatile state. He pointed his accusing finger at the state government in connivance with West Bengal’s CPM government for printing the voting slips in Calcutta. The Governor too flew down to Delhi and urgently seized the President and the commission of the matter. The CEC, unfortunately, refused to pay heed to the Governor’s plea and dubbed George Fernandes as a cantankerous fellow, leaving himself open to charges by the Samata Party of acting like an opposition party, a behaviour that did not behove his stature.

In another incident, Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh disenfranchised Haryana Chief Minister Chautala by ordering him to leave his district and stay put in either Delhi or Chandigarh. Mr Chautala has complained to the President and the Prime Minister for the unprecedented treatment meted out to a Chief Minister.

In fact, the drama between the commission and the government had its origin about six months back, in April last when the commission chose to go along with the Congress reasoning and delayed the elections till September-October. He refused to buy the BJP plea for an early poll — in May or June. In the process the country was saddled with a caretaker government for five months.

The commission’s argument that it was busy with the revision of the electoral rolls does not cut much ice. Not many are aware that it was the statutory duty of the commission to update the rolls by March 31 last. Was it sleeping or merely doling out an excuse to justify an unwarranted delay in holding the election? Remember, Mr G.V.G. Krishnamurthy had loudly announced that an early poll was possible, only to retract it later.

Since then there has been a continuous tug of war between the commission and the Vajpayee government on the one hand and the commission and the state governments on the other. The war ranged from the appointment of a former RAW chief as the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh to the posting and transfer of bureaucrats at the Centre and in the states.

Worse, for a body to maintain its impartiality it would have been better if the commissioners had chosen discretion to misplaced valour and not exercised their votes. By doing so, they needlessly crossed the rubicon of impartiality. It needs to be remembered that besides being impartial one must also appear to be impartial. It is another matter that Mr Krishnamurthy found his name missing when he went to cast his vote.

Tragically, we have come to this sorry pass because of the grey areas in Article 324 and its interpretation over the years. This Article armed the commission with absolute powers in regard to the “superintendence, direction and control” of the election. In fact, the Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that this power of superintendence, direction and control was unfettered and overriding. In practice, these three words give the commission two vital, far-reaching rights: virtually to legislate and to be informed. Experts including former CEC S.L.Shakdher, have held the view that the commission is empowered to legislate through “direction”, implement the legislation through “superintendence” and interpret legislation through “control”.

Few today recall that these three words in the aforementioned Article were taken from the overriding powers given to the Secretary of State for India under the British Raj. This enabled him to even supervise, control and direct the Viceroy of India, who himself enjoyed vast powers and discretion. Interestingly, the well-known constitutional authority, Durga Das Basu, has opined that the three words in the broadest terms provide the commission the power to make all provisions which are necessary for the smooth conduct of elections, subject to any law made by Parliament.

However, all this sounds well on paper. Granted, the commission is independent of the government. But to carry out its duties, it has to depend on the state machinery entirely. It is thus not wholly free of the government administratively. Consequently, most CECs have been crying hoarse over their independence. But to no avail for the government believes in the old adage that “One who pays the piper calls the tune!”

How is the commission expected to conduct a free and fair poll? When it has to go to the government for everything and seek its clearance. Look at the absurdity: Law and order being a state subject, the commission has to request the state governments for their staff for poll duty. The result? A convenient, committed and contaminated staff may be made available. What is more, the state staff is subject to the disciplinary jurisdiction of the government, not of the commission plainly put, if it finds faults with any officer, it has to complain to the government which will then take such action as it deems fit or merely ignore the complaint.

Moreover, unless the commission has effective powers over those deployed on poll duty for wrong doing, why should they comply with its directions faithfully, if it is so wholly dependent for its functions? So what if it raises a stink about contaminated officials. As did Mr Seshan in May, 1993, when he refused to hold the Lok Sabha and state assembly byelections on the question of the commissions jurisdiction over officials on poll duty. Thus, can the commission conduct free and fair polls with contaminated officials?

There is another anomaly. The three-member commission has to abide by a majority decision comprising the CEC and the other two commissioners. What happens when one of the three retires in the midst of a poll. Mr Krishnamurthy is retiring on September 30. In the event of differing opinions between the two remaining members, who will determine the majority and take a decision? Specially as it would not be correct for the caretaker government to appoint another person in his place when a fortnight from now a new government would be in place.

Successive governments have been promising to cleanse the system and ensure a truly free and fair poll. Eventually, however, each has become a part of the cesspool. Electoral laws and various codes of conduct have been brazenly violated all these years. Seldom have the violators been punished.

Mr M.S. Gill has done well to raise this issue because some unspecified grey areas remain. Nonetheless, his rough and dictatorial ways, bordering on bias and blatant favouritism, divert attention from the merits of the case: namely the powers of the commission.

It is now time that a clear decision is taken on the powers and constraints of the commission under Article 324. True, the commission and the government have to ultimately work in tandem if our people are to be assured of free and fair polls. But in the ding-dong battle over words and alphabets, the question is not one of “guilty EC” or an influential government. The fight is essentially over the scope of the three words: superintendence, control and direction. It all boils down to the letter “I” and how far the commission is to function impartially and independently. — INFA

Privatisation holds promise
by Anurag

WITHOUT being judgemental about the superiority of private enterprises over the state-owned ones or, for that matter, laying any claim that privatisation is desirable for its own sake, even a casual observer of the world economic scene can discern a decisive shift from state ownership of business and industry towards privatisation, over the past two decades. Studies show that the global privatisation revenue was a whopping $155 billion during 1990-96, the major contributors being East Asia and the Pacific rim (17 per cent), Europe and Central Asia (20 per cent) and Latin America and the Caribbean (53 per cent).

Interestingly enough, telecommunications accounted for 24 per cent of the $155 billion revenue. Generally speaking, the state-owned telecom industry was the first to be privatised in a country which embarked on the privatisation path. Recognising this crucial infrastructural sector’s catalytic role in a developing country, India too decided to privatise the value-added and basic telecom services in May, 1994. That this experiment remained riddled with controversies right from word go, and is still stumbling along is a different matter.

But this should not distract from the positive aspects of privatisation. The recent spurt in privatisation can be attributed to the dazzling performance of the East Asian economies coupled with the collapse of the socialist models on the one hand and on the other the inability of the state-owned behemoths to adapt to the rapid advances being made in information technology and the resultant global competition. The developed countries were quick to embrace the credo of privatisation to promote competition and reap the benefits of more efficient use of resources, which led to lower costs and higher quality of goods and services.

As for the developing world, privatisation was perceived to serve two purposes. One, generation of additional sources of cash flow and finance for business enterprises and, secondly, reduction in the budgetary fiscal deficit by selling off public assets to retire the public debt, besides increasing tax revenue by way of higher profits expected of a privatised enterprise.

We have a large number of public sector enterprises (PSEs) with enormous assets whose productivity is something to be ashamed about. In terms of real returns to investments, they have performed quite poorly as compared to their private counterparts. Given the market share of PSEs, their poor showing significantly influences the overall industrial performance. Wherever some of the PSEs have done well, it was due to their substantial market power and share rather than any marked improvement in efficiency. Lack of autonomy in planning and operations, over-orientation towards labour welfare coupled with managerial ineptitude and politico-bureaucratic meddling are such handicaps as can be got rid of by a change in ownership and management of these enterprises. Privatisation is an imperative, not an option. The wail of the steel major SAIL should be seen in this context.

We have a stronger case for the privatisation of public sector banks. Given their well-entrenched extensive network and their gigantic share in both the deposits and advance markets, the entry of private banks would not infuse the desired degree of competition-led efficiency, except, of course, in specific market segments. Therefore, instead of allowing large-scale entry of private banks, the government should privatise the public sector banks to “jump-start” efficiency improvements. As for social obligations, they can be taken care of through a regulatory framework of the RBI even in the case of privatised banks. Ditto for the fears of “bank runs” which may get triggered in the event of a bank failure and resultant panic.

It is high time we shifted focus from “whether to privatise” to “what and how to privatise”. Coming to the methods of privatisation, the criteria should be two-fold — efficient allocation of ownership rights and generation of maximum revenue. Most preferred modes are auction and participation contracts. The auction method not only enables foreign investors to come forward but also motivates the employees to buy shares offered at a preferential rate. Restructuring can be ushered in without delay. In the participation contract, the government does not receive cash payments but retains a “sleeping” fractional ownership in the firm and keeps receiving a certain proportion of future profits. However, a properly designed auction mechanism is recommended for the privatisation of Indian companies, the glitches in the ongoing telecom tangle notwithstanding.

A recent FICCI survey of public sector executives revealed that 40 per cent considered auction to the highest bidder as the most efficient way of disinvestment with book building and tender above a floor price as the next best option. And 62 per cent wanted the government stake to vary from 26 to 49 per cent.

It is a happy augury that the BJP’s economic ideologue Jagdish Shettigar has promised to reduce the government stake in banks to below 51 per cent, even by effecting legislative changes if necessary to provide autonomy to bank boards, if the party comes back to power. The new government has its task cut out for itself.

Wrote, writ, written off
by Chaman Ahuja

MY grandchildren admire my penmanship — not the contents or style of what I write but the way I move my pen with a flourish. In return, I envy the neatness of their exercise-books.

No, I have never written with a quill-feather; I am old but not all that ancient. My first instrument of writing was a reed-pen called “qalam”. It had to be mended with a knife ever so often if you wanted to please your teacher by lending the desired variety to the contours of the letters — sharp and fine here, bold or thick there. For me the contours came naturally; the problem lay in sharpening the pen and giving its tip the right kind of slanting cut. More often than not, I would injure my fingers or keep mending till the reed was too small to hold.

Oh, what a soup I would invariably land myself in — thanks to the Uncle Podger in me! In the earthen inkpot with a bit of cloth, one had to pour the glistening crystals of ink before adding water. Unable to strike the right balance, I would smudge my fingers with ink as well as with my blood (while mending) even before touching the small wooden-board called takhti.

For writing, one had to dip the pen into the inkpot so as to draw on its tip the right amount of ink; if the pen had more than the optimum, one had to shake off the excess. That art I could not learn; instead I learnt the art of so sprinkling the ink on my dress as to create grotesque print-work. Returning home, I would carry visible evidence of my scholastic pursuits — blackened hands, painted face, quaint patterns on my clothes.

Even after graduating into the secondary stage when takhti was replaced by paper, the black ink by blue, the “qalam” by a pen with a nib — “G” for English and “Z” for Urdu — the ink-shaking continued with colourful results on the floor, if not on the dress. Ah, the thrill of holding the fountain pen for the first time! I was so excited that it fell from my hand and that cost me full four annas (a fortune then) for the replacement of the “Signature” nib.

As the fountain pen changed the mechanism of ink-filling from tube to pumping to push-botton to self-filling to self-holding, the jerking lessened but did not go until there arrived the ball-pens; but, alas, with that went the art of calligraphy, too. Now, you can write fast and smooth, and technology is yielding more and more diversity in shapes, concepts and functions, but the writing is always so boringly uniform — with nothing of the shapely contours.

Today, since these new pens are my instruments also, out of disuse, my art has gone rusty, but it is still good enough to impress grandkids. I often wonder, though, how my grandchildren will impress their own grandchildren by their ability to write with hand only a few decades hence when, thanks to the computers, there will be no need to hold a pen. Already, even professional writers “write” no more: they dash off their opus straight on laptops. Thank God, I shall not be there to see writing itself written off.

The hazards of imposed political stability

by P. Raman

NOW THAT the opinion poll predictors are vying with each other to give a near two-thirds majority for the BJP coalition, it is time to seriously examine the various suggestions that have come up for sweeping changes in the system. If all these soothsayings prove to be true, it will give a free hand to the alliance partners to push through far-reaching changes in the electoral system and Constitution.

The proposals in this regard can be divided into two broad categories — those aimed at momentary partisan gains or to settle scores with the political rivals and those which are expected to genuinely improve the functioning of the parliamentary system. In the first category all sorts of fancy suggestions are made by politicians. Some are purely electoral sops to win over large votebanks. Liberal promises to amend the statute and rules have become routine mantra for the politicians who make such sweeping offers at the slightest provocation. Understandably, change of rules and threats of inquiry are the easiest things the voter-seekers could do without the need for any accountability.

Faced with the boycott of elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Dr Farooq Abdullah proposes rules for compulsory voting. Some of his colleagues have even suggested use of the police force to herd reluctant voters into the polling booth. When Sonia Gandhi filed her nomination papers from both Bellary and Amethi, the NDA leaders came out with the idea of banning candidates fighting from two places simultaneously. Even BJP stalwarts like Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani had in the past contested from two places and no one then found any need to bring in amendments to prevent the practice. Similar is the case with the Sonia-centric proposal for debarring foreign-born Indians from taking up top constitutional positions. Curiously, L. K. Advani himself had disfavoured the idea when it had come up for discussion on the Dinesh Goswami report. Apparently, the change of stance is only to spite Sonia Gandhi who is emerging as a formidable challenge to the BJP alliance.

Similarly, the Congress has advocated registration of institutions conducting opinion polls. This has been a Pavlovian response to the large number of psephological predictions about a sweep by the ruling NDA. The Congress argument is that even newspapers organisations had to get themselves registered under the Press and Registration Act. There should be a similar accountability for pollsters. The CPM has sought legal provisions to penalise the irresponsible ones as their aim was to influence voters. Later the Congress even threatened to hold an inquiry to find out who had financed the surveys and how they arrived at their conclusions.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has made an impromptu promise to “amend the Constitution” to protect the rights of the minorities and Dalits. He did not say what kind of minority or Dalit rights he wanted to protect and what Article of the statute he would like to amend. So many governments were defeated in the past on the floor of the House. But this is the first time we are hearing of a suggestion to try the “German cure” for our parliamentary maladies. Now the Law Commission has also prescribed the same remedy to give a longer life for Parliament and state assemblies.

According to the proposal, no-confidence motions against a ministry should also be accompanied by an alternative package for forming a new government. The obvious provocation has been the failure of Sonia Gandhi to mop up enough numbers for an alternative government after the Vajpayee Government lost the majority on the floor of the House.

Those who put forth such contrived solutions ignore the harsh Indian realities. We are as large as a continent with diverse interests and problems. We have 42 recognised parties in Parliament. Some put the total number of political parties in India at as high as 600. With the kind of diverse interests based on caste and religious loyalties, even a composite package motion would not be of much use. Nothing can prevent the parties from changing their mind after supporting a package motion. More rigid legal or constitutional restrictions will prove to be highly undemocratic and totalitarian. This sort of short-sighted solutions to complex issues will damage the country’s very democratic fabric.

In the second category are a series of constitutional amendments and changes in the rules of procedures proposed by the Law Commission. Each one of them calls for careful study because even a casual look at them will convince one of their devastating implications. One of them aims at imposing a fixed five-year term for the elected bodies like the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. No doubt, the formation of unstable coalitions has been due to the failure of the political system to offer a stable one-party rule. We had the Prime Ministers and two Lok Sabhas in three years. Unlike the durable Left Front governments, the centrist coalitions have been highly fragile. Thus the Law Commission prescribed an extremely legalistic solution to an endemic and critical systemic weakness.

But the remedy will prove to be worse than the disease. Once assured of a five-year lease, the elected members are bound to become megalomaniacs. During the current elections, many of those seeking re-election had to face voters’ fury for their failure to attend to their problems. Protected service will make them more unresponsive and arrogant. Incidentally, there seems to be a clear correlation between the members’ responsiveness to the electors and the degree of mid-term poll threats. Freedom from the fear of another early poll will make them freer to indulge in defections, horsetrading and toppling games. In any case, a fixed tenure can never be a solution to political instability and consequent collapse of a government.

As one sin leads to another, a concomitant proposal has been made to ensure a two-year tenure for the ministries once they prove their majority. No no-confidence motion could be adopted against them during this period. It looks so Draconian that even if the government fails on the floor of the House on a Finance Bill, it will remain unhurt. The motion gets lost, not the government. The result will be an erosion of the people’s will. No doubt, the promise of security of tenure for the PMs in the NDA manifesto will get the support from members cutting across party lines. Opposition circles fear that the NDA might try to take away its flock on the issue of the proposed five-year lease Bill.

This kind of undue obsession with stability will not take us anywhere. Unfortunately, genuine political stability is equated with an artificial stability of the elected members and that of a Cabinet installed by them. Such synthetic stability will further curtail the power of people. For the past 15 years, Indian voters have persistently denied absolute majority to any party in the Lok Sabha. This is in spite of fervent appeals to the voters to elect a stable government. Elections are the only opportunity to voters to scrutinise the functioning of their representatives. Thus both the mindless imposition of artificial stability and curbs on the voters’ right to elect those whom they prefer, will amount to subvertion of people’s will.

Take the proposal for imposing a two-party system on a country with 100 crores of people with diverse culture, caste, religion and regional disparities, by derecognising at one stroke what is described as smaller parties. According to the proposal, to begin with, parties with less than 5 per cent of the total votes polled, will be derecognised. If this is accepted only three parties — the BJP, Congress and the CPI(M) — will get representation in Lok Sabha. As a result prominent regional parties like the TDP, ADMK, DMK, SP, Akali Dal, Trinamul Congress, etc will lose representation in the Lok Sabha. It will also lead to certain democratic anomalies. Supposing a candidate wins a seat but his or her party loses recognition in the respective House, the unsuccessful candidate will be declared successful.

In democracy, the people’s verdict should be supreme. If the people persistently vote for smaller or regional parties over a period of time, it only shows their trust in them. It is absurd to introduce a law to force them to vote for those who they refuse to endorse. Similarly, the list system or proportional representation may look sound on paper, but it will invariably give unlimited powers to the respective party bosses. Most political parties, including the BJP, have not held regular elections. Moreover, the list system will perpetuate caste, religious and criminal representation as these forces are bound to seek their pound of flesh after the elections.

This is not to ignore the distortions that have crept into the body-politic. During the 1957-67 decade there have been 540 defections. The Bhagwan Sahay panel had reported 1,240 cases of defections in three years after 1967. Most of them were for ministerships. Barring the Left, all parties were subjected to defection under Narasimha Rao’s rule. He had wrested the majority by engineering over a dozen splits. In 11 years, Ajit Singh had changed parties eight times. The BJP under Kalyan Singh broke all records by giving ministership to the entire lot of defectors, many of them with criminal records. The UP Speaker, a BJP member, outsmarted Shivraj Patil by winking at the mindless defections.

Thus there is need for drastic reforms in the system to make parliamentary democracy more effective and healthy. But this should not be for partisan gains. There should be a public debate and the maximum consultation on all such serious proposals. They should be processed only after arriving at a national consensus. This should be accompanied by a cultivated respect for constitutional institutions like the President and Election Commission by both the Opposition and the ruling party. Unfortunately, the track record of the ruling alliance in this regard has been far from encouraging.

75 YEARS AGO

September 28, 1924
Mr. Bray’s Mistake

IN our last issue we published on the authority of Dr. Satyapal a statement to the effect that only a few Mohamedans were under arrest at Kohat, and not 300 as stated by Mr. Bray in the Assembly.

It is interesting to note that Mr. Bray made the same correction himself in a statement he made in the Assembly on Saturday last.

According to a Simla telegram, “he apologised for an inaccuracy of his, due to a lapse in the Telegraph Office, which had made the Foreign Secretary tell the House the other day that three hundred and three Mohamedans had been arrested at Kohat.

For “hundred” read “Hindus”, and you have what Mr. Bray should have said. The vagaries of the Telegraph Department are well-known, but we confess this is the first time, at least in recent years, that it has made itself responsible for so gross a lapse in a matter of such importance.