Makers of Modern India

by Ramachandra Guha

  Reforming the System of Elections in India

  In 1962, after the Congress had won its third successive general election, Rajagopalachari argued that the electoral system in India was biased towards the ruling party. Further, it was subject to the influence of big business and not transparent. In our next excerpt, he outlined how elections in India could be made more efficient and transparent. This is the last of four essays by Rajagopalachari which—in the view of this editor—collectively demonstrate that no one, before or since, has thought through the problems of Indian democracy with such acuity and insight.5

  Reform of electoral procedure has been talked about and it seems as if the Congress Government is satisfied that all that is needed has been done. The Congress Party does not seem to object to elections being, by and large, a private enterprise, as it has capital enough to run them as such. Why should the Government not arrange to give to every voter his or her identification card and serial number? This would substantially reduce the expense for the candidate. It is the expensiveness of the election campaigns and the monopoly of funds that it commands that chiefly contribute to the Congress Party’s success. Nothing is being done towards reducing the expenses of candidates or of parties, which is the same thing …

  The Indian electorate suffers from well-known defects from which Western democracies are relatively free. The Indian voters are in great measure poor and vulnerable to bribery: even a day’s expense for food serves to buy a large number of the poor voters. They are in a great measure ignorant and do not know, for instance, why prices rise. They are ignorant of the connection between Government policies and their consequences in a nation’s life. They are moved by caste and community affiliations. They like to vote for the party likely to succeed, irrespective of policies or merits.

  It is therefore highly unsatisfactory that the press should day in and day out publish during the critical fortnight captions forecasting success for the Congress Party. The freedom of the press is sacred and I am as much a defender of it as Milton or John Stuart Mill. But this is definitely rigging the contest in favour of the ruling party. Among the many difficulties mentioned above, this is an additional handicap for opposition parties for which the press is responsible, possibly without intending it …

  There is no way of salvaging democracy in India unless the former Election Commissioner6 with his great experience works out a very inexpensive election procedure putting a maximum share of the cost on the State and saving the expense for candidates. We must choose between evils and cannot hope to have everything good. I would put the burden of distributing identification slips on the Government. I would also like mobile arrangements for collecting votes at the voters’ residences.

  We can even think of two stages in the General Elections, the first stage being the election of a front-rank leader to lead the Government of India, and the second stage being the election of all MPs after the public knows the result of the first stage. This may be treated as a compromise between the American and the British system. We are not in the same situation as we were in the first decade of Independence when we had quite a few ‘old guard’ men available who were known and respected all over India …

  At long last the Election Commission has expressed the desire to work out a plan by which every voter casts his vote at his doorstep. This has been my cry all these years. I hope the plan will not be given up on account of seeming difficulties and objections, but will be worked out properly. It will reduce corruption as well as intimidation. It will reduce the expense of elections and make it possible for candidates to stand without depending on money to be obtained from others. It is a bold step that is involved. I hope the Election Commission will not retreat but press on with this far-reaching reform.

  The one-man Election Commission, we are told, is thinking of having mobile polling booths in ‘risky’ areas and places where violence and intimidation are rife. Those who know how much money is spent by parties and candidates in elections and how it is spent, would tell the Election Commission that corruption would be much minimized and honesty would have a chance if house-to-house taking of votes in mobile booths could be introduced everywhere. The Government should spend more and the actual expenses of parties and candidates should be considerably reduced.

  It appears from what has been reported in the press that the Election Commissioner objects to candidates writing, typing or rubber-stamping their names on the identity slips they give to the voters. This is a just objection that the Election Commissioner has taken. If electioneering misdemeanours are to be reduced to the minimum, the State should recognize and fulfil its duty to acquaint each voter of his right to vote, and give him a card showing his name and number in the roll, and not leave it to the candidates to do this work. It is this that gives the opportunity for misdemeanours. The Commissioner’s objection confirms the validity of my long standing proposal that the Government should give cards of identification to voters and also collect the votes on the appointed days in mobile polling-booths so as to keep candidates’ conveyances out of the field.

  The duplication of expenses incurred in telling the voter that he has a vote and persuading him to go to the booth to lodge his vote ought to be avoided and the State as a whole should incur the trouble and the expense. The candidates should be left to earn their preferences by their merits and their campaigning and not by reason of having taken the trouble to acquaint the voter of his right and by reason of making it easy for him to go to the polling-booth. Our voters are simple-minded and they feel it their moral duty to oblige those that take some trouble on their behalf during the polling week. This leads to making the election a mere bargain.

  The reform I have proposed and which I have kept insisting upon, should be made the rule as early as possible. Mobile booths to collect votes may appear to be a rather expensive scheme. But … [t]he total national expenditure on the elections would be less, more burden falling on the Government, and much less on the candidates, which is just the right thing if we desire to give an equal chance to all the candidates, rich or poor. Let us nationalize the elections before we nationalize business concerns which will suffer and not improve by nationalization …

  Pothan Joseph, writing in the Sunday Standard, winds up a most readable review of Mr. Nehru’s campaign-language thus:

  ‘The standard of 1962 oratory did not contribute to a glorious chapter of sober education for the 210 million adults in the voters’ lists.’

  What is to be deplored most in the recent elections, however, is not the language but the terrible rise in election expenditure and the manner in which money flowed for the purchase of the votes of the poor and illiterate. Money running so alarmingly ahead of education, leads one to ask what hope or way out is there for democracy. The hunger for good government thus foiled inevitably leads to some form of violent escape which spells disaster for democracy.

  It should be made a binding rule that no Minister responsible for Industries, either at the Centre or in the States, should undertake collection of funds for the ruling party for the coming general elections. Otherwise it is open large-scale corruption, whatever may be the camouflages set up. It is not enough that this convention is publicly accepted if indirect arrangements are put into motion contrary to the principle …

  All kinds of collection of money are going on, called ‘voluntary’ donations for unofficial funds in which the Congress Party is interested, and in which officials of the status of collectors of districts and ministers of States are asked to take a direct part and considerable interest. The other day a collector gave ten lakhs of rupees as the ‘quota’ for his district for the Nehru Fund …

  We cannot save democracy for India unless we make elections less expensive than they are today. The officially ordained ceiling does not tell us the real story. The expense to be incurred whether by the candidate or the party is far too great and we must investigate and see what we can do to make it possible for a decent man of moderate means to get elected. I have be
en advocating mobile polling booths and placing the responsibility on the administration of giving to every voter his identity card with his or her name and number in the electoral list. At present all this work is of the nature of private enterprise run by candidates. If what I have been suggesting is not satisfactory, some other means must be found. But that elections should be made much less expensive is an imperative necessity.

  The elections cost candidates fabulous sums of money—not particularly on account of bribing, but by reason of necessary expenditure on men to be engaged in the various transactions involved in the process of direct elections based on adult suffrage. The whole structure must break down under the weight of this expense, when the subservience of industry to politics is got rid of, as it must be, one day. Shareholders’ money is now being misused by the managing agencies for political purposes as a result of government being a Permit-Licence Raj; but this cannot go on for long. One day or other, a ban will have to be placed on contributions by company managements of shareholders’ money to political parties for distribution among their candidates for electioneering expenses. Then this expensive structure must break down …

  All changes involve trouble in the beginning. Even very desirable reforms involve trouble. Conservative officials not wishing to incur these troubles may present impediments and objections. But unless these are over-ruled and mobile booths go round and collect votes, elections will be too expensive for our country, its people and the candidates. Money will rule and not opinions.

  Any amount of talk may go on to beguile people. But until the election procedure is altered radically so as to throw the great burden of identification and getting the voters to cast their votes, on the Government without making it an expensive handicap for poor candidates and poor parties, practically deeming elections to be a private enterprise, there can be no real socialism. Expropriation and curbing and discouraging free production do not make socialism but make poverty. Envy is not socialism. What is at the basis of all present-day errors in the art of government is that reform is based on conflict and envy and not on good sense.

  Freeing the Economy

  The economic policies of Jawaharlal Nehru, and of the Government of India, assigned a key role to the state. Rajagopalachari thought these policies constituted a ‘permit-licence-quota Raj’ that stifled entrepreneurship and private initiative. His own economic ideas are succinctly summarized in our next excerpt from his writing.7

  It is remarkable that in this scientific and rationalistic age, centralized economic planning by the State has been raised to the pedestal of a holy cult. The dominant theme in India for some years past has been the economic uplift of the masses, and centralized all-out planning has been resorted to as the means of promoting that object. And this, in spite of reiterated lip-service to decentralization. The major fault of centralized, comprehensive planning is that it imposes a monolithic burden on a people composed of diverse elements at all levels and in all occupations. The achievements that it might show in a few selected areas are bought at the cost of the freedom and enterprise of the individual. The individual and his creative ability are smothered by a proliferating bureaucracy and innumerable rules and regulations …

  [P]lanning has proceeded in our country on the assumption that people do not know what is good for them and, therefore, they must be told what to do. It has proceeded on the basis that a few bright persons are omniscient and are capable of directing the destinies of the nation in an infallible manner. We have had many warnings to teach us humility. The Bhakra dam, which was described as the new and real temple for India, can be aptly described as the projection of our folly in thinking that big dams are the best things. It must come as a revelation to all of us that, apart from crores of rupees sunk into this mammoth project, the danger of anything going wrong with the dam would be an inundation of indescribable magnitude. The bigger a man builds, the smaller becomes his control over the things he builds. What I deplore is not the building of this particular dam but the megalomania for big projects. These projects have a political corollary—the centralization of all authority, to the detriment of the future of the nation. Until and unless we develop to a stage when the requisite administrative set-up, technical skill and, above all, conscience are all geared to the needs of such projects, it is foolhardy to venture on them …

  What we need is not just big projects, but useful and fruitful projects. There is nothing inherently wrong with bigness, just as there is nothing inherently good in bigness. Big dams are good, but more essential are thousands of small projects which could be and would be executed by the enthusiasm of the local people because they directly and immediately improve their lives. So also in the setting up of industries, there should be encouragement to industries producing consumer goods, which give content and meaning to the phrase ‘standard of living’ and which can be produced in small and medium scale industries. Private enterprise should be fostered by every means available and not treated as a dangerous enemy. Industrial enterprise would then spread at various levels in the countryside and reduce the tensions that attach to centralized industrialism.

  The federal structure of India is not only not used but is sought to be sabotaged. For instance, although industries are today listed by the Constitution under the State Schedule (excepting strategic industries), those who wish to start industries must all rush to New Delhi for permits and comply with or otherwise negotiate a host of regulations. As a consequence, unemployment stands unchanged. It will be argued that there should be co-ordination and uniformity. But economic development takes place faster when diversity is permitted and the fullest use is made of local, physical and social conditions by those who know them.

  One of the most neglected aspects of planning in this country is the gearing up of the administrative machinery and the simplification of procedures. It is no use directing appeals of patriotism to clerks whose personal lives cannot permit room for any thought beyond their day-to-day household troubles. Unless conditions are radically changed to provide incentives, to remove inefficiency and to fix responsibility, economic development in this country will be hampered by the very administrative machinery which is supposed to help it.

  The role of the Government should be that of a catalyst in stimulating economic development while individual initiative and enterprise are given the fullest play. The Government can do a great deal by way of providing a network of highways and village roads, in improving waterways and developing small harbours, improving communication and transit facilities, which would all serve to boost the economy. Many important things have been neglected because the Government has forgotten them in its obsession with a ‘command economy’. Wise planning means Government help to foster private enterprise and self-help among individuals. Otherwise, there can be no real progress.

  Assisting the Backward

  The Indian Constitution had mandated affirmative action for the former Untouchables and tribals. A percentage of seats in Parliament and state assemblies, and in government jobs, were reserved for them. There were continuing pressures to expand these programmes to include Other Backward Classes. In our next excerpt, Rajagopalachari argues that all such schemes should be based on economic criteria alone.8

  There is a problem in our public affairs which is almost interminable—that of the community as a whole acting through the State helping the backward elements to rise to a better life in material terms and to a higher level of culture. We seek to do away with all caste divisions but all statutory and other concessions given for the uplift of the backward elements are prescribed on the basis of caste, although castes and sub-castes are branded as wicked and stand abolished in the national ideology. Caste was and still continues to be deemed as the best means of identifying the beneficiaries and distributing the concessions. It has, however, been increasingly felt that this is a basically erroneous procedure, being in conflict with the no-caste ideology of the nation. It is seen more and more clearly that it creates a vested interest in b
ackwardness and in belonging to a particular caste. It is easily exploited to the advantage of a few individuals ‘belonging’ to a ‘backward’ caste, these beneficiaries themselves being in no sense backward. Not only does the community remain backward, notwithstanding the concessions and assistance given by the State, but the benefiting individuals insist on classifying the community as backward and [are] therefore interested in keeping it as backward. This is in increasing measure recognized by the general body of even those castes. They themselves have often protested against exploitation by favoured individuals of the assistance given to the community or sub-community concerned.

  The question, therefore, must soon be tackled boldly whether the caste-wise approach should not be given up and a secular economical test substituted for all the State assistance and concessions to be given for the uplift of the backward. A definition based on economic condition would prevent exploitation and be capable of more general application, so as to avoid the charge that these uplift concessions are fundamentally discriminatory, and by such discrimination creating new classes of under-privileged people, while not helping the old backward classes. The whole question should be examined in the dry light of justice and reasonableness, and a formula arrived at which would decide who needs help and what concessions should be given to him to do him justice. The formula must necessarily be in individual economic terms and not one based on locality or community. Locality and community combined may be a convenient basis for enquiry, but should not itself be the final grounds for classification.