Parliamentary Democracy in India

It is an honour to be called upon by The Illustrated Weekly of India to write about the future of parliamentary democracy in India. I do not wish to attempt any prognosis or pose as a prophet. The future of parliamentary democracy, as of any other institution resting on popular confidence, depends more on the justice, fair-mindedness and efficiency of those who work the administration under it than any other single factor. The popular acceptance of that work as good and beneficial gives durability to parliamentary democracy more than any academic element. The work of any institution, again, depends on the character and the policies of the individuals who happen to be continually in charge of it.

     The future of parliamentary democracy in India therefore depends on how it is being run by the Congress Party which has been managing it ever since it began and which is collecting a vast sum from the industrialists and the commercial community to spend in the forthcoming elections in order to extend its tenure unbroken. The Congress Party holds in its hands the key to the life of parliamentary democracy in India. It can so conduct itself that it becomes a sham or acquires a bad name, and thereby destroy faith in the institution - and this may be done without intending it, and as a result of what may be called party egotism.

     Any prognostication on the general and abstract question of the future of parliamentary democracy in India has to be based on the present policies and tendencies of the Congress Party and is therefore likely to be misunderstood as propaganda. There are, no doubt, certain aspects of the question which can be treated from a non-party angle and almost academically, but even this is not easy.

     The first most striking feature in the present situation is the policy of preparing and committing the nation to long-term expenditure and liabilities. The Plans that are incessantly forced on the public's listening and reading capacity are what I refer to. These Plans, apart from their merits, involve the assumption of authority by the present elected representatives over such long periods of time that it means the annulment of that continued power and authority in the people to decide from time to time their own affairs which is the essential element of parliamentary democracy. The votes of future generations of adults and their elected representatives are necessarily extinguished, or so over laden with previous commitments as to amount in effect to their disfranchisement.

     A certain quantum of futurity must necessarily enter into every decision of Parliament, but the policy of repeated big Five-Year Plans now adopted, and the national obligations undertaken under these Plans, go much beyond that unavoidable quantum of futurity, and undermine the liberty of the coming generations and the discretion of their representatives. These long-term Plans so greatly draw on internal resources in advance, and involve the nation in such heavy debt to nations abroad; that there is no room left for real parliamentary democracy for people who come after the present generation. Parliamentary democracy may be maintained in appearance, in forms and ceremonies, but it would not be real.

     There are some other questions with which one may deal here which have no connection with what has been already done, which have no reference to the quality, good or bad, of present performance.

     There have been proposals in various quarters to abolish direct election as being fraught with too much wasteful expenditure and serious defects, and to adopt, instead, indirect election as more suitable for a poor nation of vast size and little educational preparation for the direct franchise.

     Of course every remedy has its own defects. The greatest difficulty with indirect election is that we cannot have mere electoral colleges with no other duties and powers attached except to vote. This is bound to lead to corruption. This could be overcome by giving responsible local duties and powers, over and above the mere voting function, to those elected at lower levels. We would have, so to say, an elected bureaucracy with vast powers at all levels. Indirect election will have to go with decentralized administration by elected office-bearers. There will be plenty of intimidation, want of integration and tyranny, but the people will get the government they deserve, which is an inescapable harmony, and they may get used to it. Election expenditure - at least that part of it which is public - would be greatly reduced.

     There is much to be said for indirect elections with power and responsibility in all the tiers. It would indeed be a long term plan to educate the people in the art of government. At the end of a long period of travail, the legislatures at State and Central level would be manned by persons with real experience gained at the cost of much national distress.

     The party system which has come down to us from Britain has not pleased many people. Saints and others have expressed their disgust with it. They suggest a no-party system. For this, too, in principle, but only in principle, there is a great deal to be said. But we cannot invent a no-party scheme capable of being worked. It cannot be worked in any unitary or federal system of Indian governance. The advocates of the no-party scheme of government therefore must link their proposal to a complete decentralized scheme of government.

     "Party divisions, whether on the whole operating for good or evil, are things inseparable from free government. This is a truth which, I believe, admits little dispute, having been established by the uniform experience of all ages,” said Edmund Burke. Can we by any trick or law - would it be just even if it were possible ? - prevent people from coming together over some important question or principle which cannot be disposed of in a short struggle, but which must be tackled through generations? This coming together in a crusade would mean a party.

     Without going into the practicability of any scheme of representation of the people based on, or more or less on, the no-party principle, one may put this aside for the present and examine other ideas which at least approach the problem from the no-party ideal without going so far as to say: Have done with all political parties.

     There is the suggestion that we may have a permanent scheme of coalition governments - such as, I am told, prevails in a way in Uruguay. In that South American republic, the President, like his counterpart in the U.S.A., is the supreme executive and functions not merely ceremonially as in India, but as Prime Minister with even greater authority in some respects than the British Cabinet or the British Prime Minister.

     However, the President in Uruguay is not a single person but a small composite committee wherein the opposition party has also a share, holding half the number of seats which the majority party holds. This is a kind of constitutional scheme for coalition between majority and minority parties which has been working for a long time in that country, apparently without any hitch.

     There is a strong plea in some quarters for a coalition government to be accepted as the normal scheme of governance in India. There are well-known objections to this proposal, principally the point that it would do away with full responsibility which is essential for good government. But as against this there is much that can be said in favour of constant interplay of wisdoms and ideas between opposing groups even in the chief executive organ of government.

     We shall now go back to John Stuart Mill's powerful plea in favour of proportional representation. That great devotee of freedom of thought and enemy of every kind of suppression of liberty strongly welcomed the then new idea of proportional representation in parliamentary government as greatly contributing to the actual realization of the principles of liberty as against the traditional and rigid majority system which often suppresses the real majority view. The single transferable vote was enthusiastically welcomed by John Stuart Mill because it mathematically offered fuller scope for a real majority to issue out of elections. But subsequent experience has shown how cliques can manipulate and render even mathematics impotent.

     Experience has also shown that the system may undermine the stability of governments. The experience of France has particularly demonstrated this, and it is only the continued efficiency of the permanent services that has kept France going in spite of governments failing once in a few weeks. It is not an impractical proposition by itself for India, but it is extremely doubtful whether those who have now got into positions of importance will ever agree to the single transferable vote, or to any other scheme of proportional representation, or whether such a scheme is at all feasible in a country where the illiteracy percentage is high. All constitutions create certain vested interests and change becomes impossible where change is to be approved by those who have developed a vested interest in the existing order.

     One reform however is very necessary and also very feasible. The unconscionable and grievous expenditure on elections, which gives overwhelming advantages to money-power, can be largely eliminated if the responsibility of getting people to know that they have a vote to give is taken over entirely by the Government instead of leaving it to political parties and candidates. Elections now are largely, so to say, private enterprise, whereas this is the one thing that should be first nationalized. Why should not Government officials, who revise and get the electoral rolls ready on the basis of universal adult suffrage, also give to each voter his voting card duly numbered for presentation at the polling booth? Why should political parties be entrusted with this task of distributing electoral information, which furnishes abundant opportunities for corruption?

     Again, the voting may be done in mobile polling booths operated by the Government. Instead of the voters being conveyed by political parties and candidates to the polling booth, the Government's mobile polling booth can go down to every street in town and village and collect the votes. This would eliminate 99 per cent of the corrupt practices and leave the one per cent, linked to the honesty and efficiency of the officials engaged for the purpose. It would also furnish justification and reasonable grounds for enforcing the exercise of the franchise instead of leaving it to the pressure of interested parties.

     If census operations have to be conducted through house-to-house visits by officials in the interest of accuracy and full information, much more important, in the interest of honesty and proper appraisement of public opinion, is it to do the elections on a house-to-house visit by the officials of the State on a non-party basis. The total drain on national resources would be less if the State does this instead of leaving it to candidates and parties interested in corrupt practices and the suppression of facts. Further it should not be forgotten that it is the proper duty of the State, as distinguished from parties, to take the voters' lists and the information contained in them to the voters direct, and it is a failure of duty to leave that task to be farmed out, to political parties who have their own interest here in suppression and falsification.

     I have ended my desultory disquisition with this procedural reform, but it is the one thing that may save parliamentary democracy in India from acquiring a worse and worse name as the years go by. I conclude as I began, emphasizing that parliamentary democracy's popularity - and, therefore, life - depends on the honest and efficient administration that prevails under it - I would even say, which survives in spite of it. The greatest and ever-encouraging example before us is British administration and British parliamentary democracy.