Delay in selecting ministers: good or bad?

This editorial in the Telegraph laments the fact that the formation of the council of ministers took twelve days:

This inordinate delay in forming a team that is supposed to present to the nation an effective government creates a very sorry spectacle of the prime minister and the Congress president. The delay can only be read as evidence of the lack of clarity in decision-making.

I think the delay has been good for politics, and should be institutionalised. No one can argue that but for DMK tantrums, we would have had a council of ministers in place in 24 hours. The delay was hardly by deliberate design. But having been forced to stagger cabinet formation, albeit willy-nilly, the results are largely positive. These 12 days generated intense democratic debate on the merit of the individuals in contention, including on this blog. Until the election, everyone is too busy predicting who will win, and the shape of the next government is almost never discussed. Then we have the results and the cabinet the next day. There is no democratic opinion to inform the Prime Minister in his exercise of the prerogative. This time was different. The intense media focus on non-performers must at least in part be the reason why Arjun Singh, Shivraj Patil and HR Bhardwaj did not make it.

The US system gives the President-elect over two months to form their team, and every candidate is intensely scrutinised by the President as well as the media. We did well this time. The process of a staggered swearing in, with only the PM (and if we must, perhaps a few key and relatively uncontroversial Ministers) should be sworn in the day after the results, while the rest of the Cabinet must wait a while.

[If my hypothesis that democratic debate had some impact on the shape of the cabinet is true, then lawyers seem to be popular with newspaper columnists. Nearly half of the new ministers seem to have law degrees.]

Update: Dear Suresh, thanks very much for helpful comments. The title has been suitably amended. Here are my responses to your worries:

1. I agree that unlike in the US, we don't have a system of direct legislative confirmation of ministers. The problem at hand is one of democratic control over exercise of (a fairly important) executive power. Sure, legislatures in some countries are mandated to exercise this control. But even there, they do not do so exclusively. Civil society and media perform the same task, only differently. In fact, absence of direct legislative supervision in India only strengthens my argument that at least media and civil society must have an opportunity to comment and criticise the candidates. This is certainly not an argument against also considering legislative controls (although pragmatic concerns around constitutional amendment may make it less feasible).

2. By institutionalisation, I only meant institutionalisation as a constitutional convention. Here is a good precedent being set (although the criterion of the mental state of being obliged to follow it is not satisfied in the current case), and has some good reasons in its favour. Future PMs must take it seriously, and in the process, lay the foundations of a convention. In circumstances like 1991, the convention will be flexible enough to accomodate exceptional urgency. But as a rule, I think it is healthy for a democracy to allow civil society a week or so to debate the shape of the council of ministers. And if that reduces the possibility of incompetent ministers (for, unlike legislative confirmation hearings, civil society/media criticisms cannot be determinative), the extra week spent will pay itself many times over in the next five years.

3. Yes, this will help only with a strong civil society. But as you yourself note, we are getting there. But at least the conditions must exist - swearing-in of the council of ministers within 24 hours of the elections presents the nation with a fait accompli.

4. The possibility of pressure and bargaining by allies cannot be discounted. But on that question, delay can cut both ways. As the current example shows, the PM used delay to make the DMK blink first. It was the opposite convention (of immediate swearing-in of the entire council) which mounted the pressure.

What I suggest will not be a panacea, but just a small step towards greater democratic accountability. That's all.

Update 2: Veerappa Moily is the new Minister for Law and Justice. One can expect some of the proposals made by the Second Administrative Reforms Commission, chaired by him, to translate into practice.

More interesting comments on Verdict 2009

Arun has in an earlier post already drawn attention to certain views about what Verdict 2009 means. I found two comments which are very interesting. The first is by Ashis Nandy in the latest Tehelka titled "End of Arrogance-The Hour of the Untamed Cosmopolitan" (here). The second is the Editorial comment in the latest EPW titled "Myths and Hypotheses" (here). The EPW editorial cautions against jumping to conclusions about the meaning behind the verdict. It merely identifies a few issues that need to be reflected upon for a period of time to achieve meaningful theorisation. The editorial is one of the most balanced commentaries so far on the results.

Ashis Nandy's piece is more "conclusive" than the EPW editorial, but he makes some important points not only on the nature of India's politics but also on the nature of Indian society. He believes that India's diversity has been asserted through this result, in addition to the rejection of arrogance. While caste remains important, it is not the decisive factor because of the assertion of a number of castes. This last point is very interesting and was also borne out in a survey that DAKSH (a NGO, I work with) carried out in 2008 in Karnataka. The majority of the respondents said that caste was not an important criteria for them when choosing their representative in an election. While we dismissed this initially as a problem in the manner the survey was executed, discussions with sociologists revealed that in no constituency can a single caste determine the result on its own. A combination of castes have to vote for a candidate to win. Further, invariably there will be multiple candidates from the same caste resulting in a split of the caste votes. Leaving that point for a later and more detailed discussion, I think that both the EPW and the Ashis Nandy articles make a more realistic and sober assessment of the election verdict unlike various other gushing reviews. Among the gushing reviews, I found Fareed Zakaria's views the most astounding and far fetched. On CNN-IBN, just after the elections, he claimed that the result was an indication of India embracing modernity! I do not find any written pieces where he makes the same claim, although he does claim that the results are India's coming-out party in his piece in Newsweek (here), which is a more sober assessment.

Analysis of the 2009 General Elections: Contrasting views

As is perhaps to be expected, not all analysts agree on how we should interpret the results of the recently concluded general elections. Of the early analysis, I have been struck by three commentaries on the elections which form the subject of this post. The first is that offered by Pratap Bhanu Mehta which conforms to the dominant trend in commentaries, and celebrates the success of the Congress' victory in fairly unequivocal, near euphoric terms:

There are moments in the life of nations that are harbingers of deep changes. The Congress has achieved what even so many of its friends thought was unthinkable: not just a return to power, but a return with such aplomb. No amount of psephological quibbling can take away from this achievement. They put a lie to the proposition that this was not a national election, but a sum of state elections. The swing towards them across large parts of the country is too significant to be dismissed as a conjuncture of lots of local factors … This election is also an indicator that the era of votebank politics as we have known it is over. Parties that placed undue confidence in the fact that they had secure vote-bases amongst particular political groups have been given a severe blow. … It is too soon to say that caste and identity have become irrelevant for politics. They may seem so because the policy agendas that came out of that politics are now deeply entrenched; yet its logic is also involuting, creating new coalitions as in Bihar. It is inevitable that there will be a search for new paradigms. But the post-Mandal age of identity votebanks is over.

Yogendra Yadav’s newscolumn is less exuberant, at least on the scale – and potential impact - of the Congress’ victory. He begins his analysis with the following caution:

The verdict is out, but the mandate is hazy. If the verdict is loud and clear, the weak and hesitant voice of the mandate does not lend itself to simple headlines. It is easier to say what this mandate is not. It is necessary to emphasise this, since there is a real risk that the people’s mandate may be misread.

Towards the end of his column, Yadav sets forth an intriguing prescriptive claim: on the need for the Congress to “invent a new Left within” itself:

The real significance of this electoral verdict lies in a major shift in the political landscape. The last two decades have witnessed an expansion of the third space in Indian politics. The Left and many regional parties occupied this non-Congress, non-BJP space. The expansion of this third space brought new issues, new leaders, and a fresh energy to politics. Included here are the pro-Mandal movement, the various campaigns against the “new” economic policies and the agitations on questions of jal, jungle and jameen (land, water, forests). Ironically, the expansion of this space has been matched by the shrinking of the Third Front. As a result, this space, almost by default in this election, has come to the Congress. The real challenge for the Congress now is to inherit this legacy that has fallen into its lap. In the last five years, the Congress failed to address the politics at the grass roots, address those who are at the bottom of the pyramid. Yet, it has secured their votes. The Congress now has to create policies that respond to the needs of the poor and build a durable political constituency. It has to internalise the impulses that have been articulated by the regional parties. It has to revert to being a grand coalition and accept that the need for such coalitions is inbuilt in our society.

Is the Congress aware of this historic opportunity? Reverting to the Sonia-Rahul chants and typical Congress-style sycophancy is no substitute for organisation building. Worse, it could succumb to the temptation to go in for unbridled economic reforms, now that there is no Left to check it. If the Congress is serious about its future, the party needs to invent a new Left within it. The party does not need a new ideology: it just needs to take its own election manifesto seriously.

Atuk Kohli’s column reads like a direct counter to the celebratory accounts offered by analysts such as Pratap Mehta, as is evident in its title: What are you calling a ‘historic mandate’? Kohli’s piece focuses on some of the statistics thrown up by the elections, and offers some sobering footnotes to the conventional narrative that is developing about these elections:

A closer look at the election results, especially at the share of popular vote received by political parties, reveals important national and state level trends. While the Congress and the UPA have secured a commanding lead in parliamentary seats, Congress’s share of the popular vote in 2009 increased only by some two per cent over its share in 2004. So a ‘historic mandate’ this is not. Congress’s victory is as much a product of alliance politics and the first-past-the-post electoral system as it is a result of enhanced popular support. Congress ran on a platform of ‘inclusive growth’. The improvement in Congress’s electoral fortunes then must be understood as a vote for continuity in this pattern of development. Over 2004, the BJP’s share of popular support declined by a little more than three percent. The BJP avoided a focus on Hindutva in this election and campaigned instead on issues of governance. The context of a slowing economy and terrorism with Pakistani links should have helped the BJP. The fact that it did not ought to be a matter of concern for the party. And then there are the communists. The proclaimed demise of the Left may turn out to be premature. In spite of losing seats, both the CPM and the CPI maintained their relative shares of the popular vote between 2004 and 2009.

The combined share of the vote of the Congress and the BJP in 2009 is about the same as it was in 2004 (some 48 per cent). This means that more than half the voters continue to vote for parties other than the two main ones. Congress’s victory notwithstanding, the electorate has not switched away from voting for a variety of local parties based on caste, class, religion and charismatic individuals. The underlying fragmentation of the electorate is thus real and continues. As to the substance of the mandate, Congress’s national gain is mainly at the expense of the BJP. Since the Congress ran on a mild left-of-centre platform, and since the communists have pretty well held their own, the popular verdict has shifted the country slightly more to the left.

Kohli is, incidentally, a respected academic commentator on issues relating to democracy, development and poverty in India. (Some of his publications are available at this link).

The statistics on the number of crorepatis and criminals in the new Lok Sabha (hattip: Nanopolitan) should also provide pause to those who are claiming that these elections are ‘tranformative’. It will be interesting to see how others weigh in on these elections in the days to come.

Electoral Verdict to Spur Reforms

With the return of the Congress government to power and with Dr. Manmohan Singh set to continue as Prime Minister, corporate India is likely to witness a series of reforms in the near future. Unlike the previous stint where the Government was hamstrung by coalition politics (but nevertheless achieving a record rate of economic growth), the reforms are likely to be bolder this time around as it appears to largely have a free hand in policy-making. Industry has given its thumbs up to the verdict and the markets are likely to witness a steep climb today when they open for trading, signalling the acceptance of the electoral result.

As far as matters relating to economic laws are concerned, the key outcome could be the enactment of reforms to company law. The Companies Bill, 2008 was introduced in the Lok Sabha on October 23, 2008. It seems not to have gained much traction since then as that was followed by the Mumbai attacks in November 2008 when the attention of law makers was diverted to more pressing concerns such as safety and security of the country (and rightly so), after which the election process put the issue to the backburner. The issue will hopefully be brought to the forefront so as to achieve an overhaul of Indian company law, which has been pending for over a decade now.

At a broad level, other issues on the agenda include the clarification of the tax regime for limited liability partnerships, finalisation of merger control provisions under competition law and streamlining of the foreign investment policy of the country (particularly with reference to the sectoral limits on foreign investment). This column in the Mint sets out a more detailed list of the key tasks ahead for the new government in terms of economic reforms. Finally, another event that would be viewed with a great sense of anticipation is the full Budget, which reports suggest will be presented in the Parliament session beginning in June (note that the Government had only presented an Interim Budget prior to the elections).

Decline in number of contesting Lok Sabha candidates with criminal records

Analysis by the Times of India indicates an approximately 30 per cent decline in the count of candidates with criminal records contesting the present Lok Sabha elections as compared to the statistics for the 2004 elections. While there may be many factors responsible for this decline, it is evident that civil society efforts such as the "No Criminals in Politics" and "Jaago Re" campaigns as well as the efforts of organisations like Association for Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch have played a significant role in mobilising public outrage regarding the criminal backgrounds of the people's representatives to put pressure on political parties not to field candidates with criminal records. This blog has previously discussed such civil society initiatives here. However, there is no scope for complacency because it is likely that at least some, if not a good number of our elected representatives this time around too will have criminal backgrounds. Civil society initiatives must not stop until we really achieve a Parliament and state legislatures with no criminals.

No Criminals in Politics

As India goes to elections in a month’s time, there is a pervading sense of concern and of dismay about the candidates, political parties and alliances that form part of the electoral canvas. A staggering 20% of the current members of Parliament have criminal records, some of whom have charges of heinous crimes such as murder, rape, dacoity and kidnapping against them. While section 8 of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951 provides for the disqualification of a candidate from election following conviction for an offence listed in that section, section 8(4) provides that such a disqualification shall not take effect if there is an appeal or application for revision pending in respect of that offence. Given that there is an automatic right of appeal with respect to most criminal convictions and the tremendous backlog of cases in courts as discussed in previous blogposts here and here, not only do most MPs complete their terms before an appeal against their conviction is disposed off but also often if they belong to the party in power, the cases against them fall apart due to political pressure on the investigative agencies and presumably also on the courts.

In an attempt to rectify this situation and galvanized into action by the Mumbai terror attacks, the Public Interest Foundation in New Delhi chaired by Bimal Jalan, a nominated member of Parliament, has launched the “No Criminals in Politics” campaign. According to the campaign concept note, “[t]he recent Mumbai attacks have once again highlighted the need for individuals with a high level of personal integrity to provide effective leadership for our country.” The core idea of the campaign is to initiate a nationwide effort to enable large numbers of citizens to appeal to political parties not to give tickets to people with criminal antecedents in the upcoming elections. The campaign website provides information on the criminal antecedents of sitting MPs and also provides details of such criminal cases. It also provides news and updates about the election alongwith its partners, the Association for Democratic Reforms, National Election Watch and Jaago Re. The campaign calls upon people to popularise the campaign message through email/sms, social networking sites, discussions in the blogosphere as well as through organisation of events propagating the campaign message in places across the country.

PRS Conference on Effective Legislatures

In previous posts on this blog available here and here, I summarised the panel discussions at the PRS Conference on Effective Legislatures held at New Delhi, on December 5th, 2008. The discussion papers circulated at the conference, official transcripts of the panel discussions as well as summaries of the panel proceedings are all now available at this link.

Interview with J.M.Lyngdoh

Over at the Social Blog, Arun and Aditya interview J.M.Lyngdoh, former Chief Election Commissioner on a range of issues including private funding of elections, and elections to students' unions on which he has given a controversial report to the Supreme Court. Lyngdoh's sympathies with the yearning for franchise for the migrant middle class voters and the allegations that elections were not free and fair in areas controlled by Salwa Judum during the recently-held assembly elections in Chhattisgarh are likely to provoke a debate.

The Right to Recall

Voters in Chhattishgarh have recently exercised their 'right to recall' elected representatives. Although the general reception of the idea, strongly advocated by Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, has been welcoming, this article advises caution.

The manner in which this worked in Chhattisgarh is described in the story linked above thus:
'The Chhattisgarh recall ballot papers have only two symbols — both chairs with one occupied and another empty. The electorate will vote on the empty chair if they want to recall the elected representative or exercise their franchise on the occupied chair if they want the person to remain in office.'

I don't understand how this fits in with our First Past the Post (FPP) system? Rarely, if ever, does the winning candidate get a majority of votes cast. In our multi-party elections, the winner's average votes tend to be between 25 and 40%. How, then, can we expect that the same person will have the confidence of more than 50% of the electorate on a recall ballot? Of course, popularity changes while in office. But surely, the entry criterion cannot be less demanding than the one required to stay on the job? Or have I missed something in the manner of original elections to local bodies in Chhattisgarh?

Of course, one may say that in the original election, there are several opponents, and therefore vote-share tends to be less than majority; while in the recall vote, the only options are to let them continue in office or recall. This works on certain assumptions - let us assume that in the original poll, there were three candidates - A, B and C. A won the poll by getting 36% of the total votes cast, while B and C got 33% and 31% respectively. How do we predict voter behaviour in this original poll in the hypothetical case that C wasn't in the fray. There are no run-off elections in the FPP system, and it is entirely possible that most of the people who voted for C would have wanted B as their second alternative. Demanding of A to demonstrate a simple majority later without modifying the FPP system is strange.

Originalism to the rescue: The institutional design of the Election Commission

Given the political uncertainty caused by the 'debate' over the 123 agreement, the seemingly abstract debate about the constitutional status of Election Commissioners (other than the Chief Election Commissioner) has gained new importance in view of the possibility of a mid-term poll.

R.C. Iyer, a former Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra, has an excellent column in today's Indian Express which sets out the background context and history of this issue succinctly, and argues for political consensus and Parliamentary initiative on the process by which an Election Commissioner can be removed. In his piece, Iyer also criticises the stand taken by Arun Jetley in an Express op-ed published on Aug 21, 2007. For further background information on this issue, see this earlier post on our blog.

The purpose of this post is to highlight the debate in the Constituent Assembly on this issue, as both Jetley and Iyer seem to indicate that the framers did not adequately provide for the existing situation. Here is how Jetley frames the issue:

"Article 324 gives administrative primacy to the CEC. The EC can consist of a CEC and such other election commissioners as may be provided from time to time. There is, however, one fundamental flaw in the Constitution. The Constitution does not provide the qualifications for appointment of an election commissioner or CEC. It merely provides that the appointment shall be made by the president, on the aid and advice of the council of ministers. Members of the EC are thus to be appointed by the political executive."

As I seek to demonstrate, the framers did debate this specific issue, but came to a solution that they thought was the right one, and which in fact guided practice from 1950 to 1989. The situation since 1989 may require us to make changes to the scheme of the Election Commission, but that does not necessarily point to a flaw in the Constitution.

The drafting history of current Article 324 is concisely covered in Justice Sawant's judgment in the Dhanoa case (SS Dhanoa v. Union of India, AIR 1991 SC 1745). The background details of this case are provided in Iyer's column, as well as in the previous blog post on this issue. I extract the relevant portions of the judgment which set out the debate in the Constituent Assembly (from paras 11 and 12 of the judgment):

"In the Draft Constitution, the present Article 324 was numbered as Article 289. It appears from Dr. Ambedkar's introductory comments on the Article (Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. VIII p. 905) that the Drafting Committee appointed on the Fundamen tal Rights had made a report that the independence of the elections and the avoidance of any interference by the executive in the elections to the legislature should be regarded as a Fundamental Right and provided for, in the Chapter dealing with Fundamental Rights.

When the matter came up before the House, it was decided to treat it as of fundamental importance but to provide for it in some other part of the Constitution and not in the chapter dealing with Fundamental Rights. The House had affirmed without any kind of dissent that in the interests of purity and freedom of elections, the Commission should be free from any kind of interference from the executive of the day. Article 289 (now Article 324) was designed to carry out that part of the decision of the House. Explaining the provisions of Clause (2) of the Article, Dr. Ambedkar stated that there were two alternatives before the Drafting Committee, viz., either to have a permanent body consisting of 4 or 5 members of the Election Commission who would continue in office throughout without any break, or to permit the President to have an ad hoc body appointed at the time when there is an election on the anvil.

The Drafting Committee had steered a middle course. What the Committee proposed by the said clause was to have permanently in office one man called the Chief Election Commissioner so that the skeleton machinery would always be available. This was felt sufficient, taking into consideration all exigencies. At the same time, it was felt that when the elections come up, the President may add to the machinery by appointing other members of the Commission.

Commenting upon Clause (4) of the then Article 289 (now Clause (5) of Article 324), Dr. Ambedkar stated as follows:

So far as Clause (4) is concerned, we have left the matter to the President to determine the conditions of service and the tenure of office of the members of the Election Commission, subject to one or two conditions, that the Chief Election Commissioner shall not be liable to be removed except in the same manner as a Judge of the Supreme Court. If the object of this House is that all matters relating to Elections should be outside the control of the Executive Government of the day, it is absolutely necessary that the new machinery which we are setting up, namely, the Election Commission should be irremovable by the executive by a mere fiat. We have, therefore, given the Chief Election Commissioner the same status so far as removability is concerned as we have given to the Judges of the Supreme Court. We, of course do not propose to give the same status to the other members of the Commission. We have left the matter to the President as to the circumstances under which he would deem fit to remove any other member of the Election Commission, subject to one condition that the Chief Election Commissioner must recommend that the removal is just and proper.(Emphasis supplied)

Prof. Shibban Lal Saksena wanted, among other things, the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner as well as of the Election Commissioners to be confirmed by two-third majority in a joint session of both Houses of Parliament. He also wanted both the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commissioners to be removed by the same process, viz., in like manner and on the like grounds as a Judge of the Supreme Court, and non-variation of the service conditions of the Election Commissioners to their disadvantage as was provided for in the service conditions of the Chief Election Commissioner. This amendment was supported, among others, by Pandit Hriday Nath Kunjru. The amendments were not accepted by the House, and the distinction between the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commissioners with regard to the security of the service conditions and the procedure of their removal was maintained as was proposed."

It bears emphasis that Professor Shibban Lal Saxena had sought to incorporate the precise change that is now being demanded by several commentators (that Election Commissioners have the same status and removal conditions as the CEC). The reason this was rejected was more because the framers had an alternative conception of the Election Commission: they believed that the institution should have one permanent head and that others could be appointed as and when conditions so merited.

Note also that the Election Commission seems to have performed adequately for nearly four decades in that form. Indeed, when the first two Election Commissioners were appointed, there was controversy over whether the workload justified such an increase. Moreover, the first two people appointed to the post of Election Commissioners did not, through their acts, add weight to the need for such posts.

Here is what the Supreme Court concluded on the facts presented in the Dhanoa case (at para 17):

"The experience of the short period during which the petitioner and the other Election Commissioners were in the Commission ... shows that were it not for the restraint and sagacity shown by the Chief Election Commissioner, the work of the Commission would have come to a standstill and the Commission would have been rendered inactive.

... ... ...In the view that we have taken, namely, that there was no need for the posts of the Election Commissioners at the time the appointments were made and that in the absence of a clear definition of their role in the Commission, particularly, vis-a-vis the Chief Election Commissioner, the appointments were an oddity, the abolition of the posts far from striking at the independence of the Commission paved the way for its smooth and effective functioning."

At para 21, the Court addressed the issue that is at the heart of the current controversy:

"There is no doubt that two heads are better than one, and particularly when an institution like the Election Commission is entrusted with vital functions, and is armed with exclusive uncontrolled powers to execute them, it is both necessary and desirable that the powers are not exercised by one individual, however, all-wise he may be. It ill-conforms the tenets of the democratic rule. It is true that the independence of an institution depends upon the persons who man it and not on their number. A single individual may sometimes prove capable of withstanding all the pulls and pressures, which many may not. However, when vast powers are exercised by an institution which is accountable to none, it is politic to entrust its affairs to more hands than one. It helps to assure judiciousness and want of arbitrariness. The fact, however, remains that where more individuals than one, man an institution, their roles have to be clearly defined, if the functioning of the institution is not to come to a naught."

Jetley's argument that there is a flaw in the constitutional scheme with respect to the Election Commission betrays an ignorance of the way the framers conceived of the institution.

The Dhanoa case also reminds us that a multi-member Election Commission is not necessarily a stronger and more efficient protector of democratic values. Those who are contemplating changes to the existing set-up (or those who recommend such changes) ought to be aware of the actual reasons and motivating logic for the status quo.

In Defence of Proportional Representation

In my earlier post on corruption debate-I, I emphasized the dire need to replace the first-past-the-post system with the PR. I am glad that HT editor, Vir Sanghvi has endorsed my suggestion in his column, in today's HT. I agree with him entirely on how journalists have been pretending to know how voters vote, without actually having an inkling on the voting behaviour. The perceived merits of the current system are too insignificant to be taken seriously, whereas the PR has a lot of things to its credit. I propose we start a national campaign in favour of the PR, so that more people and parties realize its merits. . I have often wondered in the course of covering an election, or reading a story on election campaign, what exactly should a journalist or an impartial observer be looking for. If the objective is prediction of the outcome, it hardly interests me. It is not uncommon to find such predictions going awry, and even if they are correct, it is unlikely to lead to any genuine satisfaction that one understood the elections; a correct prediction of an outcome may be due to chance, rather than a result of mature judgment. In any case, a journalist is different from a pollster, who uses opinion and exit polls to predict and explain results and trends. A pollster too goes wrong many times, and therefore, is not reliable enough to understand an election. Looking for trends and patterns in a constituency, therefore, made little sense to me. If a journalist's purpose is to explain an outcome in terms of voters' responses on the dominant issues, it is likely to be unconvincing, especially in a close contest, where the voters are seemingly fragmented. If one confines to campaign styles, and the content of speeches made by leaders and candidates, one is sure to find that these are hardly the factors which influence a voter.

The former Chief Election Commissioner, T.S.Krishna Murthy once succinctly summed it up in terms of two Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs): money power and muscle power. Media reports on these two have only contributed to strengthen the prevailing myths, rather than unravel them. Writing about money power of a candidate or a political party is not easy for a journalist. One needs facts, and corroboration to establish that a candidate or a party used money power to distort or attempt to distort the outcome of an election. Doubtless, it is an offence under the Indian Penal Code and a violation of the Model Code of Conduct for political parties and the candidates. Such cases need to be exposed, and the E.C. has a responsibility to prevent and punish such violations. While law in this regard should take its own course, my interest here is in understanding whether money power was useful in distorting the outcome of an election. A study conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in 24 constituencies spread across 17 States and Union Territories during the 1999 Lok Sabha elections found that almost all 122 candidates monitored by it had exceeded the expenditure ceilings imposed by the law (currently it is Rs.14 lakhs in a Lok Sabha election). The study found that money mattered to gain an entry into the electoral fray, and to remain visibly in the race, but you can't hope to buy the votes and win elections. In other words, it is not true that the more you spend, the more likely you are to succeed. So, money power appears to be bad not because it results in distortion of an electoral outcome, but because it keeps off those with little money from securing party tickets, and contesting meaningfully. As money is required for campaign, the parties cannot be faulted for giving nominations to candidates, who can fund their as well as party's campaign. As the unrealistic expenditure ceilings imposed by the statute are meaningless, there is little merit in saying that candidates are guilty of flouting the ceiling. It also makes little sense to argue that the system is unfair to those candidates who have limited resources to secure a party ticket, contest and win an election.

Just imagine how PR could change all these ills as irrelevant. The other aspect is to understand how a candidate or a party funds a campaign, that is, the sources of such funding; and how and why these sources fund, whether they expect a quid pro quo from the system. These are larger issues which no journalist has bothered to touch because of limitations of ensuring the confidentiality.

The second WMD is the muscle power. There is absolute lack of clarity on what this means. There is an assumption that violence is induced during the election to keep away voters from exercising their franchise. A party which stands to lose from the exercise of franchise by voters, uses muscle power to unleash violence, to create a climate of terror and to intimidate so that the hostile voters are kept away from the polling booth. One needs to look at the facts and understand this phenomenon. In my view, media has not brought out any instance of such violence resulting in or threatening the distortion of outcome in an election, even though such a phenomenon is apparent. If each vote is to be valued in terms of percentage of seats as in PR, parties will have a vested interest in increasing their vote percentage. In the current system, there is a premium in winning a seat by hook or crook, and this leads to use of all sorts of unfair means. Under PR, constituencies will simply vanish from the electoral map, (forget delimitation), and there will be no pressure on parties and candidates to win as many seats as possible by unfair means, because it will not matter. As no vote will be wasted in terms of voting for a losing party or candidate, there will be less incentive for voter apathy, and parties will be motivated to campaign on larger issues, rather than trivialize the election in terms of local issues.
As a journalist, I have been curious about these two much-talked about issues, and how they taint the electoral process. The WMDs are perhaps the inevitable results of the manner the meaning of democracy has been menacingly narrowed to signify only elections, as Sunil Khilnani put it in The Idea of India. (Penguin, 1997). As I tried to learn more about these two issues, I found that there were several questions about the role and contribution of the Election Commission in ensuring "free and fair polls", a concept which I believe, gives democracy a wider meaning than just holding of elections. Except once during the Emergency, the holding of regular elections at periodical intervals has never been disturbed in Indian democracy. Therefore, the periodical celebration of democracy in the form of elections is of no interest to me.

Is there a crisis of democracy? What is the magnitude of this crisis, and does it threaten the gains India has made as a democracy? Jawaharlal Nehru, expressed his dissatisfaction once during the formative years of the Indian Republic with the system of direct elections to Parliament and State assemblies, because of the challenges it posed. Although he reconciled himself with the inevitability of the Indian elections subsequently, the context in which he expressed his fears first needs to be relooked afresh, to understand the current obsession of the State and the contenders for power with elections, based on the first-past-the-post system.