The South Wing

On first glance, the Indian electoral system does not seem to be very different from the Westminster system that inspired it. Elections to the Lok Sabha (the lower and dominant House of the Indian Parliament) are conducted in a manner very similar to General Elections in the UK, or even to election to the US House of Representatives. Single member territorial districts elect legislators using the first-past-the-post system. The British-educated lawyers who wrote India’s Constitution explicitly modelled the Lok Sabha on the British House of Commons, and many conventions and usages in Sansad Bhavan (the seat of the Indian Parliament) mirror ones in the Palace of Westminster.

In spite of this, an Indian General Election is quite different from any seen in the rest of the Anglosphere. To begin with, candidates rely on name-recognition to a much greater extent than most other democracies. When candidates do not rely on their family name (such as the nationally prominent Nehru-Gandhi family, or the Abdullah family in Kashmir), they count on their celebrity in movies or the national pastime, cricket. Some, such as Priya Dutt, MP for Mumbai North West use both: Ms. Dutt inherited her seat from her father Sunil Dutt, a movie star. Actors, sportsmen, musicians, performers and even socialites appear as candidates throughout India.

Then there is the multiplicity of parties. In research published in the 1950s, sociologist Maurice Duverger observed that first-past-the-post electoral systems tend to favour two-party dominance. Parliaments that have used first-past-the-post elections for a long time, such as the British House of Commons and the US House of Representatives are dominated by their two major parties. Not so in India. The last time a single party commanded a majority in the Lok Sabha was between 1984 and 1989, when Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress Party benefited electorally from the assassination of the previous Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Since then, India has been governed by coalitions, led either by the left-leaning Congress, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, or various coalitions of smaller parties known as Third Fronts. The sheer number of parties represented in Parliament makes this inevitable; the last Lok Sabha had representatives from 19 parties, and various independents.

And finally, there are the outlandish and extravagant election promises. Candidates for election seldom campaign on their positions on legislative topics. Challengers do not outline their support or opposition to bills that they might have to vote on if elected. Incumbents rarely talk about their legislative track record. Instead, many offer inducements to voters. In the 2006 elections to the Tamil Nadu state assembly, the leaders of the rival DMK and AIADMK parties competed in a virtual bidding war to see who could offer the most to voters, payable upon their election (the DMK won by offering free TVs). In Andhra Prasesh, the Telugu Desam party is offering citizens direct cash deposits and colour TVs in return for the party’s victory in state and national elections in the state. Other candidates offer saris, liquor, free power to farmers, highly subsidised grain, and free meals to schoolchildren. Some make promises to specific to communities or vote banks. Actor Chiranjeevi, for example, promised Muslims reservations in government jobs and educational institutions.
Why are Indian elections and indeed Indian democracy so different? India’s democratic institutions were, after all, patterned on those of the United Kingdom and the United states. Why then do they produce outcomes so far removed from those systems?

One possible answer is the Tenth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. Popularly known as the Anti-Defection Law, the Tenth Schedule was written into the Constitution by the government of Rajiv Gandhi in 1985. The schedule mandates the disqualification from parliament of any member who votes against his party’s whip. Supported by many Indians, this law was originally conceived to control rampant defections by members of India’s parliament and state assemblies in order to save or bring down governments. One particularly egregious example of this alleged practice was Harayana state legislator Gaya Lal, who once changed parties three times in the course of one day. (Gaya Lal is immortalised in the colloquial Hindi phrase for chronic party changes “Aya Ram, Gaya Ram”, which means “Ram who comes and goes”).

But the anti-defection law did more than prevent chronic defections by corrupt MPs. This constitutional enforcement of party discipline meant that it is no longer for MPs to vote for their conscience, or in the interests of their specific constituents. A member of the Congress party cannot, for example vote against caste-based reservations in University seats contrary to the wishes of his party leaders even if his constituents are opposed to such reservations. A member of the BJP cannot vote for a piece of trade legislation favourable to his district if his party decides to oppose it. It would be pointless for a legislator to campaign on the basis of votes he would cast in Parliament, for once he wins as a party candidate he is no longer the master of his own vote. Acceptance of a party whip means that he no longer has individual influence on the course of debate or legislation, and must then convince citizens to vote for him by other means, be they his star power or inducements to voters. The law also means that important differences cannot exist within a single party. There cannot be a Blue Dog wing of the Congress party, nor a Rockefeller wing of the BJP; these must be separate parties if they wish to preserve their freedom to vote independently on issue of concern. This has led to a profusion of smaller parties.
The anti-defection law was conceived with the noble intention of preventing opportunistic and corrupt party defections. But its effects have been far more profound, and it has arguably made Indian politics what it is today. For better or worse, while the law remains on the books Indian politics and elections will remain the Great Indian Tamasha (spectacle).atb two worlds cd2 download mp3

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