Points to ponder

NOW that the next general elections have become a proximate, profound issue, decisive for the nations future and with creative potential for Indias democratic survival, any improvement of the peoples participative and representative character of the elections has a positive value and is welcome.

To reduce the tension after the poll process is over, and before the procedure for counting is concluded in a populous parliamentary constituency, an alternative suggestion or proposal for eliminating delay and foul play and malpractice with ballots is called for. What I suggest is the following:

When Benazir Bhutto was a candidate in Pakistans general elections several years ago, I happened to be an international observer. Of course, there were other leading figures from other countries too. To my surprise I found two novel features, which India may copy with modifications as felt necessary.

One was that instead of the local police to maintain law and order, there were pickets of Army personnel located some distance away from the polling station. I asked why the local police was kept away and the Army was brought in. The reply was that the local political leaders could influence the local police, while the Army could not be influenced.

The second feature was phenomenal. At 5 p.m. polling ended, and when I went to the station, the returning officer told me that the counting in that polling station would begin a couple of hours later, at 7 p.m., and every candidates representative would be present at the counter when objections could be raised and considered by the returning officer. The result of the counting would be communicated to the candidates officially. This was decentralisation of counting, and the results were made known quickly. So much so, there was no tension or speculation, and by late night information about the result of the counting would be available from the various polling stations. The victory of the candidate was not in doubt; no tampering in the polling station or while the boxes were in transit to the central polling station was possible.

This procedure quickens the completion of the process; reduces tension and delay; and makes the counting easier, with the numbers being manageable; and the entire outfit at the polling booths handles the counting effectively.

The second suggestion is what I thought worked well in the Soviet Union under the election law. Every large hospital and large prison had a small polling station. It may not be possible for many patients in the hospital to move to the polling station. But they can vote safely if there is a polling station inside the hospital, with the presence of the candidates or their representatives, as in any other polling station, ensuring fair play. Many patients, who cannot otherwise vote because their illness prevents them from reaching their polling station, will be able to exercise their franchise by this harmless process.

Similarly, central prisons in every State keep in their custody many thousands of undertrials who are otherwise entitled to vote. They cannot vote because they happen to be in custody, though they may, after trial, be acquitted. Why deny them their vote if, by setting up a polling station in the prison, those who are entitled to vote under the law can do so, though for the time being they happen to be in custody. They should not be deprived of their right to choose a representative.

Another suggestion is that every voter must have the right to suggest a name, which he chooses to vote for, if he finds it difficult, conscionably, to vote for all or any candidate as he finds them too bad to claim his approval. This, too, is a practice that once prevailed in the Soviet Union.

The Law Reforms Commission, Kerala, has made certain proposals that are akin to what has been stated above. Those proposals are reproduced below:

Amendment to the Kerala Panchayati Raj Act

Amendment to Section 21: In Section 21 of the principal Act, after Sub-section (2), the following explanation shall be added, namely:

Explanation: A person who is detained as an undertrial prisoner in a jail or in custody of police or any other agency or as an inpatient in any hospital shall be considered as a person absenting himself temporarily from his residence.

Amendment to Section 76: In Section 76 of the principal Act, in Sub-section (5), for the words or otherwise or in the lawful custody of the police, the words for a period more than one year or for an offence involving moral turpitude shall be substituted.

Amendment to the Kerala Municipalities Act

Amendment to Section 77: In Section 77 of the Kerala Municipalities Act 1994 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act), after Sub-section (2), the following explanation shall be added, namely:

Explanation: A person who is detained as an undertrial prisoner in a jail or is in the custody of police or any other agency or as an inpatient in any hospital shall be considered as a person absenting himself temporarily from his place of residence.

Amendment of Section 132: In Section 132 of the principal Act, in Sub-section (5), for the words or otherwise, or is in the lawful custody of the police, the words for a period more than one year or for an offence involving moral turpitude shall be substituted.

In a State where parties are corrupt and candidates manipulate and win elections through money, muscle and mafia power, each voter will no longer be disappointed, given the freedom to choose his candidate and cast his vote for him, provided the ballot paper contains an extra column for the voter to cast his vote beyond the names formally printed in the ballot paper.

The process may be cumbersome but is a check on corruption or mafia manipulation of candidates, and ensures for the voter freedom of franchise instead of being forced to choose one among the party-chosen rotten apples. A propaganda move by the media and other publicity measures may make this procedure available for promoting clean elections.

These suggestions require national debate and parliamentary legislation. I hope the nation will see some sense in the proposals I have made not with dogmatic originality but from what I have observed working elsewhere as satisfactory. The purpose is to see that democratic governance operates through candidates who effectively represent the constituency better than at present.

Women comprise half of the population in India, and if democracy is to have sex egalite and women power with its real play in the governance of the country, every political party contesting elections should provide half the number of candidates from among women. We find a gross disproportion in the presence of women in the judiciary, the legislature and the executive.

This gender injustice can be corrected only by the Election Commission insisting on every political party seeking to contest the election providing the Election Commission with its list of candidates in which half the number should be of women. Or, there must be more constituencies exclusively for women, as there is for the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes at present. There can be a provision to make womens egalitarian participation by extensive reservation of constituencies for women only.

One provision we may consider borrowing profitably from the Soviet era election law is the right to recall an elected candidate for gross misconduct for grave corruption or outrageous communalism. In the Soviet Union, I have read, such a provision existed and worked. Party candidates had been successfully recalled on an appropriate motion and subject to strict procedure.

In India today, corruption and communalism and other vices in elections, and later by parliamentarians, have reached Himalayan proportions that in extreme cases of proven misbehaviour are unworthy of members. There is no justification why a right of statutory recall should not be made under the Representation of the People Act.

I seriously suggest that there be a national debate on this subject and that recall becomes a voters right from panchayats to Parliament.

When India won Independence three score years ago, it made a great tryst with destiny reminiscent of Abraham Lincolns historic Gettysburg speech, which I recall here:

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

What the little man of India has lost after 60 years of Independence is the equal chance implied in the great sublime word democracy. It is historically explained in the great Gettysburg speech of Abraham Lincoln and further sharply presented by Winston Churchill in an apt quoted passage, which is given below:

At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man walking into the little booth with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper. No amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point.

Our challenge today for the little Indian in large numbers is to win back his right under the Constitution spelt out in the Preamble Part III, IV and IV A of the suprema lex.