Indian Democracy- Catalyst or Drag- Pramod Mahajan

Speech at India Today Conclave 2003

At an outset let me sincerely express my gratitude towards India Today for giving me the opening session. The subject under discussion is:” India a Global Giant or a Pygmy”. Now even using this phraseology that whether we are a global giant of pygmy is possible in only a democratic country. If you don't have a democracy in your country, even if you are a pygmy you are not allowed to call yourself a pygmy and if you have a democracy in your country then even if you are a global giant, still somebody can call you a pygmy. But one area where India is an undisputed global giant is democracy.

Fifty-five years back we started our journey towards democracy, a population of 370 million, about 70 percent illiterate, spread over 600000 villages, no background in history about democratic traditions. Today we are the largest democracy in the world. A population more than a billion, 600 million registered voters, 400 million votes in every parliamentary election, 13 elections in 55 years. If you look at our neighbours, India is the only oasis of democracy where democracy survived for last 55 years and we could change our governments at national level through ballot at a national level 13 times. And so naturally this is something, which makes all of us proud. And that is why I said that “India is Global Giant” at least as far as democracy is concerned. Recently I went to South Africa, before the (cricket) World Cup. I had a Parliamentary delegation with me. We were about 20 Parliamentarians from different political parties and when we were introduced to the South African Parliament, I told them that these 20 members represent the entire electorate of South Africa and we have 543 such members in India and that really shows the size of democracy and it becomes really “owners pride and neighbours envy” kind of thing, which we have.

Now before we address ourselves whether democracy is a drag or a catalyst, let us first address the more fundamental issue of whether we have a choice. Do you have a better option than democracy? And I think the emphatic answer to this is “No”. You don't have a better option available than democracy as far as the system of governance is concerned. Sir Winston Churchill, who had little hopes in Indians surviving in a democracy, always thought that we were not worthy of it. Fortunately we proved him wrong. Sometimes, the Chinese example is given to us about how quick decisions are made and how quick decisions are not made in Indian system. And so sometimes, other systems of democracy may give you a fast decision, but what happens to you when they give you wrong decisions?

Democracy may give us slow decisions, but there is a choice of us against the wrong decision. When you drive a car, sometimes you get an initial feel that the brakes of the car did not allow you to drive fast. But if you think little in depth, then you realize it is only the brakes of a car that enable you to drive fast. If you have a car, which doesn’t have brakes, then you will not dare to put your foot on the accelerator. And so normally brakes allow you drive fast and so to quote Fischer M. S. this point I can say that a monarch or any other system than democracy is a merchant man who sells well but it will sometimes strike on the rock and go to the bottom. A republic is a raft that never sinks but your feet are always in water. So you have a choice either to go by a raft, have your feet in the water throughout the journey, but you don't worry that it will ever sink or you have the best of the ship available, say the Titanic, and you have a choice.

And so once you agree with this then the debate whether democracy is a drag or a catalyst becomes irrelevant. Whether it is a drag or a catalyst becomes irrelevant. Whether it is a drag or catalyst, it is a must. And if we come to the conclusion then what becomes more relevant is how to reshape, recast, reorient democracy so that it becomes a catalyst and not a drag.

The problem with democracy is that there are “n” number of things in democracy that in theory are the most beautiful things in the world and in practice all these beautiful things turn out to be mirage and then what you get is an ugly true reality of democracy. But as I said we don't have any other form better than democracy. What is left to us to think today is how to reshape it, recast it, reorient it and see that it doesn’t become a drag and remains a catalyst.

This subject is so vast and the time given is 15-20 minutes and so I would like to concentrate on five important aspects on which you can make democracy a really vibrant catalyst for our society. Politician, Party, Parliament, People and there is one more ‘X’ factor which I will deal with at the last.

To start with Politician- Every system has a framework, but the persons who operate the system are sometimes much more important than the system itself. I remember, long back during Indiraji’s regime (India’s third Prime Minister), there was a debate in this country, whether we should have a Presidential or a Parliamentary form of government. Vasant Sathe (Senior Congress Leader) started at that point of time, one of the old Jan Sangh leaders, Mr. Jagannath Rao Joshi was asked what his organization prefers, he said: if you have a problem with the husband, whether it is a registered marriage or a Hindu ritual marriage, it hardly matters. So really, democracy starts right from the politician. Now in theory anyone can become a politician and in practice really anyone becomes politician. Now sometimes, I feel I have said it publicly in a number of forums that to run a company of people couple of hundred crores, you need people who go abroad to get management training and to run government of India, whose one department is worth top ten industries of the country put together, you don't basically need any qualification. I am not necessarily saying educational qualification, because contrary to general perception; 80-90 percent of the legislators are graduates. So if you are thinking that somebody sitting in the parliament is almost uneducated, he cannot read and write, it is not true, Because with the spread of education in the last 50 years in the country, you almost have politicians in all political parties with the basic qualification which you call educational qualification. But I don't think that is enough. If you expect them to run the country , run the state, run different departments. There needs to be a lot of training, orientation and unless we train our politicians to run the government, we are expecting a lottery. So, if you have a better person who accidentally got elected on ‘n’ or ‘a’ or ‘y’ department, he runs well, so you are leaving almost everything to a lottery system. We have not built up a system where we think that the politicians need to be trained in the subject they are likely to deal with. And I think all political parties need to put their head together and outline some basic things than a Member of Parliament must know. We take oath, allegiance to the Constitution.

Now I don't expect Members of Parliament to be constitutional experts. But I expect them to read the whole constitution at least once in their tenure of 5 years. And if you don't read, I am not sure how many of us actually read the rule book to run the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) or the Rajya Sabha (Upper House). And so right from the rule book or constitution, which are the preliminary books for any politician. And then you go to something like market economy and globalization and unless we have some system where we can educate our politicians and improve the quality of our politicians, democracy will never become successful in this country.

The second issue is the ‘Party’. Party system is really the foundation of a democracy. But unfortunately, all political parties are fast losing their democratic character. It is really a strange thing. All political parties swear by democracy. They want democracy to survive. They come to power on the basis of democracy. And almost all political parties don't have an internal democracy. Now this is really something like a hot ice cream. You believe in a democratic system, you want people to vote for you, you want people to make you Prime Minister, Chief Minister and ‘n’ number of things and you don't want to be elected as the President of the Party. In the last twenty years the situation has become that even when you come across a problem at the district level in any political party, you leave the issue to the High Command that is usually one or two people. And so the whole decision making process in the political party goes up, up and up and it almost comes to one or two individuals or three or four depending upon ‘a’ or ‘b’ political party. Now in any political party somebody cannot decide who should be the mayor of Jamshedpur Corporation and for that you have to leave it to the high command and show that you are the most disciplined person, you listen to them. Now how can democracy in a country where we talk about 600 million voters survive? Now most political parties in India have become either one person party or one family party. The decision making is not democratic. In democracy, the majority elects a few to represent all and that is the basis of democracy. When I am elected from a particular constituency I am not expected to represent those who voted for me because sometimes the number of people who voted for me may be even 30 percent and the rest 70 percent may have voted for somebody else. And in the system of first past the poll, I get myself elected even on a 30 percent vote. Long back when you contested an election, you lost deposit if you got less than 16 percent and in one constituency we found that all lost the deposit. Though one candidate was elected, because nobody got more than 16 percent. So whoever got fifteen-and-a-half percent got elected. Now in this situation, majority elects few but to represent all, but they are influenced by minority of a majority and sometimes this minority is very smart. So the second challenge before us to make it a catalyst is that the democratic process within political parties must also be strengthened. The election commission during T. N. Seshan’s period forced every political party to have internal elections. He asked every political party to prepare its own constitution. But it was a very small step. It is not effective today. In order to really make our democracy vibrant we need a political party which goes with a democratic norm within yourself. If charity begins at home, democracy has to begin at home. And if it doesn’t begin at home how can you have a democratic nature when you go to the Parliament when you don't have democracy within your own political party.

The third thing is ‘Parliament’. Democracy is a government by discussion. In practice it is totally different. If you come to the parliament the truth is only spoken in the lobby. I will never say Manmohan Singh (India’s current Prime Minister) gave a very good speech. But if he meets me in the Central Hall, I will say “Sir kya bhashan kiya apne (what a great speech it was), very good points”. And the moment my party asks me to participate in the debate, I will tell Manmohan Singh, he doesn’t know anything. All points are wrong. And so what happens in a democratic system where political parties are very important. One party devotes all its energy to prove that the other party is wrong. So naturally the party discipline doesn’t allow you to speak the truth. I have a small solution here, which was suggested by Din Dayal Upadhyay (Founder of BJP) way back in the 60s, but no one paid attention to it at that point of time. He once said that in a Parliamentary Democracy the Whip of discipline should only apply for two things.” When you are passing a budget because you cant allow 543 members to decide what kind of budget you have, (it will be very disorderly) and when you are passing a confidence or no confidence vote, because there you have created a party and you need that system to survive. But he said barring passing the budget and passing or failing the vote in confidence and no- confidence, all other discussions should be free. There should be no party discipline on any discussion. Let them talk what they want and let them legislate the way they want. Because if we are all thinking that it is a government by discussion then a simple legislation which comes to the parliament, let all members decide. Why BJP members should support and Congress members should oppose. There may be a few BJP members who didn’t like certain provisions in the bill, and they may oppose it. There may be some Congress members who like some provisions, and they may support it. Now it can only happen if we change the system of party democracy. And in few democracies they have. Sometimes it happens in UK. It happens in USA. The second issue that has been created in our country and needs to be addressed is that for the past 13 elections we are losing stability. For stability now I think we need two things on which a consensus should be created. In a Parliamentary Democracy, the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister is directly responsible to the lower house. At any point of time the lower house can remove him. Now ideally this is the right time. You are responsible almost on a daily basis. But what happens and what we have seen in frequent elections that those who want to remove a Prime Minister or a Chief Minister with, let us say a no confidence motion, are not responsible for replacing him by a viable government. So what do they do? They go to the people. Now go to the people is the best phraseology as far as public meetings are concerned. But how many times you want to go to the people. You should go to the people once in five years. If every year you are going to the people, it is really not the essence of democracy. So can we create a constitutional amendment or a rule where if a Prime Minister or a Chief Minister gets himself elected for a period of five years, if anybody wants to defeat him on the floor of the house, he can put up a no confidence motion against him. He can defeat him. That is the essence of a Parliamentary Democracy. But this no confidence motion should be accompanied by a confidence motion of the other person who will replace him. So that you say that I don't want Mr. X as the Prime Minister, he has lost the confidence of the house and we want this guy who has the confidence of the house. This resolution should be voted simultaneously so that you don't have to go to the people, you have a change of the Prime Minister who has lost the confidence of the house and you have a new person who has the confidence of the house. But if you remove the Prime Minister and don't take the responsibility to replace him and say go to the people, many times we have seen people send you back to the Parliament. And so in the order to avoid this, I would like to say that in the 60s and 70s we had Assembly and Lok Sabha elections together. Now there is a mismatch. And every year, half a dozen states are going to the polls. And so no government is able to take a harsh decision which is needed for people for the obvious reason that you have an election. So the petroleum minister who is expected to match the International Prices of Crude Oil on 5^th of February waits up to 20^th because there is an election in Himachal Pradesh. So you lose 15 days. And cannot take decisions. And so I think we have to create a system that sometime from 2005 or 2010, there should be a consensus that at least the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections will be held together and if the Lok Sabha or Assembly is dissolved due to internal problems in that state, much before the scheduled five years, the entire election will be treated as a by election. Just like when an individual goes for a by election. The third issue is people. Now look at the problems. One problem I really don't have a solution to is that being a country of 600 million voters I think, 100s of thousands of people vote without knowing who their candidate is. Second is the systemic problem which also we don't have a solution- The choice is limited. You cannot choose a person who you want. You have to choose the person who is on the ballot paper. And sometimes, long back somebody asked I.S. Johar when he was writing a column in Film Fair that which is the best Hindi film. He said- Rubbish! Best! Hindi Films are either bad or worst. We don't have the choice of the best. When I read this in 60s when I was in school I thought that applies to the Indian Political System. Also to any political system. You don't have a choice between good or bad. Sometimes you have a choice between bad and worse. Because you have to select only who is on the ballot paper even though you may have an ideal representative on your mind.

The third is the style of electioneering. You promise everything. Most of the promises are never implemented and some of the promises are so disastrous that Thank God they are never implemented. So the electioneering system is like war, like a One Day cricket match, much depends upon your luck. So elections are basically fought in the last one or two weeks. Every party has a base vote and unfortunately it is the undecided voter who decides the elections because he is the only voter, because every political party has a vote bank and winning doesn’t come from their own vote bank. Winning comes from the floating voter. It is an undecided voter who decides the vote and he is influenced by factors that have got nothing to do with democracy. We are a country where there is a strong influence of religion, caste- now caste is the most important political party in the country. It is a political party and I don't really blame it to the extent you want to blame them. It is a political party by itself because of its identity. In India suppose I am a Yadav (caste), it is by itself an identity. It is like a political party. So it works like a political party. And then you come to Utter Pradesh (North Indian state) and people say “Beti Aur Vote Biradari Mein Dene”. ( Marriage and Voting within caste). So similarly, as in arranged marriage, in voting you go to your own caste. And when caste or religion or a region is conditioning your mind, where comes the qualification, where comes the quality. He is of my caste. So these are the issues. Sometimes I think we will have to educate the people of this country and this is the most difficult part and the responsibility does not lie with the political parties only. Sometimes I say that political party cannot be held responsible for this because they want to win the elections so they don't care about what is happening, because after all a winner is a winner and a loser is a loser. Once you lose the elections, nobody cares for you whether you have followed the principles or not. Nobody comes to you. So naturally winning has its own importance. And so if eternal vigilance is not only the price of liberty, it is the price of democracy also. So we have to see that the citizens’ responsibility is not reduced just to voting.

And my last point is the X factor- The Bureaucracy. This is the single most important factor which affects the democracy. Bureaucracy is the permanent government. Yesterday I was seeing the budget by Jaswant Singhji (Ex Finance Minister) and the discussion at the CII. Now Jaswant Sighji is different. But the faces I saw from the government supporting the budget, I was seeing them right from Manmohan Singh’s days. They supported Manmohan Singh’s budget, they supported Chidambaram’s budget, they supported Yashwant Sinha’s budget, they supported Jaswant Singh’s budget. They said every budget was a great budget. So we come to the conclusion that this is the permanent government. Now the problem with the bureaucracy is, this is the unelected part of democracy. They are not elected. This is unaccountable part of democracy. Many times you criticize the politicians. It is fashionable. But for a politician he has to go to the people to prove his mettle after five years. Whatever fractured system it may be perverse system it may be, after five years he has to go there. Now the bureaucracy is created at the age of 22, I become IAS (Indian Administrative Service) and if I have one mark better than the other one, my job up to cabinet secretary is assured. Nothing is decided between 22 and 55. All 33 years what you do and what you don't do, hardly matters. So this unelected part is never tested after entrance. They are a system. They don't have names, they don't have telephone numbers they have only rules. They also can’t change. And sometimes I find even if a minister applies to the Prime Minister, the file is processed by some Director in the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office). Now here is a minister who rules over a department secretary, but his foreign visit file starts from a Director to Prime Minister. An IAS guy with 10 years service decides whether the most influential minister should go abroad or not. And so sometimes I think we have debated a lot about our elected representatives. But now it is time to think about the bureaucracy. Right from corruption, inefficiency, accountability, we have to reform our bureaucracy. Sometimes I feel even if you get the best of politicians in the world, they are only the temporary government and if the permanent government is not changed then this temporary government is not going to change the fate of our country. These were the few issues which came to my mind. We are the largest democracy in the world. This is really only because of our population. We all have contributed to it, but there is nothing great to contribute to become the largest democracy. We are a one billion nation so we have to be the largest democracy in the world. And I thought these are the few issues we will have to decide going from largest to the best.

Thank You Very Much.