The outcomes of the state Assembly elections in Bengal and Tamil Nadu held in April-May 2011 and the recent expansion of his cabinet by the Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik, though somewhat unrelated, exhibit some common threads: they expose the fault lines of democracy as practiced in our country.
One distinguishing characteristic of democracy is that under this form of government, ruling parties and leaders can be changed at intervals to ensure good governance for the benefit of the people. This is not possible under dictatorships or one-party rule. However, when a political party, in a multi-party system, is elected again and again and holds the reins of power for a long time, there is a possibility of its leaders developing hubris, being intolerant of differing points of view and acquiring a proclivity to misuse power and indulge in corruption for self-enrichment.
This is what seems to have happened in Bengal and Tamil Nadu. The CPI(M) and the Left Front in Bengal were popular in the initial years of their governance due to the implementation of a number of progressive measures that benefited the masses. Later as they got re-elected again and again and continued in office for 34 years, they took to arbitrary methods in administration, misused the police and the state apparatus and used muscle and street power of their cadres to force their views on the poor masses. This made them unpopular and led to their defeat.
In Tamil Nadu, long years of Dravidian power and close familiarity with the state machinery made the DMK and the Karunanidhi family treat the state government as their fiefdom. Though the alternative available was not particularly attractive, the people nevertheless gave a crushing blow to the DMK-Congress alliance.
The situation in Odisha has not yet reached the level of Bengal or Tamil Nadu; but there are clear signs that 11 long years in office is giving BJD and its leaders a sense of complacency, invincibility and an attitude of nonchalance in the misuse of power. In one sense, these attitudes were reflected in the manner in which the expansion of the state cabinet was done recently. Earlier, when a politician or even a civil servant was accused of misdemeanour including corruption, he or she was immediately marginalised and removed from office.
The ruling party in Orissa is now battling allegations of corruption in mining, coal distribution, purchase of pulses and allotment of land. Under the orders of the Supreme Court, the CBI is to enquire into the allegations of misuse of power and financial irregularities in the administration of the national employment guarantee scheme in some of the districts of the state. The politicians who have been accused of being associated with these scams have all retained their positions as ministers in the expanded cabinet! Additionally, a senior politician who earlier had to leave his high office following allegations of misbehaviour towards a lady employee has now been appointed as a cabinet minister.
We must remember that in comparison to the western countries, democracy in India has many inherent weaknesses.
In western democracies, when a politician, through election, is appointed to a high government position, he basically “holds his office” during the prescribed tenure and seeks to serve the people for whose benefit and welfare the office has been set up. In our country, our elected politicians, along with their party, literally “come to power” and instead of acting as service-providers, behave like little kings in their domain. Along with a retinue of personal staff, houses, cars with red light and other perks at state cost, come the interesting possibilities of increasing personal net worth through the use of office, of interfering in the administration of law, of manipulating the administration, particularly the police and vigilance organisations for party and personal interests and of collecting funds from mine owners and business people ostensibly for the party.
Secondly, democracy primarily means the rule of law, not of men. In the democratic system, all power must originate from the constitutional laws and institutions. That guarantees the rights of the people who then do not have to face arbitrary exercise of power. Unfortunately, in our country, the constitutional institutions have become weak. The entry of people with criminal background into our legislatures, frequent interruptions in their proceedings, poor quality of debates, and brazen display of bribe money in the form of currency notes in the nation’s top legislative body have all severely compromised their position. Inordinate delay in dispensing justice and allegations of corruption against some judges has dented the image of the judiciary. A spineless and corrupt bureaucracy has made a mockery of the concept of “steel frame” that the framers of our constitution envisaged. Since the institutions are weak, power is being increasingly exercised by individuals, some holding formal constitutional positions, while some others without any formal constitutional authority. Both can be arbitrary, but at least in the case of persons holding formal government or public positions, power is combined with responsibility and those with dedication can make a difference as has happened in Nitish Kumar’s Bihar or Narendra Modi’s Gujarat.
The greater threat to our democratic system lies when persons without formal constitutional positions operate the levers of power. Many observers believe that this may be the position both in New Delhi and Bhubaneswar. Our constitution envisages that for good governance at the Centre the topmost political and administrative powers must be combined in the office of the Prime Minister. The impression in Delhi is that under UPA this has been given a go by, the office of the Prime Minister has become weak and the effective “power centre” operates outside the formal government structure. Similar position seems to be prevailing at Bhubaneswar where the popular impression is that a relatively more effective “power centre” operates from a well-known residential neighbourhood, outside the formal institutional structure.
The problem with such extra-constitutional exercise of power is that it damages the authority and position of the legitimate holder of the high office. More importantly, since power is exercised without any accountability, it is liable to be misused. The possibility of such misuse increases manifold if a political party is able to retain power for a long period of time and the extra-constitutional “power centre” is seen to be crucial for its success at the polls. As in both Bengal and Tamil Nadu, it is only a vigilant public opinion and active press that can provide a counter to such deviant and malignant behaviour, thereby helping to manage democracy’s fault lines effectively.
