The message from two SC verdicts

Rajesh Ramachandran

THE Supreme Court’s judgments on the electoral bonds and the Chandigarh mayoral election are epoch-making. There cannot be a graver offence to democracy than anonymous election funding. Anonymity is synonymous with deception and corruption. While nameless funders possibly conceal their business and personal objectives, only transparency can help make the voter do a cost-benefit analysis between a funder and the funded political entity. So, it is imperative for the voter to know who is funding his or her chosen candidate.

A local poll to elect a mayor became a test case, and the court has majestically ensured that the Indian system passes it to prove that it still works.

By delivering a verdict annulling the electoral bond scheme, the apex court Bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud has saved the constitutional foundations of the Republic. This ruling, while enhancing the SC’s stature as the final institutional bulwark of constitutional morality, also points fingers at other constitutional bodies that have begun to behave like government appendages.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) was a fiercely independent institution when it was helmed by TN Seshan. Herein lies the sad story of Indian institutions. The character of most of these institutions changes with the person at the top. The court’s order on electoral bonds is a wake-up call for the ECI. Indian elections are free and fair. But the first-past-the-post system seeks its credibility entirely from the institution that conducts the polls. And if the conductor falters, the process gets easily accused of manipulation.

That is something the Indian democracy can ill afford, particularly in the context of all the barbs of it being an elected autocracy hurled by the Western academia and its media.

Equally important is the SC verdict reversing the Chandigarh mayoral poll result. Presiding officer Anil Masih was caught on camera blatantly defacing ballot papers to make valid votes for the AAP-Congress candidate invalid. This was nothing short of ‘murder of democracy’, no doubt.

A local poll to elect a mayor became a test case, and the court has majestically ensured that the Indian system passes it to prove that it still works. But how many such tests and shocks can the system withstand before it capitulates is a question that the votaries of the strong government need to ask themselves. A strong government derives its strength from the people’s conviction, not from arm-twisting tactics of its storm-troopers.

Despite the two setbacks from the top court, the BJP is on an unassailable electoral upswing. The consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya has created such a groundswell of religious goodwill for PM Modi among temple-going ordinary Hindus that it is now a mundane exercise for him to convert it into political capital for the polls. Then, of course, there is the added advantage of the Opposition remaining a house divided. Going by the last election’s schedule, there are less than 50 days left for the first phase of polling. Yet, the Opposition has not firmed up poll tie-ups.

All those who may call the Indian democracy names after the elections should seriously look at the sorry state of the Opposition right now. As of today, it is not clear whether AAP and the Congress will have an alliance in Punjab. Even in Delhi, where a 4-3 formula of seat-sharing is being talked about, there is no official announcement so far. The Samajwadi-Congress alliance in Uttar Pradesh is the only one that has been sealed. Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi has taken a break from his yatra to lecture at Cambridge, as if Oxbridge scholars’ votes count in Amethi or Wayanad.

The urgency of a group preparing to take on a juggernaut is glaringly missing in the terribly slow pace at which Opposition parties move. Incidentally, the Left, which is the fulcrum on which the Opposition in Delhi turns, has announced its candidates, including the one who would take on Rahul, if he contests from Wayanad. But a political understanding with Mamata Banerjee that could have altered the scene in West Bengal is still eluding the Congress as the BJP tries to project itself as her biggest challenger in the state.

Unless there is an unseen anti-incumbency storm gathering amongst the masses, there is no chance of a serious challenge to PM Modi’s electoral pole position in these circumstances. The possibility of a third term for Modi looks strong. However, that confidence should not prompt his followers to shake the foundations of Indian democracy — which is the message from the SC verdicts.

A recent issue of The Economist magazine has a brilliant leader on the perils of national conservatism. In the context of the American elections, the magazine talks about Trump’s aides readying a programme “to capture the federal bureaucracy”. To eulogise Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher as torchbearers of virtuous conservatism while condemning all newbie national conservatives as illiberals opposed to multilateralism abroad and pluralism at home is obviously polemical. Reagan’s initiation into politics was as an FBI informer ratting out communists in Hollywood; but for the Falklands War, Thatcher would never have found her feet. Both appealed to fiercely nationalist sentiments.

Nationalism is undeniably the core of conservatism. It suddenly cannot become dirty when bandied about by populists and anti-elites. But the difference now is the new attempt to subsume the entire system within the underbelly of the political executive. Indian bureaucracy has for some time now been caged parrots and pet falcons who sing and hunt for their political master. This situation cannot be blamed on any one party. A former bureaucrat, who had hunted down Subrata Roy for the UPA, was given cabinet rank long after retirement by a Left government this week.

Well, the capture of the bureaucracy by the Indian political class predated the global trend of national conservatism. Nevertheless, the two SC verdicts point towards the slippery slope we have reached. All that is left between the pinnacle of proud national achievements and the abyss of complete systemic breakdown are a few constitutional bodies. Remember, there can be no Ram Rajya without strong democratic institutions!

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