In the second half of August the nation witnessed a struggle between constitutional propriety and populist democracy. Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar had anticipated this. On November 25, 1949, when he introduced the final version of the Constitution for adoption, his speech included three warnings about the threat to democracy in India.
The first warning was about the modes of political action. He argued: “…we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha … where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.”
This is one warning we have clearly not heeded. From the agitations that surrounded the reorganisation of states and the language question in the south to Jayprakash Narayan’s Sampoorna Kranti, the Mandal protests of the late eighties and the current ant-corruption crusade, we seem to be destined for a once-a-decade reprise of the methods used in the freedom struggle.
Dr Ambedkar’s second warning was against hero worship. “Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.”
This warning, too, has not been heeded. In the early years of Independence, hero worship was directed at a constitutional head, Pandit Nehru, and that may even have helped to consolidate popular support for electoral democracy. But later, other extra-constitutional leaders like Jayprakash Narayan emerged as the object of mass adoration and the most recent instance is Anna Hazare.
Dr Ambedkar’s third warning is better known: a plea for social justice. “In politics we will be recognising the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value.” But along with this famous plea for equality, he also focused on the lack of a sense of nationhood. “The second thing we are wanting in is recognition of the principle of fraternity … a sense of common brotherhood of all Indians.”
This is perhaps an area where we have done a little better and part of the credit for this goes to our political parties. The compulsions of electoral democracy have greatly strengthened the political salience of equality. But even here the idea of fraternity is under pressure since regional sentiments are exploited by cynical politicians in their thirst for power.
Dr Ambedkar’s fears are now very real. Politicians have become a class apart, far removed from the travails of everyday life and, therefore, insensitive to the accumulation of discontent. A free, competitive media amplifies the voice of the crowd — a street protest makes for better theatre than a parliamentary debate. The political class resists change for far too long and, with the disastrous exception of Emergency, capitulates abjectly to the demands of whoever can mobilise a crowd.
The core of the problem lies in the way our political parties function. If constitutional democracy cannot hold its own in the face of the populism of the streets, the reform of the party system is absolutely urgent. Three things are essential: democratising the functioning of political parties, purging them of criminal elements and giving political expression to the underprivileged as a class with power.
The democratisation of the party system means opening up the leadership succession, at every level. Our parties must open their portals to people other than the sons and daughters of politicians and student activists. This will create space for turnover at the top and the emergence of new, possibly younger, leaders. It requires inner-party democracy so that the leaders can legitimately speak for the membership. Above all, it means transparency in funding so that the power of the bagman is reduced. The norms needed for this can be enforced by the Election Commission or, by an Act of Parliament analogous to Company laws which set standards for corporate governance. In fact public funding for political parties must be conditional on these changes.
The moral stature of the political class is as important. The idea of a dharmaraja, a righteous ruler, has a powerful hold on our imagination. But the patent venality of the political class has led people to a search for the extra-constitutional hero. We had a chance with Dr Manmohan Singh, a man of proven probity and simplicity, to direct this urge to constitutional channels. But this great asset was lost because an upright individual is not enough; we need upright political parties. The minimum requirement is to amend the electoral law and the constitution of political parties to weed out criminals and goons. It is truly sad that now all we demand is that our political leaders should not be history sheeters.
Though the gains from cleaning up politics will be useful, they will be temporary and the challenge to constitutional democracy will emerge again if the political system fails to address Dr Ambedkar’s third fear. India lacks a credible party of the left that can speak for the underprivileged as a class. The communists are a regional force and lack national appeal. The caste-based parties have given voice to the demand to correct ancient wrongs. The national and the regional parties are adept at vote-bank politics. But all this does not add up to the articulation of class interest, an essential part of democratic and capitalist evolution everywhere.
We need a secular, non-casteist, national party of the left that is capable of building a coalition of the underprivileged. Unfortunately this evolution is nowhere in sight and, unless it comes, the streets will be the only political space available to activists who espouse popular causes.
The other systemic challenge is the fragmentation of the political space and the inevitability of coalition governance at the Centre for the foreseeable future. Coalition dharma must involve a negotiated common programme rather than a sharing of spoils.
The political class’ survival instincts will lead them to clean up their act for some time till the rot starts again. But the systemic changes require mass mobilisation of the underprivileged and that should be the agenda of civil society now.
