It's "Aya Ram-Gaya Ram" time in politics. The phrase for party crossovers, a source of much notoriety and some levity, was the Haryana legislature's gift to the nation in the 1960s when an MLA called Gaya Lal changed parties three times in a fortnight, within nine hours on the final occasion. He was finally presented to the press in Chandigarh with the introduction that "Gaya Ram is now Aya Ram": the ultimate caricature of the capricious, self-serving Indian politician with no affiliation to party loyalty and ideology, nor accountability to elected office. In the unfolding pre-poll scenario to the 16th round of the Lok Sabha, are the choices before the Indian electorate "distractingly limitless", as a foreign commentator puts it?
Many would argue that in a season of make-ups and break-ups, last-minute crossovers, tainted ministers nominated for re-election, an ever-growing coterie of princelings and pocket borough heirs, not to speak of dollops of glamour provided by the likes of Moon Moon Sen, Nagma and Gul Panag, many of the old distractions abound. More young Indians, better educated than before, and swayed less by considerations of caste and creed than jobs, skills and professional advancement, will start queuing on April 7 - but who will draw their votes? Are top-drawer professionals with made-in-India records like ex-IT czars Nandan Nilekani and V Balakrishnan or bankers like Meera Sanyal more winnable candidates than Karti Chidambaram and Jayant Sinha, the untested sons of P Chidambaram and Yashwant Sinha, with no remarkable asset other than their relative youth and inherited political clout?
Data compiled by the Delhi-based think tank PRS Legislative Research on the educational and professional backgrounds of the outgoing Lok Sabha make instructive reading: 214 of the elected 543 MPs - the largest number - described their profession as "agriculturists"; the second-largest component, 153, were listed as "social workers" and the third biggest, 98, as "political and social workers". These are such broad-based and vague appellations that they are no indicator of singular merit or achievement.
Narrowing the list into professions, there were 89 businesspersons, 73 advocates, 28 industrialists (but no industrial worker), 26 educationists, eight professors and journalists each, and seven civil servants. When it came to specialised professionals, the choice was dismal: two computer scientists, and one IT professional, chartered engineer, pilot and surgeon each. There were, however, three self-described "poets", though they may be of the Kumar Vishwas and Jagdish Piyush variety who have turned Rahul Gandhi's constituency, Amethi, into the land of bards. Is it any surprise that the Parliament of 2009-13 is pilloried as the most expensive (Rs 245 crore disbursed annually in MPs' salaries) and the worst-performing (it sat for only 63 per cent of the allotted time) in Indian history?
Further statistics compiled by PRS Legislative Research on the educational qualifications of those elected to all Lok Sabhas since 1952 don't present a very encouraging picture, either. While it is true that the number of under-matriculates - those who didn't complete high school - elected has come down drastically from 23 per cent in the first Parliament to three per cent in the last, the number of matriculates remains about the same, down from 18 per cent in 1952 to a constant of 17 per cent in 1999, 2004 and 2009. Less than half of departing MPs (46 per cent) were graduates. Nor has this figure crossed the halfway mark since 1999, the year of UPA-I, when 48 per cent of the total strength had graduated. Postgraduates have never risen beyond the one-third benchmark: the highest-ever, 30 per cent, were elected in 1996 and the 29 per cent was the number in 2009. The number of MPs with doctoral degrees in 2009 was three per cent.
Going by a profile of Parliament, based on educational and professional merit alone, it could be inferred that the more the country aspires to change, the more its elected representatives remain the same. Can men and women without backgrounds of proven ability and achievement be expected to professionalise the running of government? Can MPs of mediocre education be expected to raise the level of policy discourse? If there is an injection of youthful energy in 2014, will the result, however fragmented, change the image of shop-soiled representatives unable to mind the shop? On such questions should rest the answer of who passes the test this summer.
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