Political Scene

Dr. Santishree, D.N.B.Pandit

In the last hundred days of the present government, the BJP led coalition, there have been a few problems that have shown that the running of coalition governments in India is not an easy task and with difficult and eccentric partners making selfish demands; it can get worse. The second problem is connected with the first as to the position of the Centre vis-a-vis the states, especially the interpretation of the Centre’s powers. This has made it difficult due to the differing interpretation of the parties involved and the way they look at it. The third problem is the paradigm shift that has occurred in the interpretation of India’s security and foreign policy after the May 11 and 13 nuclear tests. It is necessary to dispassionately situate these debates in their historical and analytical perspectives for a proper understanding of the whole problem: What is important is that Indian polity for the first time one sees a Hindu nationalist party as the major party, leading the alliance and holding the reins of power at the Centre. This can be compared with dominance of the American right in the Republican party and the rise of Reaganite and that cherite politics in the USA and UK. Earlier it has been a partner in the several non-Congress experiments that were tried like in 1989 under the V. P. Singh, it supported him from outside. In both these the so-called left parties were also members of the alliance, as the primary aim was to oppose the Congress. Where as the change now is that the other parties including the Indian National Congress has joined with the Left and all types of parties to keep the BJP out of power. So the BJP has become the party in this elections to come out as the largest single party as well be ahead of the Congress in the highest percentage of the votes it got. The Congress of the first time in free India came a second in the popular vote. This had also seen leaders like Chandrasekar whose reversal of roles in surprising to oppose the present BJP led coalition with Congress help, which atleast for the present and unwilling to try any gimmick. So at present there is a reversal of roles as well the partners. Earlier it was anti-Congress now it is anti-BJP.

India has always had a one-party dominant system which was called a Congress system under the charismatic leadership of the Nehru Gandhi family. India is new to coalitions and no such coalitions have lasted its full term except the P. V. Narasimha Rao led government from 1991 - 96, which was able to muster a majority with the help of the defections, and through bribery and corruption. So, a party that did not have majority was able to muster one through unscrupulous means and complete its term. Is it that India is not yet ready for a coalition? Then why in recent years are we having a fracture verdict, giving no party a majority in parliament. Does it mean the maturity of the Indian electorate or the rise of several divisive interests? If a fractured verdict as in the nineties shows maturity of the electorate, then this means instability of the polity and the problem of governance will not be addressed but rather the survival of the government will become the priority of any party that assumes power. When the popular mandate, the largest single party or those who are far behind but have an alliance later on opportunistic basis?

These are issues that are daunting the Indian polity. Some have interpreted the rise of the Hindu right party as the rise of the Indian middle class. The vocalisation and communalisation of this class. But is this class a monolith and does it have the power of numbers in the electoral process? This is seriously doubted. Now can one say that it is the rise of the poor and a shift in their views. The middle class may have the power of ideas but not the numbers, even these few numbers seldom exercise their franchise. The greatest abstention in the voting process is from the middle class. So this rise of a middle class is more a myth rather than a reality. It is more due to the failure of the earlier parties, especially the centrist and the left parties to deliver the goods. Charisma has also waned and the hero image does exist but a lot of erosion has occurred.

Coalitions have been part of several Western democracies but in the Global South, the new term for the Third World, there have been very few or none. It is this lack of political culture for such an experiment that creates problems. Leave alone coalitions, many countries of the Global South do not have a democratic governments. They are either military, rightist, leftist dictatorships or theocracies. It is in this part, India has been one of the very successful experiments in the democratic process due to her pluralist political culture. It is not due to British colonies have no semblance of democracy like Myanmar and Nigeria to cite the worst of the colonialism, but still have been unable to run a coalition government. Though several analysts think that the Congress party by itself is a coalition for it is not a party but a platform where different views coexist under a single umbrella organisation. The Congress always had the right, left as well as the centre forces. Now what types of regional parties do we have in coalitions? One seldom sees ideology as a criteria but rather leader, individual centric, parochial, casteist parties which do not have national perspectives but very personal or narrow agendas to support or oppose a party. So we have a long way to go before we succeed in meaningful coalitions.

The other major issue that dominates the polity is the powers of the Centre vis-a-vis the States. It is essential to know what exactly was the position of the framers of the Indian Constitution. The principles underlying our constitution are a compromise between the demands of regionalism and local patriotism which are abundant and the requirements of Unitarianism. As a result, our constitution has in it some of the characteristics both of federalism and Unitarianism. It is, therefore, neither truly federal nor truly unitary. It is quasi - federal in character. That is to say, it is federal in form with a pronounced unitary bias in certain circumstances. It has a character of its own.

The Constitution in Article 251 is extremely clear that it is the Centre that shall have overriding powers in the case of a conflict between the two. It is very specific in providing that the law of the parliament shell prevail over the State law whenever there is a conflict. The Centre may enhance its legislative power so as make law on a subject of the state-List by declaring it as a subject of national importance. Over the Concurrent List, the power of the centre is absolute. As per Article 248, all the residuary powers are with the Centre and the Union parliament. There is also an unique arrangement whereby certain bills passed by a State legislature are subject to absolute Presidential veto. Here comes the doctrine of colourable and ancillary legislation’s, which is based on the maxim that “you cannot do indirectly what you cannot do directly”. This presidential veto is also seen with a lot of apprehension.

Let us quote a case of the way the Centre acted in the case of the Kerala Education Bill [1958] a very conspicuous example of the fact that the legislative jurisdiction of the States is seriously undermined when a bill already passed by a State legislature is scrutinised by the Centre in the light of five points - compliance with Central statuary regulations, conformity with the policies of the Union Government, ultra vies of the existing Central legislation, examination from the standpoint of constitutionality, and availability of procedural safeguards to the aggrieved parties. The Centre while communicating its assent, has often tended to dictate its policies to the States, though actual consent has been refused in a few cases. The administrative as well as the fiscal relations are totally under the control of the Centre, where there is the Centre’s colossal direction, superintendence and control over the States.

Of late the debate has been on the Article 356 which is one of the most misused articles of the Indian Constitution. When this Article was discussed in the Constituent assembly, some of the members expressed apprehension about the possibility of its misuse because of the vague expression and the use of the word Otherwise” H.V. Kamath said, “It is a constitutional crime to empower the President to interfere not merely on the report of the Governor or ruler of a mischievous world. It is diabolical word in this context and I pray to God that this will be deleted from this Article. If God does not intervene when things will take more serious turn and the eyes of everyone of us will be more Awake than they are today! Even Dr. B. R. Ambedkar did not rule out of the possibility that these articles can be abused and used for political purposes”.

The expressions “failure of the constitutional machinery” and arising of a situation in which the State cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution “are quite vague and this issue was raised in the Constituent Assembly by H. N. Kunzru and Naziruddin Ahmed. The latter said that, “This Article says practically nothing. It says almost everything. It enables the Centre to interfere on the slightest pretext and it may enable the Centre to refuse to interfere in the gravest occasion. So carefully guarded is its vagueness, so elusive is its draughtsmanship that we cannot be admire the Drafting Committee for its vagueness and evasions”. But Dr. Ambedkar was in no mood to answer, rather explain the meaning. He merely said that the phrase has been used in the Government of India Act of 1935.

Article 35 provides the Centre to intervene in the states if they fail to perform federal obligations or maintain the democratic and republican form of government, or if the government of the state is not carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. It was under this Article that the present government had sent Central teams to the states to investigate allegations of misuse of law and order machinery. Though the West Bengal government refused to co-operate which was constitutionally incorrect, what the communists done themselves shows that they were on the wrong side.

This is like the Constitutions of Switzerland, the Weimer Republic, the federal Republic of Germany which also has similar articles for central intervention. It is Article 5 in the Swiss Constitution, Article 48 of the Weimer Constitution and Article 37 of the FRG constitution.

In all, until President’s rule under Article 356 was imposed seven times during Jawaharlal Nehru’s Prime Ministership, twice during Lal Bahadur Sastri’s period, forty seven times during Indira Gandhi’s regime [1966-77; 1980-83], nine times in Morarji Desai’s period and even the short term of Charan Singh witnessed five dismissals. It is due to these thorough misuses of this Article that there has been a great reluctance to use it whereas some of its coalition partners especially Jayalalitha from Tamil Nadu wants its use as she is desperate to get to power. The question whether she will win assembly elections is doubtful, but that is the only way she thinks she could hoodwink the judicial process which is closing in on her corruption charges and the misuse of office. For her political power is primarily to get it even with all detractors and this is no end embarrassing the BJP led coalition.

Article 356 has in the past been thoroughly misused for dismissing State governments having majority in the Assembly. This was done blatantly by the infamous Governor Romesh Bhandari, who did it twice to the Kalyan Singh Government in UP. The Allahabad High Court had to intervene to restore order. The state of the political process has been so undermined and democratic institutions are weakened that one has to take the help of the judiciary to restore sanity and order. That the reason the present coalition is very averse to use this Article, even in a state like Bihar where it is absolutely necessary to dismiss a government that has no legitimacy left to function to all, where killings are the law of the day and one has a chief minister whose husband and brothers rule on her behalf, the husband has been indicted by a court of law. This is the sham of democracy and fate of women’s representation in the political process. One rarely sees women in politics who have come up on their individual merit, without being a part of the beti-biwi-brigade.

There are views that the Article 356 should be totally scrapped, which will then allow regional, parochial forces take the upper hand and the Centre as just a mute observer. Only that the best of Constitutions can be ruined by sinister people, it is necessary that the elected representatives should act with care, responsibility and a conscience. Like the Weimer Constitution, one of the best failed due to human error and not a legal inadequacy. Article 356 is a necessity but an Article that should be used rarely. Any party that assumes power at the Centre will have to maintain the territorial integrity of the nation which is its prime duty. Hence this article gives the Centre the authority to intervene as and when necessary. It is essential in a country where the fissiparous tendencies are on the increase and there has to be a strong Centre without which there no political and economic stability.

In foreign and security policy, India until recently has been pursuing the middle path rather the idealistic world view, with the exception of Sardar Patel, Indira Gandhi and the BJP which can be classified under the realistic approach, the Kautilyan perspective. Even the Buddha believed that there should be a strategic balance between two states for a permanent and a stable peace. There has been a paradigm shift to one of clarity in security policy from one of ambiguity and indecision. The present government has set the stage for the discourse of India’s strategic equation with China rather than Pakistan which is just an irritant by itself. If the Pakistan - China nexus that troubled India a lot, the American insensitivity to the real security concerns of India. It was indeed only now that India made a clear attempt to point the finger at the real aggressor which it should have done in 1949, when Tibet was just gobbled up. This has created the Sinophiles heartache and there are quite a number in India, but the academic and policy tilt has been rectified.

This is also watershed in India’s foreign and security policy. India will have to go beyond and improve on its poor record in diplomacy and keep both the eagle and the dragon at bay and see that India gains from their mutual distrust and exploit the other players like Russia, France and the Third world countries, especially West Asia. India should render help and transfer nuclear technology for peaceful purposes to friends like Sri Lanka, Iran and others. It is time that India called the shots than just reacted to events in the name of spirituality, morality which was viewed negatively. All those who bemoan the shift belong to particular ideological group, which exposes their hypocrisy of applying different yardsticks to Communist states like China and to democratic states like India.

It is here that India realised that civility is sign of weakness in the global system decided to change her ways of showing her strength for ultimately it is the brute power of China’s rise to power through the bullet rather than the ballot that has forced the world’s greatest democracy USA to be its friend and give it numerous concessions. For as the saying goes, if you cannot beat your enemy, make friends with him. That is what they are advising others as well ignoring all the violence that has gone in to keep this society. So India has switched from idealism to defensive realism, a realism to defend her interests and values in the long run.