India’s old constitutional system has broken down and this is poisoning the governance of the country
An Israeli defence scientist, now a member of the country’s Parliament, once told me in another context, that it is important to learn to recognise organisations that have gone beyond the capability of being reformed; they malfunction to the point where the only option is to dismantle, and then reconstitute them. The Union of India as created by the Constitution of 1950 seems to have reached what is called in Army terminology “beyond economical repair,” in other words, it is kaput.
The events of the past week may appear disparate, but they are all linked to the collapse of our political and administrative system and show that the old structure of governance is unable to cope with the demands of the era. The problem is systemic, and cannot be handled by fixing one or the other element of it.
Almost every analysis of the failure of the state to tackle terrorism comes up with the conclusion that the Union government and the States are unable to cooperate in this fight. Neither are our reformed intelligence agencies which suffer from poor leadership anyway. Some say this requires the creation of a federal intelligence agency, others claim that strong anti-terrorist legislation is the answer.
On the other hand critics point out that both would be misused just as POTA, TADA and the CBI have been. Even more fundamental is how in the present system political parties use caste and creed for mobilisation and do not hesitate to demonise other groups for electoral gain.
Defunct
The faultlines are not only visible in the case of terrorism. They were visible also in the trust debate and its outcome. Over the years, the experience of “Aya Rams and Gaya Rams” led Parliament to pass stringent anti-defection measures to prevent parties from opportunistically splintering. Yet, in a crucial vote the second largest party in the country suffered an attrition of as many as 9 MPs. Cracks appeared in other parties as well.# The issue that has emerged is not just defection, devoid of anything called ideological principle, but a situation where our already fractured party system is held hostage by parties of one or three or six individuals, which destabilises the entire governmental system.
An associated issue is the subject of the debate itself — the Indo-US nuclear deal. Ever since it sharpened its opposition to the deal, the Left had been arguing that a Parliamentary majority was against the deal. Some other parties wanted Parliament to vote on the deal itself. Yet, in the Parliamentary system, there is no provision for approval or disapproval of such international agreements.
The Indo-US deal was discussed threadbare at almost every stage since the July 2005 agreement between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush, but it was never voted on since that was not required. The idea of voting on an international issue really comes from the Presidential form of government like that in the US.
In the Parliamentary system, the legislature is supreme and the government formed by the leading party in the lower house is presumed to act on behalf of Parliament as long as it is able to maintain its majority on the floor of the house. India needed no Parliamentary approval to enter the WTO, or to agree to the South Asian Free Trade Agreement. In the future, too, should the government wish to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or even the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it would not need the specific approval of the Lok Sabha. Associated with this debate, and as a subtext to it as it were, was the legitimacy of Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister. No one questions the legality of his position. What was in question was his authority, since it is known that he is not the true leader of the legislature party in the Lower House; that position is held by Sonia Gandhi. In fact, the Prime Minister is not even a member of that house. He is an indirectly elected member of the Rajya Sabha. #
Renewal
In my view, we need to seriously think about reconstituting the Republic on the lines of a presidential system. Our 1947 unitary-federal Constitution was created by a group of people who were most comfortable with the Westminster system which had been partially introduced in the country through the 1919 and the 1935 Government of India Acts. Sixty years later, the writing is as clear on the wall as it can be — the system is not working.
A system with term limits for the chief executive, and a scheme of countervailing powers for Parliament, Judiciary and the States has many advantages that will help our country to overcome its present stasis: First, the issue of a strong or weak Prime Minister will be settled by having him be directly elected by the entire voting population of the country. Since each vote from every part of the country and its many communities would count, it would go a long way in doing away with exclusionary politics of the BJP type.
The executive president would choose his own Cabinet which would be responsible to him or her, rather than Parliament. Second, the executive would be empowered to act on “national” issues, relating to security and the economic well-being of the country. Third, Parliament would be given the right to vote on the appointment of the Cabinet, approve international agreements, or amend and block legislation presented by the executive.
Fourth, the Upper House, which is currently neither here nor there, would need to be reconstituted to provide it equal or near equal representation for all the states of the federation. Its members would be empowered by being directly elected in their respective states. In this way small states could have some influence in the large federation. At present if Mizoram or Nagaland have a view on relations with Myanmar, which they border, they have no way of influencing policy in South Block.
By having an upper house directly elected by the entire populace of a state, we would prevent the present tendency towards political fragmentation that has emerged from the operation of a Parliamentary system upon the Indian social structure.
Authority
As for terrorism or other national issues, a Prime Minister, directly elected by the people will have far more moral and real authority than one who is elected by a single Lok Sabha constituency, or worse, indirectly into the Rajya Sabha. Yet, at present he has unchecked powers to take India in any direction he chooses, our only remedy being to act against him by voting his government out in Parliament or through a general election. A presidential system that strengthens the PM and Parliament, will inevitably also empower the people.
The idea of switching to a presidential system is not an original one. It has done the rounds earlier but few have bothered to pay it any attention, in part because they suspected the motives of one of its proponents, L.K. Advani. Given the vested interests in the present system, I am sure that a change will only occur when the crisis deepens. All I can do is point to the fact that the present system is not working and we stand on the brink of disaster.
This was published in Mail Today July 30, 2008
Showing posts with label Constituent Assembly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Constituent Assembly. Show all posts
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
India can live with a nationalistic Nepal, but not a Leftist one
Everyone, barring the monarchy, has welcomed the successful conclusion of the election to the Constituent Assembly in Nepal. This has formally ended a civil war and terminated a good-for-nothing monarchy. But the measure of happiness at the outcome is not equal. There are many, especially in India, who feel somewhat uncomfortable at the size of the Maoist victory. In their view, a more balanced outcome could perhaps have been a better way of socialising the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) into the culture of democracy. Instead, we are confronted with the fact that for all practical purposes, the erstwhile insurgents are headed from jungle to the palace in one big leap.
There are some who worry about a Marxist victory in itself. The CPN(M) or the Maoists are a wonder of sorts. Nearly two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and three since the end of the Maoist dogma in its homeland, China, an orthodox Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party has come to power in a country. The final act of the drama may have been played out over the ballot box, but the instrument that brought them here was the one that took the Communist parties of the Soviet Union and China to supremacy — the barrel of the gun. The Maoists have won their seats in the Constituent Assembly through a free and fair ballot, but it was their gun and street power that set the stage for the election, including the interim abolition of the Nepal monarchy.
Baburam Bhattarai, the Indian educated number two in the Maoist hierarchy, says that his party has “learnt” from the experiences of the CPSU and the CPC and that his party was a 21st century entity, fully conscious of the need to function in a multi-party democratic environment. His statements and that of the leader of the party, Prachanda, stress the party line that it is against feudalism and not capitalism and that it welcomes foreign investors. Yet, in the very scale of the success of the Maoists could lie the seeds of potential calamity.
Orthodox theory, beginning with Lenin’s April Theses says that the bourgeois system will not create the Marxist utopia. For that you need a different kind of a power structure — based on the supremacy of the communist party. Marxist-Leninist parties have followed this model through history. A joint front comes to power, the communists insinuate themselves into the system and soon capture all power. This was the sorry modern history of Russia, China, Cuba and other socialist paradises. After seizing power, almost every successful Marxist-Leninist movement has its Pol Pot moment. The Soviet Great Purges and the Cultural Revolution in China are examples of processes that destroyed entire cultures and societies in the name of revolution.
Prachanda and Bhattarai promise to change all that, but can they change their DNA ? As of now the two have a firm grip on their party. But once in government, they will simply lack the time to run the party and the government. Through the election campaign and after, the activities of the Young Communist League indicated that it is not easy to change the character of the party.
Change
With the end of the monarchy Nepal stands on the brink of enormous change which, for the better or the worse, will be steered by the Maoists. Any new government will be confronted with the mass of accumulated problems left over by the monarchy. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world and already under considerable environmental stress.
But the immediate challenges will be political. First, in dealing with the Royal Nepal Army. The war between the Maoists and the RNA may not have been long or very intense, but it did feature a great deal of brutality and killings on both sides. In 2003, the Maoists had termed the RNA as “the traditional support base of monarchy and of late a pampered darling of US-British imperialism”. Now they say that the 20,000 strong-guerilla force must be merged with the 40,000-strong RNA. Bhattarai has said that the overall size of the army will come down, and if there is a disproportionate reduction of the RNA element, the Maoists could gain effective control of the army as well.
Revolution
Second, most of the history of the country was of brutal suppression of the people and grinding poverty, akin to slavery. Land ownership is a major issue, as is the ethnic imbalance in the possession of land. If the Maoists are even moderately successful in providing a federal government and land reform, they will be bringing on a revolution of sorts in the lives of the ordinary Nepali. Given the accumulated grievances, this could become a violent process, compelling the Maoists to take recourse to the tried and tested methods of a Marxist-Leninist organisation rather than a party functioning in a democracy.
Third, is the issue of India. Nepal has a long border with China and ties of friendship, but geography has locked Nepal into India. New Delhi has been used to doing business with the Nepali Congress for a long time, but the Maoists no longer have the shock value they once had. New Delhi cannot expect the quality of the relationship to remain static. Bhattarai’s recent interview suggests that, to start with at least, the Nepalese agenda will be nationalistic rather than revolutionary. He has spoken of the need to enforce some kind of border controls on the virtually open Indo-Nepal border and a renegotiation of the 1950 India-Nepal Treaty. Neither of these should worry India much. Both are related to a greater assertion of Nepalese nationalism, rather than any revolutionary project. Such a Nepal could be irredentist, but the idea holds little traction among the people of Nepalese origin living in India.
India can live with a nationalistic Nepal, but not a Leftist one driven by ideologues, who will become homicidal sooner, rather than later. Besides eliminating the elite — land and property owners and associates of the monarchy —such a government would almost certainly give far more encouragement to the Maoists across the border in India.
Dialectics
The Maoists’ stand that their party is firmly committed to multi-party democracy and their relationship with Indian Maoists is purely ideological could be merely a tactical statement, or it could reflect the dominant line of the day. Nepalese Maoists have in the past participated in the coordination conferences with their Indian counterparts. We know a great deal about Prachanda and Bhattarai’s views, which are quite remarkable for their reasonableness, but we know little about those of the second and third rungs of the party. Circumstances pushed the CPN(M) to alter its line in 2003; a changed situation could well lead them to revert to the old path tomorrow. Dialectics, as any student of Marxism-Leninism will tell you, can explain everything.
This article first appeared in Mail Today April 23, 2008
There are some who worry about a Marxist victory in itself. The CPN(M) or the Maoists are a wonder of sorts. Nearly two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and three since the end of the Maoist dogma in its homeland, China, an orthodox Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party has come to power in a country. The final act of the drama may have been played out over the ballot box, but the instrument that brought them here was the one that took the Communist parties of the Soviet Union and China to supremacy — the barrel of the gun. The Maoists have won their seats in the Constituent Assembly through a free and fair ballot, but it was their gun and street power that set the stage for the election, including the interim abolition of the Nepal monarchy.
Baburam Bhattarai, the Indian educated number two in the Maoist hierarchy, says that his party has “learnt” from the experiences of the CPSU and the CPC and that his party was a 21st century entity, fully conscious of the need to function in a multi-party democratic environment. His statements and that of the leader of the party, Prachanda, stress the party line that it is against feudalism and not capitalism and that it welcomes foreign investors. Yet, in the very scale of the success of the Maoists could lie the seeds of potential calamity.
Orthodox theory, beginning with Lenin’s April Theses says that the bourgeois system will not create the Marxist utopia. For that you need a different kind of a power structure — based on the supremacy of the communist party. Marxist-Leninist parties have followed this model through history. A joint front comes to power, the communists insinuate themselves into the system and soon capture all power. This was the sorry modern history of Russia, China, Cuba and other socialist paradises. After seizing power, almost every successful Marxist-Leninist movement has its Pol Pot moment. The Soviet Great Purges and the Cultural Revolution in China are examples of processes that destroyed entire cultures and societies in the name of revolution.
Prachanda and Bhattarai promise to change all that, but can they change their DNA ? As of now the two have a firm grip on their party. But once in government, they will simply lack the time to run the party and the government. Through the election campaign and after, the activities of the Young Communist League indicated that it is not easy to change the character of the party.
Change
With the end of the monarchy Nepal stands on the brink of enormous change which, for the better or the worse, will be steered by the Maoists. Any new government will be confronted with the mass of accumulated problems left over by the monarchy. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world and already under considerable environmental stress.
But the immediate challenges will be political. First, in dealing with the Royal Nepal Army. The war between the Maoists and the RNA may not have been long or very intense, but it did feature a great deal of brutality and killings on both sides. In 2003, the Maoists had termed the RNA as “the traditional support base of monarchy and of late a pampered darling of US-British imperialism”. Now they say that the 20,000 strong-guerilla force must be merged with the 40,000-strong RNA. Bhattarai has said that the overall size of the army will come down, and if there is a disproportionate reduction of the RNA element, the Maoists could gain effective control of the army as well.
Revolution
Second, most of the history of the country was of brutal suppression of the people and grinding poverty, akin to slavery. Land ownership is a major issue, as is the ethnic imbalance in the possession of land. If the Maoists are even moderately successful in providing a federal government and land reform, they will be bringing on a revolution of sorts in the lives of the ordinary Nepali. Given the accumulated grievances, this could become a violent process, compelling the Maoists to take recourse to the tried and tested methods of a Marxist-Leninist organisation rather than a party functioning in a democracy.
Third, is the issue of India. Nepal has a long border with China and ties of friendship, but geography has locked Nepal into India. New Delhi has been used to doing business with the Nepali Congress for a long time, but the Maoists no longer have the shock value they once had. New Delhi cannot expect the quality of the relationship to remain static. Bhattarai’s recent interview suggests that, to start with at least, the Nepalese agenda will be nationalistic rather than revolutionary. He has spoken of the need to enforce some kind of border controls on the virtually open Indo-Nepal border and a renegotiation of the 1950 India-Nepal Treaty. Neither of these should worry India much. Both are related to a greater assertion of Nepalese nationalism, rather than any revolutionary project. Such a Nepal could be irredentist, but the idea holds little traction among the people of Nepalese origin living in India.
India can live with a nationalistic Nepal, but not a Leftist one driven by ideologues, who will become homicidal sooner, rather than later. Besides eliminating the elite — land and property owners and associates of the monarchy —such a government would almost certainly give far more encouragement to the Maoists across the border in India.
Dialectics
The Maoists’ stand that their party is firmly committed to multi-party democracy and their relationship with Indian Maoists is purely ideological could be merely a tactical statement, or it could reflect the dominant line of the day. Nepalese Maoists have in the past participated in the coordination conferences with their Indian counterparts. We know a great deal about Prachanda and Bhattarai’s views, which are quite remarkable for their reasonableness, but we know little about those of the second and third rungs of the party. Circumstances pushed the CPN(M) to alter its line in 2003; a changed situation could well lead them to revert to the old path tomorrow. Dialectics, as any student of Marxism-Leninism will tell you, can explain everything.
This article first appeared in Mail Today April 23, 2008
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