Democracy Faltering?

As a member of the All India Service and a service-minded administrator for more than three and a half decades in Central India and a serious student of British History, Indian History, Political Science including Modern Governments and a student of Indian Economics, I had put forward a political-cum-economic theory advocating, since 1990s, a Presidential System of Democracy and a Controlled Capitalistic Economy for India with near fool-proof electoral reforms as described below:

Language, the only major criterion for the reorganization of states in the post-independent era in 1950s, remains no more a lone valid and solid base for the purpose. Economic development and, that too a balanced regional development has become the need of the hour. Divisive and decisive forces such as language, caste, color or creed could hardly be a base for geographical divisions anymore.

India is a country of one billion plus in population. Geographical area-wise and population-wise it can easily afford to have 40 to 50 states/provinces in all – each containing or catering to a population of 20 million plus. The only rider is that it should be a Democratic Federation with the Presidential form of government as in the case of USA. The President and the Governors in the states should be directly elected for a term of 5-6 years with each incumbent allowed to serve only 2 terms in office and necessarily not succeeded by a close relative in the posts for at least 2 terms at a stretch. Under such a scenario, the elected executives would be assisted and advised by a group of experts as ministers (mostly nominated) numbering not more than 5 in each government. Departmental activities should be guided, budgeted and monitored by the advisory committees comprising members of the Parliament or State Assemblies as the case may be. Direct election would be conducted once in 5 – 6 years only for the lowest chamber via. Village Panchayats (Councils) and Municipal bodies and also for the highest executive post in the country viz. President and in the states viz. the Governors. All other legislative bodies viz. the Janpad Panchayats, District Panchayats, Municipal Councils/Corporations, State Assemblies and the National Parliament should have selected/nominated members with proven talent and experience from among them on the basis of internal elections. No public representative elected or nominated can hold any particular office for more than two terms. In other words it would inject fresh blood into each chamber of public representatives. Direct election to the posts of President and Governors and similarly to the lowest chambers should be conducted at the Government cost.

Only two or three dominant political parties (on the basis of immediately-preceding General Elections) should be allowed to field candidates for the post of President and Governors but the elections or nominations to all other posts and chambers need not necessarily be in the name and nomination of political parties. All the ills of electoral processes can be automatically tackled without any major costs – neither to the Government nor to the candidates. No favoritism, no nepotism, no dynastic tendency, no black-money and no muscle power would be able to raise their ugly heads in such a system.

It is indeed a golden chance coming on our way in the form of agitation for separate statehood for ensuring a golden era in Indian Sub-continent. Telengana, Gorkhaland, Vidarbha, Bundelkland (different regions in India) etc. etc. can await the recommendations of a newly-formed State Reorganization Commission in the next 2 years. As a saying goes, one should strike when the iron is hot. Let us convert the current malady into a remedy. Sixty years of Parliamentary Democracy needs a re-look and re-working. So the current Parliament can easily be converted into a Second Constituent Assembly for the debate and a decision on an alternative system of governance like the Presidential form of Government. A federal polity with such contrast situations, languages, cultures and civilizations, heritages and histories in India needs immediate political and constitutional reforms to halt the riches of a few, to promote the welfare of all the citizens, to make justice available at a cheaper cost, to eradicate or substantially control the electoral fraud and bad practices, to provide corruption-free public services from government functionaries, to check the erosion of dignity of labor but improve and sustain its productivity be it on agri-farms, in factories, in public and semi-public offices, to halt the mobocracy and encourage meritocracy in every sphere of public life.