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The Politics of Instability Author(s): V. V. John Reviewed work(s): Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Jan.

20, 1968), pp. 193+195-196 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4358154 . Accessed: 25/01/2013 17:33
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SPECIAL ARTICLES

The

Politics

of
V V John

Instability

There is no longer any political debate in the country, that is, the meeting of argument with argument. The concept of India as one country and one people has been put away for use on purely
ceremnonialoccasions.

Ministers are kept so busy performingon the tight rope of political support that pressing matters concerningthe welfare of the people receive no altention.Even if one abandonedall ethicalconsiderations, one could see that it is inexpedientto adopt briberyand blackmailas the permanentbasis of our polity. The author suggests that the Constitutionshould be amended to give the States an irremovable exe(utive, combiningthe offices of governorand chief minister, while retaining the parliamentaryform at ihe Centre. The democraticright of people to dismiss their government need not be exercisedevery morning;once eveiy five years should be enough, to keep the execuitiveand the legislatureon their good behaviour.
OUR politics has become largely an exerci;e in offering yesterday's solutions to today's problems. Hence the bewilderment of political veterans in face of the chronic instability of certain State administrations. The majorities of the ruling parties or coalitions in those States being small, crossing the floor has become a most rewarding sport, and the only political considerations immediate, involved are those of personal advantage. It is ominous that amidst all the discomfiture, or the gloating, over defections and the fall of ministries, the leaders do not give thought to possible cures for this malady, other than the simple one of countering bribe with bigger bribe, or thc desperate, temporary expedient of President's rule.
THREATS OF DEFECTION

meeting of argument with argument. The lines of argument, like parallel straight lines, do not meet. In the circumstances, no one is likely to be persuaded to another's point of view, and the prospects of agreement are remote, as was evident when, some time ago, leaders discussed a code about political defections. Obviously, in their calculations, party comes first. The concept of India as one country and one people, has been put away for use on purely ceremonial occasions. Defections and dissolutions are not half so bad as what the threats of defection accomplish. Every legislator is now a potential blackmailer. The size of the State cabinet has no relation to the amount of work to be done, but bears an inverse ratio to the margin of the ruling party's majority. (The smaller the margin, the larger the cabinet.) A harassed minister in one of our precariously perched ministries happened to keep an MLA waiting while he was discussing an urgent matter with his secretary and othes officials; whereupon he received a small chit from the impatient MLA threatening, "Do you want Haryana to be repeated here?" Ministers are kept so busy perform. ing on the tight rope of political support, that pressing matters concerning the welfare of the people receive no attention. Even when something is done, it seldom goes beyond temporary expedients. A long view does not come easily to the administrator whom political exigencies oblige to live from hand to mouth. Before the last general election, it

used to be accepted as one of the exigencies of popular government that, during an election year, the fear of offending the elector should have an unsettling effect on administrativepolicy. In fact, policy was temporarily replaced by the voters' whims. With the unstable ministries that have emerged in some States since the last election, this has become a permanent arrangement.
BRIBERY AND BLACKMAIL

In another part of the wood, no doubt, the legalities of defections, a chief minister's right to ask for the dissolution of the legislature and for mid-term elections, a governor's right to dismiss ministries, and latterly, the speaker's right to recognise or not to recognise ministries are being discussed. This, like several cther public disputations, helps to distract attention from the basic problem. Every participant in the dispute argues from a set brief depending on his party affiliation arid the position of the party in the particular State he belongs to. Hence we have the spectacle of the same party in different States putting different glbsses oIn the same articles of the Constitution. There is no longer any political debate in the country, that is, the

Till the last general election, downiing Congress, either single-handed or in combination with others however disparate their ideologies, was almost a complete political programme for several of our parties. Now that the political monopoly of the Congress has been broken, opposition to it cannot be a sufficient programme for anyone. Similarly, it must be evident to the meanest Congress intelligence that the yearning to stay in power, by hook or by crook, is not only bad ethics but bad politics. Even if one abandoned all ethical considerations, one could see that it is inexpedient to adopt bribery and blackmail as the permanent basis of our polity. Apart from the unwisdom of trying to fool all the people all of the time, corruption has no self-sustaininig power, and its substance is soon spent. From sheer exhaustion, our present political practices will cease to be any use in a short while. What then shall we do? In the recesses between squabbles, our political parties must give urgent and anxious 193

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ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY thought to ways of ensuring responsible behaviour among electors, legislatois and ministers. So far, what we have ostensibly been doing is to ape British political practices, without the British ethos that sustains the system. With us, ministers who come under the shadow of grave suspicion, do not willingly resign. If we have reason to fear an adverse vote in the House, we prorogue or put off the meeting of the legislature and see what a few days' manoeuvring c",i do to save the situa. tion. Against such a setting, the right of a chief minister to advise dissolution of the legislature and the holding of another election opens up possibilities of annual or six-monthly elections. and of our democracy being choked out of existence with a surfeit of the democratic process.
REBELLION AT ANIMAL LEVEL

January 20, 1968 parliamentary form at the Centre. It is not necessary that the same pattern should prevail both at the Centre and in the States. In fact it may be an advantage if the general elections to Parliament and to the State legislatures were held at different times. And the different patterns for the formation of the executives at the Centre and in the States, may also help to distinguish the different functions each is expected to perform.

by the clever functionaries mismanaging the affairs of the nation. If an Indian Swift were to produce a new Tale of a Tub, the tub would not be empty; its contents will include most of the things so vigorously and acrimoniously dealt with in our newspapers and in public controversy.
CoRREcrToNOF ERRORS

There is some danger that the people at large, who through the centuries have put up with numberless privations, come to accept incompetence and corruption as unavoidable realities like the weatlier. Or maybe, they rebel. But the rebellion takes place at an animal level, bereft of all intelligent motivation, and manifests itself in mob violence and the destruction of what they should preserve. It is noteworthy that the content of most recent agitations has been either trivialities like the boundary lines of States in the Union or the location of universities and high courts; or alternatively trivial solutions to major problems, such as the squabble over language policies in a country where 75 per cent of the people, more than 350 million, cannot read or write any language. Bernard Shaw once entertained his readers by asking them to think of democracy as a large balloon filled with hot air and sent up into the sky for all the simpletons in the community to gaze and wonder at, while the smarter fellows went round and picked their pockets. More than two hundred years earlier, Jonathan Swift had employed another similitude to deal with the same kind of phenomenon. "Seamen havc a custom," he tells us, "when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands on the ship." Swift's Tale of a Tub recounts in entertainingly satiric detail the diversions provided to a credulous public

Our intellectuals, instead of exposing this deception, either retire into their At the State level, the emphasis should little cells of cynicism or, in desperation, suggest highly unintellectual solu- be on development and on programmes tions. The first attitude finds expres- of immediate social amelioration. The sion in such quips as: "Man has been Centre would co:icern itself with national defined as a creature of superior intel- policies and long-range objectives. ligence who elects creatures of inferior Theoretically, that is what is expected intelligence to govern him." The second even today. -But political manoeuvring attitude, expressed in such terms as, and pressures leave the State ministers "What we need is a dictator," is a little time to get on with their legitimeasure of the failure of our educa- mate work. And the Centre's concern For, education should have over national objectives gets increasingly tion. enabled us to see the difference between bogged down in adjustmentsto suit poli. a self-correcting system like democracy tical exigencies at the State level. and a system like dictatorship where It may be recalled that in the first the only method of correcting error is draft of the Constitution that was placed assassination. before the Constituent Assembly in 1947, Some sober voices have counselled the State governors were to be elected. less desperate remedies. Jayaprakash Ihis was later changed, to remove the Narayan's party-less democracy raises anomaly of a popularly elected governor many points that wie may profitably being obliged to behave like a figurelearn, but the possibilities of establish- head, acting always on the advice of a ing such a polity are based on many chief minister who as leader of the unreal assumptions. If we were a majority party could not possibly claim better people than we are today, we to represent the people in any truer could work JP's utopia. But then, sense than the governor himself. If the if we were a better people, we could posts of governor and chief minister work the present system too with great were merged into one, and he were elected by the legislature soon after advantage, the State's general election and were Considering the danger to our irremovable for five years - except in quasi-federal system presented by the such contingencies as are provided for current conflicts between the Centre in respect of the removal of the Presiand several State governments dent himself or in the event of P Kodanda Rao suggested some time a constitutional breakdown - several ago that we should change over to a advantages will accrue. unitary structure. He and B Shiva Rao and several others have been sugMERITS ELECTED OF GOVERNORS gesting a national government at the Centre, consisting of able persons One, and the most important, is that freed from party mandates and charged with the responsibility of undivided stable administrations would rescue attention to the urgent tasks of good people including politicians, from their perpetual and largely unavailing pregovernment. occupation wvith petty, parochial politics, An impediment to any agreement on which is so distressing a feature of our such a proposition is the state of State life today. Read any of our newspolitics. I would therefore suggest as papers, and one gets the impression that a first step an amendment to the Con- we live for politics. Some of our attenstitution to give the States irremovable tion and energy is needed elsewhere. executives, as under the presidential Another advantage will be that we form of government, while retaining the 1s95

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January 20, 1968 would have solved the problem presented by the present position of State governors. Whatever rights the Centre may claim under the Constitution in regard to the appointment of governors, it is a politically inescapable necessity that the governor should be acceptable to the State government. Until now, the posts of governors were near-sinecsires. But the abolition of the post in the present context of tottering State administrations may create new problems. At the same time, the new situation in Centre-State relationships might generate stalemates, with constitutional experts warring with one another over the actions or inaction of the governors. If, on the other hand, the governor were the head of an irremovable executive, he will actually govern, with the suffrage of the people.
FOR STATES EXECUTIVE IRREMOVABLE

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY Why not then go the whole hog and adopt the presidential pattern of executive at the Centre too? In the present circumstances, the political parties are less likely to agree to such a pattern at the Centre than in the States. For one thing, most of them would suspect that this is a desperate expedient for the Congress Party to perpetuate its hold at the Centre. Any political 'fall-out' in such an experiment will be less irretrievable at the State level than at the Central. Besides, a young democracy should not seek to have all the answers in one go. Instead of tinkering with the Constitution to abridge the people's freedonm and their fundamental rights, our lawmakers should now address themselves to making a change that would ensure the sustained attention of our elected representativesto the job for which they are elected. The fifth general election will not theni produce the uncertainties and chaos that so manv apprehend.

When the alternative of a presidential form of government for India was debated some time ago in Delhi, participants, Max the of one Beloff of Oxford University, asked, "Is it likely in so diverse a country, with so many calls upon its talent, that you can afford both to man an executive branch of the government at the highest level of competence and have quite a large number of people left over who are prepared to regard the legislature and its functions as their main and indeed their sole concern?" There are several possible answers to this, but in terms of State governments, a simple one will do and the answer is that, far from dividing up available talent into two sectors, the legislative and the executive, the only hope of getting any talent into the executive at present is to make it irremovable. How about the democratic right of people to dismiss their government? This right is precious, but it need not be exercised every morning. Once every five years should be enough, to keep the executive and the legislature on their good behaviour. The parliamentary setup at the Centre will be a further safeguard. And even the irremovable executive will be continually accountable to the State legislature. Conflicts may arise between the executive and the legislature, as they do in the United States, but their impact on the people's welfare is likely to be less ruinous than the present, unedifying sequence of pressures, blackmail and bribery. 196

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