:: Inder Malhotra

The Great Depression in Indian politics

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As a result of the latest biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance has lost its majority in the "Upper" of the two Houses of Parliament. If not many people have noted this, it is because the ruling coalition’s loss was by a small margin — it had 115 in a house of 247. Such situations have existed before, and come to think of it, there is some advantage in the ruling party or combination not having so huge a majority in the two Houses as to be able to amend the Constitution at will.

However, another outcome of this poll in Jharkhand ought to send a chill down the spines of all those still interested in preserving at least elementary norms of democracy. For it accelerates the havoc that crass politics and money power have been causing steadily to legislatures in general and the Rajya Sabha in particular. An astute analyst has described the event as the crossing of "one more invisible line". Facts are stark.

Parimal Nathwani, described as an "executive" of Reliance Industries, became Jharkhand’s representative in the Rajya Sabha, defeating the official candidate of the ruling UPA. According to reports no one has denied, three ministers of the state government voted for Nathwani and the chief minister chose to remain neutral. Cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha polls has been fairly frequent. But never before has it been so brazen and so corrosive. Even by the standards of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha that forms the core of the UPA in the state — it first attracted the limelight when its leaders accepted suitcases full of cash to save the P.V. Narasimha Rao government in New Delhi from falling in 1993 — what has come to pass in Ranchi is shocking.

Money power, like muscle power, has been playing an increasing role in eroding the country’s politics and governance for a long time. The culprits often cite the soaring costs of elections as a convenient excuse. Yet there was a time when big businessmen were content to make handsome donations to political parties of their choice in the hope of garnering "goodwill", not necessarily to strike specific bargains. By the Seventies the principle of quid pro quo had come into play. By then the Congress government had, for fear of money being diverted to Swatantra, a party (now defunct) devoted to the cause of big business, had banned company donations, driving all the tarnished transactions between party bosses and tycoons under the table. Today’s generation of politicians seems determined to perpetuate this scandalous state of affairs.

Perhaps inevitably came the time when captains of trade and industry — with their cash and clout magnified manifold by globalisation — decided to seek entry into the Rajya Sabha rather than manipulate the levers of power from the shadows. Several of them, beginning with the hotelier Lalit Suri, successfully did so. However, all of them came in through the support of political parties and in accordance with the established political process. There have been some interesting nuances, of course. For instance, Rahul Bajaj got elected from Maharashtra through the support of the Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar and the Shiv Sena, regardless of the NCP being in coalition with the Congress both in the state and at the Centre. Anil Ambani had got elected easily enough but later considered it expedient to resign.

In a class by itself was the case of Suresh Nanda, the prominent arms dealer now in deep trouble over the Barak deal with Israel and alleged bribery of income-tax officials. He tried to break new ground and get elected to the Upper House of Parliament as an Independent candidate from UP where defections from all parties have been notorious. But, surprisingly, political leaders closed ranks and literally forced Mr Nanda out of Lucknow. For once muscle power reportedly triumphed over money power. However, what Mr Nanda could not do then, Reliance Industries has done now. And since nothing can be more contagious than a bad example, a dangerous and depressing new trend may well have been set.

What the wielders of Big Money are doing is of a piece with what the political class as a whole has done already to maul and distort parliamentary system out of all recognition. The Constitution had envisioned it to be not just a second chamber of Parliament but also a true representative of the states in India’s federal parliamentary system. It was to be the Council of States, rather like the Senate in the United States, with the notable difference that while in America every state, big or small, has only two senators each, in our Rajya Sabha the representation of each state depends on its population. But the Constitution has strictly laid down that every member should be domiciled in the state concerned and the indirect election to the Upper House must be on the basis of proportional representation and through secret ballot.

All those wholesome provisions have been thrown to the winds, Party or personal favourites unable to get elected in any other way start registering themselves as voters in states where they seldom set foot. More embarrassing than the proliferation of this chicanery was the fact that Prime Ministers like Mr Inder Gujral and Dr Manmohan Singh were supposed to have had their normal residences in Patna and Guwahati respectively. So the domicile requirement was the first to be abolished. The secrecy of the ballot was sacrificed because of the all too often cross-voting for obvious considerations.

Meanwhile a big nail in the coffin of the original concept of the Council of States was driven by the gross misuse of the provision from the nomination of 12 members to the Rajya Sabha. The founding fathers had clearly prescribed that the nominated members should be distinguished citizens with a record of useful service in their respective fields, such as literature, science, arts and so on. Since the 1970s successive governments have had no compunction in nominating party hacks, flatterers, hangers-on and, at least in one case, a mafia don. Both Houses are now alike and duly reflect the degeneration of the Indian polity.