A Kashmiri voter casts her vote inside the poling station during a by-election to an Indian Parliamentary seat on outskirts of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir. (Photo: AP)

At a time when democracy seems to be in peril in Kashmir as well as in Tamil Nadu, the remarks of the chief justice of India, Justice Khehar and his senior colleague, Justice Dipak Mishra, assume even greater significance. The judges sound almost utopian in their concept of how democracy should work in contending that political parties must be made accountable if they don’t deliver on the wild promises they seem to make when seeking the votes of the people. In fact, Justice Mishra hit the nail on the head when he said politicians were using polls as an investment. There should ideally be no place for purchasing power in elections and yet we know that the ground realities are quite different from the sacred idea of democracy on which independent India was founded. The latest round of bypolls in progress in various states is emblematic of how democracy has been hijacked by various elements, so much so, what we see is glaring in its contrast with utopian principles.

The fear of terror has led to a record low turnout in decades in Srinagar and a trend may have been set for the rest of the Kashmir Valley too. The damage to the psyche of the people caused by extremists who create mayhem is not easily repaired. The idea of truly representative democracy fades when only one in about 15 people eligible to vote turns up at the election booth. The promises of parties ahead of the polls to do something for the people to fulfil the Constitutional goal of ensuring socio-economic justice for all, including most of all the marginalised, seem empty when conditions are not even conducive for the voter to leave home and go to vote. It is an extraordinary situation we are dealing with in the Valley. Even so, it is symbolic of where Indian democracy is heading.

The bribing of voters in Tamil Nadu is symptomatic of the disease of “purchasing power” through the currency note, besides freebies that are freely promised in a state whose economy is being overturned by a systematic buying of the people. So thoroughly researched and executed is the plan to bribe voters that it would have been a mockery of democracy had the R.K. Nagar bypoll been held as scheduled to fill the seat left vacant by J. Jayalalithaa, who when alive had ironically perfected this scheme of twisting the people’s free will by inducements of all sorts, including brand new currency notes obviously generated by politicians for their parties by unimaginably corrupt means. If the model code of conduct is breached in this brazen manner, offending parties as well as their candidates must be made to pay the price. Mere countermanding of the poll and holding it at a later date does not constitute a course corrective. The question is who is to bell the cat here. Maybe, it should be the top court judges who must act suo moto to save Indian democracy as otherwise the politicians will end up owning it forever.