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Election Spotlight
New Delhi, 19 March 2014
Party Manifestos
RHETORIC OVERTAKES
COMMITMENT
By Dr S Saraswathi
(Former Director,
ICSSR, New Delhi)
Political parties are busy in selecting candidates and
finalizing alliances for the forthcoming Lok Sabha election. Party rallies are
organized on mammoth scale beating all previous records. Election debates go on
full swing. Image creating tactics are extensively exploited. But, party
manifestos make their arrival rather slowly.
Rhetoric in public meetings has obviously overtaken written commitments
that manifestos represent.
The Election Commission (EC), for the first time has brought
party manifestos under the ambit of the Model Code of Conduct and has laid down
certain guidelines. This, one may expect, would put a break on direct benefits,
wild promises and fanciful future freely offered by various parties
indiscriminately. The guidelines have been issued by the EC after consulting the
political parties.
These guidelines have been issued “in the interest of
transparency, level- playing field, and credibility of promises”. While conceding the right of the parties to
issue manifestos, the EC panel stated that it could not “overlook the
undesirable impact of some of the promises and offers on the conduct of free
and fair elections and maintaining level-playing field for all political
parties and candidates”.
The EC’s order states: “the trust of voters should be sought
only on those promises which are possible to be fulfilled”. However, the
meaning of “level-playing field” often mentioned with reference to election
manifestos is not clear.
The term “manifesto” is derived from the original Latin word
“manifestum” meaning “clear” or “conspicuous”.
Its usage in English dates back to 1620.
Some famous political manifestos include the US Declaration of
Independence 1776; Declaration of the Rights of Man 1789 after French Revolution;
and the Communist Manifesto 1848. In our country, the term “manifesto” was used
in the Non-Brahmin Manifesto issued in the then Madras Presidency in 1916. It
became a historic document that opened a new course of politics in India leading
to the concept of social justice and programmes like the Reservation Policy.
The need for guidelines for preparation of election
manifestos was stressed by the Supreme Court in July 2013 while dealing with a
case questioning the legality of offering freebies. The Court held that though
such offers did not contravene provisions of the Representation of People Act,
they would certainly influence voting and would “shake the roots of free and
fair elections to a large degree”.
There is a general notion that manifestos are rarely read by
the voters. In fact, apart from extracts published in newspapers and in party
notices and pamphlets, the average voters have no detailed information about
the manifestos of various parties. Nor do they seek such information. Even
candidates and party workers fully involved in electioneering are blissfully
ignorant of the contents – nay even the existence – of party’s election
manifesto.
Election results have not depended on promises made in
manifestos. In India,
candidates contesting elections directly address and approach voters. The texts of the manifestos are not widely
distributed. The voters are guided by perceptions formed through speeches and
posters and by personal appeal of candidates and parties.
However, in Britain
the documents issued by parties have a political force. An election manifesto is said to be the
ultimate pointer towards power centres behind a party. A careful scrutiny of
the manifestos may show the existing support base of the parties and the directions
in which they want to expand.
There are today 1616 registered political parties in India. Of
these, six are national parties, 47 State-level parties, and 1,563 unrecognized
parties. The support base of even the national parties is not evenly spread
over the whole country. But their policies have a national focus and impact.
The interests of State parties are essentially limited to State
matters. Their national outlook expressed in economic policies or even foreign
policy is designed to cater to State interests. This is reflected in their
election manifestos.
For 2014 Parliament elections, the BJP, the AIADMK, and the
DMK are among the earliest to publish their election manifestos. The Congress
had not finalized the document even by mid-March and only bits and pieces of
party stand were available. The full text is expected by 21st March
– hardly three weeks before commencement of first phase of elections. Some like the Trinamool Congress make mention
about their manifestoes and some do not.
The BJP’s 23-point election manifesto categorically rejects
Socialism as the ideology mentioned in the preamble of the Constitution by 42nd
amendment. It also has some concrete
promises like right to property (repealed by 44th amendment),
empowering States for collection of taxes, dismantling politics-business nexus,
market price for farmers, meritocracy, supremacy of human rights, parity
between generalist and specialist services, literary freedom in arts and
literature, confederation of States in the Indian sub-continent on the lines of
European Union. Its manifesto also includes vague policy statements like
protection of small holders, effective delivery of justice, liberal State
policy, legitimacy of traditional professions, strict standards in public life
and so on.
From available indications, it seems that the Congress is
likely to continue its welfare politics along with liberal market economics. Rights-based
agenda is attributed to younger generation leaders. Preparation of election
manifesto is believed to be a serious and stupendous job involving experienced
senior leaders and upcoming second and third generation leaders in the party.
The Aam Admi Party, which publicized its manifesto before
Delhi Assembly elections seems to be having no different agenda for Parliament. This party has given two important lessons in
drafting manifestoes – issuing constituency-wise manifestoes, and consulting
people on the contents. The first was followed by AAP and the BJP in 2013
election to the Delhi Assembly. AAP’s
idea and practice of seeking people’s participation in the preparation of
policies is being copied by the Congress. Meetings are held with common people
like village women and farmers apparently to ascertain their views – part of
the politics of image creation.
Among State-level parties, the DMK, and the AIADMK have gone
through the exercise of preparing manifestoes seriously. They have expressed their
national policies through their manifestoes specifically for Lok Sabha
elections. Many of them relate to subjects falling in the ambit of Parliament. How they can implement them with their
limited strength in Parliament even if they win all the seats they contest is
an unanswered question. Evidently, they are conveying their party stand and
indicating the direction in which their support would go. Their post-poll
allies can detect some areas of State pressure on national policies – a factor
crucial for survival of coalition governments.
The election manifesto of a party is no longer a mere formal
document, but a policy/programme statement that will be referred, scrutinized,
and evaluated. It has also become the reference paper to
evaluate a party’s performance as the ruling party or opposition. They must
keep their word. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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