REWIND
New Delhi, 14 July
2022
A REMEDY
FOR THE NEW MALADY
By Inder
Jit
(Released
on 28 August 1984)
Outrageous
developments in Andhra Pradesh and earlier in Jammu and Kashmir and Sikkim have
posed yet another threat to our young democracy. More and more people in New
Delhi and elsewhere ask: Is there no remedy against the new blight which has
afflicted our body politic? We have experienced political harlotry in this
country for many years, beginning with massive defections in Haryana. Now the
nimble Indian political mind at the Centre and in the States has evolved yet
another invidious device to topple Governments with massive majorities in their
respective legislatures, as in the case of Mr N.T. Rama Rao. It has even
invented a method to overcome the hurdle, if any, posed by a ban on defections,
boldly introduced by the late Sheikh Abdullah in the case of Jammu and Kashmir.
Defections, which have come to acquire at least some odium, have been
substituted by vertical organisational splits which are sought to be justified
on the ground of an honest difference of opinion on policies and plans or their
implementation -- and projected as a natural development within a political
party.
A way has also been
found to side-step the basic democratic norms in accordance with which the
majority of a Government should fairly be tested only on the floor of the House
and not in a Raj Bhawan. The Governor’s pleasure, namely his subjective
satisfaction, has absurdly and unwisely been elevated to pre-eminence in
deciding which leader enjoys the support of a majority at any given time.
Consequently, the Governor of Andhra Pradesh has been able to get away with the
rape of democratic conventions at high noon by merely chanting the mantra: “I
am satisfied, I am satisfied.” What is more, a mantra has been evolved not only
to enable New Delhi to put through its “Operation Topple” but also to defend it
without batting an eyelid. The Home Minister, Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao, merely
repeats: “The Governor had no alternative; the Governor had no alternative...”
Loud protests from the Opposition in Parliament have made no difference. Mr Rao
knows he has a massive majority behind him which he has not hesitated to use as
a “brute majority.”
What happened first
in Sikkim, then in Kashmir and now in Andhra Pradesh differ in detail. In
Sikkim, the State’s Chief Minister, Mr Nar Bahadur Bhandari, was dismissed by
the Governor, Mr Homi Talyarkhan, even when he enjoyed the support of 28 MLAs
in a House of 32. His crime? Mr Bhandari’s refusal to follow the diktat of New
Delhi in regard to the grant of citizenship to Nepalis in Sikkim. In Kashmir,
Dr Farooq Abdullah, was dismissed and Mr G.M. Shah appointed Chief Minister
ignoring acknowledged norms and, above all, the State’s anti-defection law. Mr
Jagmohan is entitled to still claim that Dr Abdullah had lost the majority -- a
fact that the latter did not contest. Nevertheless, Mr Jagmohan went wrong on
one basic point, apart from his failure to test the majority of the rival
claimants on the floor of the State Assembly. Mr Jagmohan had no authority to
ignore the anti-defection law and determine that the 12 MLAs who had withdrawn
support from Dr Abdullah had only split from the National Conference and not
defected, even if he had consulted top legal opinion.
In Andhra Pradesh, Mr
Ram Lal acted indefensibly --- an action which was condoned only by those who
thought they would be able please Mrs Gandhi somehow and prove themselves to be
more loyal than the King. History will not forgive him for reducing politics to
a farce wherein he even ordered the arrest of the Chief Minister of his State
-- a Chief Minister who was then visiting him in the Raj Bhawan and had not yet
been served the dismissal order. History will also not forgive him for dragging
politics down to the level of the gutter and creating a situation in which the
country was treated to more than one unedifying spectacle: NTR parading 162
MLAs at Rashtrapati Bhawan and Mr Bhaskara Rao parading 95 MLAs the same day in
Hyderabad. The number of Telugu Desam MLAs added up to 35 more than their known
total strength of 211. At the same time, however, developments in the three
States have a common denominator and pose a common question: Can something be
done to cry a halt to the latest bout of destabilisation and give the system
its much-needed stability and healthy norms?
West Germany and its
vigorous democratic system provide an answer we seek. During the Weimar
Republic prior to the rise of Hitler, Germany too was plagued by a plethora of
political parties and instability. Governments fell like nine pins under a
Constitution acknowledged by experts as the most democratic conceived until
then. In fact, Hitler took advantage of the people’s disgust for uncertainty to
abuse this democratic Constitution and its emergency provisions to impose
dictatorship. The end of World War II saw a nation-wide reaction against twelve
years of Nazi tyranny and a desire for a Constitution which would not only be
democratic on the face of it but also guarantee a stable political and economic
future. On May 24, 1949, West Germany gave itself the Basic Law which
unequivocally puts across the following vital element: All state authority
emanates from the people... The State exists for the use of the people not vice
versa, as in totalitarian States -- Fascist or Communist.
Like India, West
Germany has a federal set-up and its leaders, namely States. Mercifully,
however, the West Germans do not face the problem of Governors as we do. (The
country’s Basic Law provides that the Legislature, the Executive and the
Judiciary are independent institutions). There is no scope there for Governors to
function as hatchetmen of some Central authority and, like mindless morons,
dismiss Ministries in accordance with the pleasure and subjective satisfaction
of their lords and masters in the national capital. The Basic Law also provides
against repetition of a situation in which one Government was voted out after
another without the slightest thought of the national interest. The malady has
been effectively tackled and stability ensured through the novel provision in
the Constitution of what is described as a constructive vote of no-confidence,
used for the first time in the Bundestag on October 1, 1982 by the new
coalition of Christian Democrats and Free Democrats to topple Mr Helmnt
Schmidt, leader of Social Democrats, and install Mr Holmnt Kohl as the new
Chancellor in a historic vote.
In essence, the
provision seeks to make a vote of no-confidence, which is essentially a
negative concept, something positive which, in the bargain, also strikes a blow
for stability and against frivolous or personally motivated actions. Under the
provision, a Chancellor cannot be brought down during his term simply because
he no longer enjoys the support of the majority. The Chancellor can be brought
down only if his successor is able to muster a majority at the same time. In
other words, parliamentarians are barred from playing ducks and drakes with
national stability and interest on the basis of their personal interests, whims
or fancies. The founding fathers of the Basic Law were clear that defeating a
Government on the floor of the House was not enough in a system with more than
two parties. Those seeking a change of Government, it was felt, must
simultaneously provide an alternative in the best national interest. Otherwise,
there would be no end to politicking.
Adoption of such a
constructive vote of confidence in India could have saved us all the trouble
and turmoil created by the sordid happenings in Sikkim, Jammu and Kashmir and
now Andhra Pradesh. There would have been no occasion for Mr Nar Bahadur
Bhandari to be bundled out at the whim and fancy of the Centre and equally Mr
Homi Talyarkhan, who deserved to be sent home instead of being rewarded with a
prize diplomatic assignment as Ambassador to Rome. There would have been no
occasion for the cloak-and-dagger ouster of Dr Farooq Abdullah in Srinagar
through a convenient make-believe split in the National Conference. (No one has
spelt out to this day the basis of the split which raises the basic question:
What is a split? Is it to be based on a clash over policies and programmes or
merely over personalities?) We could also have been saved the disgusting
happenings in Andhra Pradesh and their distressing fall-out in Delhi. There
would have been no occasion for scores of people in Andhra Pradesh to fall
martyrs to the cause of democracy.
The adoption of the
constructive vote of no-confidence by us in India would ensure not only greater
stability in the States, but also provide for a situation in which no one party
is able to win a clear majority at the Centre -- a possibility which cannot be
ruled out in the wake of the developments in Andhra Pradesh, (Circles close to
Mrs Gandhi now discount the possibility of a poll in November. They are almost
certain that Mrs Gandhi will postpone the poll to early January, thanks to the
adverse impact of the Andhra Pradesh developments on Mrs Gandhi’s own image as
a democrat and the new stimulus these have provided for Opposition unity.) It
might also be mentioned that India could have escaped much damage from the
instability of 1979 had such a device been a part of our Constitution. We would
also not have had to suffer the constitutional monstrosity under which Mr
Charan Singh was Prime Minister for six months without facing Parliament even
once and securing its mandate. All in all, India needs what West Germany
already has: a constructive vote of no-confidence. There is no other way if we
are serious about having a healthy and stable democracy.---INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
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