Rejecting the parliamentary system

By Era Sezhiyan

THE NATIONAL Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) has released a Consultation Paper on `Election Law, Processes and Reform Options', advocating ``a system of direct elections only at the grassroots of Indian democracy''. Regarding formation of other bodies, it proposes: ``Panchayats and other local bodies could elect the zilla parishads and they could together elect the State Legislature. The three could elect Parliament and in the last analysis the four of these could elect the President''. Let us see how this odd proposal will work out in practice. At the present we have about 2,50,000 gram panchayats, 1,900 nagar panchayats, 1,700 town municipalities, and 96 city corporations. If the elections are held in full at the panchayat level, there will be about 30 lakh representatives elected directly. According to the Consultation Paper, the members for any tier above the panchayat will be by indirect election from the tiers below it.

Regarding the executive head(s) of the Union and the States, the Paper recommends that ``the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers could be elected by Parliament and the State Legislatures concerned'' and that ``once elected the Prime Minister or a Chief Minister should be removable only by a constructive vote of no-confidence''.

The scheme of indirect elections suggested by the NCRWC cuts at the very basic characteristics of the representative system of parliamentary democracy. In the parliamentary system, the Executive (Cabinet) is responsible to the Legislature. If Parliament or the national assembly consists of two chambers, then the Government is dependent on ``the majority in the popularly elected House of the Legislature''. Only in the presidential system as in the U.S., is the executive head, the President, not dependent on the majority in the House.

In the U.K., Parliament has two chambers, the House of Lords and the House of the Commons, and the Cabinet exists on the support of the majority in the Commons to which Members come by direct election. The same process is followed by all countries adopting the parliamentary system. India also, having the parliamentary system, has the Cabinet dependent on and responsible to the Lok Sabha which is constituted by direct election.

The NCRWC Paper seeks to establish a Parliament with members chosen through an electoral college consisting of (i) the members elected to the panchayats and other local bodies, (ii) members of zilla parishads chosen by indirect election by the members of the first tier, and (iii) members of State Legislatures chosen by indirect election by the first and second tiers. The Prime Minister will then be elected by Parliament. It is not clear whether Parliament will be uni-cameral or bi-cameral. In the NCRWC Paper, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet are dependent on the majority in a Parliament - of one chamber or two chambers together - having none of its members elected directly by the voters. This is a flagrant negation of the basic characteristic of a parliamentary democracy that the Government should be dependent on ``the majority in the popularly elected House of the Legislature''.

If the Review Commission wants to create a new system of governance in India by a process of three-fold indirect election, it will not be merely a review of the Constitution; it will be a rewriting of the Constitution and a reversal of parliamentary democracy. Indirect election will be veritably a direct repudiation of the parliamentary system of governance.

In support of this scheme of direct election only at the grassroots' level, the NCRWC Paper has invoked the name of Gandhiji. Obviously, they have not followed fully the course of events and the views of Gandhiji in this regard. While speaking in the Round Table Conference in September 1931, Gandhiji referred to a scheme of indirect election proposed by Lord Peel. What exactly the proposal of Lord Peel was is not available to us now. Starting with the cautious remark, ``I do not know - I am talking simply as a lay man'', he said: ``There the villages elect their own little committees. These committees elect the taluka committees (taluka is a sub-district), and these taluka committees again elect the district councils and the district councils elect provincial councils. The provincial councils send their members to the central legislature - if one may so dub this All-India Congress Committee. That is how we have been able to do it. If here we do some such thing, I do not mind''.

To a question of Sir Akbar Hydari, Gandhiji explained: ``The villages will be electing candidates to no legislature... they will elect the voters - the villagers will elect one man and say, `You will exercise the vote for us'''. Sir Akbar Hydari: ``Then, that man would have dual capacity, whether to elect a man to the Provincial Council or to the Central Legislature?'' Gandhiji: ``He can have that; but I am talking of the election to the Central Legislature. I would certainly apply the same scheme to the Provincial Legislature''. Sir Akbar Hydari: ``Would you rule out the possibility of the Provincial Legislature so elected electing the Federal Legislature?'' Gandhiji: ``I do not rule it out, but that idea does not commend itself to me. If that is the special meaning of `indirect election', I rule it out. Therefore, I use the term `indirect election' vaguely. If it has any such technical meaning, I do not know''. (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 48, Page 38).

It was obvious that Gandhiji had drawn his scheme from the procedures followed by the Congress Party in its functioning. The rules followed by a political party cannot be transferred ipso facto to the functioning of a state. For instance, the Indian Constitution is federal and almost all the national parties in India have a highly centralised type of party constitutions.

Gandhiji did not pursue his scheme of `indirect election' after his return to India. In fact, the Congress had accepted the Swaraj Constitution prepared by the Motilal Nehru Committee. The Nehru Report demanded an Executive `responsible' to a Parliament of India. It also recommended that Parliament would consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives and that the Members of the latter should be elected under adult franchise. Gandhiji extended warm support to the Nehru Report.

When the Congress at the Patna AICC on May 19, 1934, resolved to suspend the civil disobedience and adopted the council-entry programme, Gandhiji himself moved the resolution. Though the franchise was limited and the Congress was highly critical of the 1935 Act, the Party set up its candidates and succeeded in getting a large number of seats in the Legislatures. In his letter dated July 20, 1937, to Shankarrao Deo, Gandhiji wrote: ``I have no repentance for the advice I gave in 1920 to boycott the Legislatures... In now strongly advising the Congress to send its representatives to the Legislatures and even to accept office, I responded to the wholly new circumstances that have since come into being. I have never a fetish of foolish consistency''.

Naturally, Gandhiji was against huge electoral expenses and desired to have indirect elections above the panchayat level. A decade later, he changed his views to say: ``I believe that some Congressmen ought to seek election n the legislatures or other elected bodies. In the past I did not hold this view... Moreover times have changed. Swaraj seems to be near. Under the circumstances it is necessary that Congress should contest every seat in the Legislatures... The Congress should not have to spend money on the elections. Nominees of a popular organisation should be elected without any effort in the latter's part''. (Harijan, 17-2-1946)

The Constituent Assembly had after much deliberation adopted the parliamentary system that ensures more accountability to the elected House in preference to the presidential system that has more stability and less accountability. Further, at the present, any attempt to introduce indirect election to the Legislatures will surely be invalidated as it will affect a basic feature of the Constitution, as the Supreme Court has acknowledged parliamentary system as a basic feature of the Indian Constitution.

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