The Hindu : Testing democratic institutions

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 21, 2002

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Testing democratic institutions

By Harish Khare

Trapped in a righteous pageant of their own making, the BJP leaders are unwilling to respect institutions if these impede the pursuit of a narrow agenda.

A FEW weeks ago it was quietly announced in Washington that a gentleman named Agnihotri would not be granted the diplomatic status of "Ambassador". This was a cracking slap on the Vajpayee establishment's face as also a lesson in the integrity of institutional arrangements of diplomatic protocol. No country can have two ambassadors. Period. But somehow our rulers thought that institutional rules could be easily bent to accommodate a Sangh Parivar fund-raiser. Mercifully, the BJP regime chose to pretend as if no rebuff had been administered. Also, none of the professional name-callers were trotted out before the television cameras to attribute motives to those who denied official diplomatic status to "Ambassador Agnihotri".

While the BJP crowd felt itself helpless in protesting too much against Washington's invocation of requirements of institutional arrangement, no such inhibition hobbles it from wanting to hustle all those domestic constitutional institutions which refuse to provide any aid and comfort to it in its partisan preoccupations. In the last four years, at one time or the other, it has chosen to pick quarrels with almost all the constitutional functionaries. It unleashed a virtual propaganda war against the former President, K. R. Narayanan, during the 1999 interregnums; during the 1999 Lok Sabha elections it accused M. S. Gill, then Chief Election Commissioner, of bias in the matter of the Madhopura contest; a few months ago it took on the Comptroller and Auditor-General; then it became quarrelsome when the National Human Rights Commission had to say a few unpleasant things about the Narendra Modi regime in Gujarat; most recently its partisans sought to crowd in the Attorney-General on how he was expected to argue before the Supreme Court in the ongoing case of the minority educational institutions. Then, again, its Sangh Parivar partisans came pretty close to abusing the new President for deciding to go to Gujarat. Now, its spokesman accuses the Election Commission of acting at the behest of the Congress and other Opposition parties. Somehow, the BJP leadership has found itself unable to summon the instincts to match its own stated "obligation to give a new direction to politics and governance in India". (Chennai Declaration).

On the face of it, no one can question the Vajpayee Government's decision to make a Presidential reference to the Supreme Court, seeking clarification on the Election Commission's order on the Gujarat polls. It has invoked a remedy very much provided for in the Constitution, the same document which is also the source of legitimacy and authority of the Election Commission. But juxtaposed with the accusations the ruling party's partisans have hurled at the Election Commission, the Presidential reference does add to the gathering impression of a regime and a political party unwilling to submit to constraints inherent in democratic institutional arrangements. Sure enough, rulers living cheerfully with the constraints of constitutional lawfulness is a habit that is not easily acquired. Country after country in the Third World has succumbed to the ruler's itch to throw out cumbersome constitutional institutions; our neighbour, Pakistan, for example, is a chronic victim of this malaise. We have been somewhat lucky, and have managed to nurture, even if fitfully, a whole array of constitutional and statutory institutions that have deepened our democracy and its promise of empowerment. Much of the credit for this blessing is due to the fact that for the first two decades after Independence the ruling party of the day was presided over by a genuine democrat.

It is only natural that the National Democratic Alliance crowd, which takes pride in being the first genuine non-Congress arrangement, chafes at the Congress-induced tradition of respect for constitutional arrangements. Sadly enough, the BJP leadership now chooses to dwell on the aberrations during the post-Nehru Congress eras, without appreciating that it was the resilience of those institutional arrangements that made it possible for the citizens to punish the arrogant Congress rulers. Somehow, these leaders seem to have internalised that what they believe to be their self-evident deshbhakti absolves them of the constraints of constitutional lawfulness. Trapped in a righteous pageant of their own making, the BJP leaders are unwilling to respect institutions if these impede the pursuit of a narrow agenda. Like other arrogant rulers, these leaders too would come to grief.

It is tempting to see the problem as BJP-centric. That is the political partisan's arena. The Constitution can easily withstand the Sangh Parivar's challenges. What is needed is that instead of giving in to partisanship, democratic and secular voices should use the current controversy to reinforce the correctness of restraints on the exercise of power that is so central to any democratic arrangements of a morally defensible state order. The first and foremost procedural requirement that must be reiterated is that those who man the democratic institutions would gain political acceptability and add to the moral capital of these institutions if they are willing to explain the rationale of this or that decision. For example, Mr. Narayanan gave out detailed explanations, including the steps in his thinking, for his decisions in the wake of the governmental crisis in 1999. Or, in the latest instance, the Election Commission has taken 40 closely argued pages to explain its decision on Gujarat.

By contrast, the BJP leadership has yet to begin appreciating this simple rite of transparency. For instance, in the wake of the Tehelka expose, on March 16, 2001, the Prime Minister explained to the nation that he had asked his Defence Minister to step down and had instituted a probe into the allegations of wrongdoing in defence deals. The nation applauded when Mr. Vajpayee explained that his Government's only concern was to see to it that "institutions of governance and our political system regain their health". Then, six months later, he quietly inducted the same "tainted" man as Defence Minister, without bothering till this day to explain the reasons or compulsions for going back on his word to the nation; it was left to the NDA partisans to assert arrogantly the principle of the Prime Minister's prerogative to choose his ministerial colleagues. The Prime Minister lost the moral sheen, and George Fernandes is yet to regain his respectability. Or, take the other case of anointment of a Deputy Prime Minister; but the country has yet to hear from the Prime Minister why this anomaly had to be created.

Above all, the credibility, respectability and prestige of all our democratic institutions would get enhanced if it is clearly understood that power has to be necessarily exercised for ethical and moral ends. It is the assigned task of various constitutional institutions to see to it that the letter of the law is not abused to overwhelm our democratic decencies or constitutional niceties. A mere observance of the letter of the law cannot suffice; a Jayalalithaa who could stampede a Governor into swearing her in as Chief Minister would be defrocked by the judicial institutions. It is the burden of democratic institutions to frustrate anyone who chooses to exercise brute power, without any regard for reasonableness or decency.

This is the crux of the BJP-Election Commission standoff over Gujarat. Admittedly, in a parliamentary arrangement a Prime Minister or a Chief Minister normally ought to have an unfettered prerogative to dissolve the Legislature at a time of his choosing; this right is central to a Prime Minister's control mechanism over the Legislature, Cabinet and his party. What calls for a pause is that here is a Chief Minister who is bent upon using a constitutional provision to defeat key elements in the larger design of our democratic polity. It, therefore, becomes incumbent upon other constitutional institutions and personalities to work out a trade-off between the letter and the spirit of our democratic polity. If in the process the BJP gets taught a lesson in constitutional humility and reasonableness, the Indian state's moral stature would stand enhanced.

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