AT the cusp of 75 years of India as a republic, I feel elated that our country remains a successful nation-state that commands a conspicuous presence in the community of nations. This, when the obituary of an impossibly diverse India was etched right at its birth by several international political science ‘experts’.That the same was not unreasonable can be gathered from the fate of scores of newly independent nations of Asia and Europe which were much smaller in size, much less diverse and hence much more amenable to success as a nation-state, yet they failed.The Constitution of India remains one of the very few among the constitutions of the newly independent Afro-Asian countries to survive this long, the other being the Japanese Constitution. We stand here as a stable democracy, an economic powerhouse, a military power in our own right and an emerging world power to reckon with. The journey has been long, arduous and eventful with great achievements and abject failures, as is the journey of any nation.The sheer complexity of forging a stable national edifice requires the convergence of several factors such as geographical contiguity and accessibility, cultural homogeneity, economic unity and administrative commonality along with a team of leaders who possess robust expertise and honest intent, conditions that are not easily actualised..Though the first few factors could be found in several nation-states, the last one has been a matter of serendipity. India was blessed to have a team of committed visionaries— the terms ‘team’, ‘committed’ and ‘visionaries’ all being crucial— who constructed a robust and lasting nation-state.The only other team that came to mind was the stellar luminaries who founded the US. The nation and the Constitution, both have lasted nearly two and a half centuries and seem set for a long run.Ideas and institutionsAt its inception, the vast diversity of the country militated against the prevalent conceptions of the nation-state. Jawaharlal Nehru’s unifying shibboleth of “unity in diversity” weaved our immensely multicultural society into an abiding nation..The year that was—1.This was a popular rendering of the idea of fraternity enshrined in the Constitution of India and was to serve as the fountain spring that cultivated a sense of “belongingness” among its very many diverse populations.The revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, and precursory notions of justice and the rule of law formed the bedrock of our Constitution. This constitutional ideology was intended to play a transformative role for a deprived and caste-ridden population in order to ensure human flourishing, or what Jawaharlal Nehru referred to as the “good life for the individual”.The genius of this Constitution lies in providing for a detailed institutional framework to ensure that the aforementioned ideology is rooted deeply enough in Indian polity. A higher sanctity to fundamental rights, republicanism, separation of power, federal structure, secularism, etc., found detailed expression in the provisions of the Constitution in a manner that provided effective institutional safeguards for their perpetuation.In any society governed by the rule of law, the institutional framework, i.e., laws, conventions, democratic and regulatory institutions, etc., provides resilience to the system.The significance of institutional robustness can be gauged from the oft-quoted passage from Federalist 51, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.”.The Constitution of India remains one of the very few among the constitutions of the newly independent Afro-Asian countries to survive this long, the other being the Japanese Constitution..Not only has the institutional framework enshrined in or visualised by the Constitution stood the tests of time, barring the travails of Emergency and transgressions of a strong political executive in recent times, but they have also strengthened their foothold in so far as institutional provisions for rights of citizens are concerned.We have witnessed the expansion of the scope of fundamental rights in the post-public interest litigation (PIL) era, as well as the enactment of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI), Right to Education Act, 2009 (RTE) and the National Food Security Act, 2013, etc., that has enhanced citizen power and dignity.Yet there remain severe threats at the level of ideology as well as institutions to our democracy. The increasing prominence of religion-based divisive politics, frequent dog-whistling as well as patently communal statements by higher constitutional functionaries (e.g., the quip that Hindu wealth would be stolen by a Congress government and distributed among “infiltrators” who had “too many children”, the shamshaan–qabristan debate, etc., to cite a few), the flirtation of constitutional functionaries and functions with religious rituals, etc., strike at the very root of secularism and also of the ideas of equality and fraternity enshrined in the Constitution..Can the basic structure doctrine provide a remedy for the global democratic crisis?.This is a major fall from a stage when President Rajendra Prasad could attend the opening ceremony of Somnath Temple only in his personal capacity, so as to bring home the point that the State was to be seen as not being involved with any religion, or to be partial to any.Besides, even though institutional forbearance has been one of the major achievements of our democracy and there has not been any serious threat of authoritarian transition, the working of our democratic institutions has left much to be desired.An effectively functioning legislature is the archstone of democracy. It is characterised by broad representation and healthy debates and discussions. Though the representation of various classes has increased in the Parliament and state legislatures, the quality of parliamentary debates and deliberations has declined, drastically so after 2014.Whereas the percentage of Bills that were referred to parliamentary committees stood at 71 percent during the 15th Lok Sabha (2009–14), the same declined to 27 percent during the 16th Lok Sabha (2014–19) and 13 percent since 2019, according to the data published by PRS Legislative Research.The greatest threat to democracy comes from “presidentialisation” of the position of Prime Minister. It is relevant to emphasise that the problem does not lie with the presidential system of government per se, but when the position of the Prime Minister, the real head of the State, in the parliamentary system gains the character of the President. In the parliamentary system, there is a convergence of legislative and (real) executive power in the Parliament in that the political executive is derived from the Parliament..India was blessed to have a team of committed visionaries— the terms ‘team’, ‘committed’ and ‘visionaries’ all being crucial— who constructed a robust and lasting nation-state..Though the political executive is responsible to the Parliament, when strong leaders are returned by huge majorities, the scope of parliamentary checks on executive power is grossly diminished. This endangers democracy. Herein lies the need to further strengthen the functioning of parliamentary committees, Comptroller and Auditor General, Lokpal, etc.Though we have been successful in instituting a democratic polity, it has largely been of the electoral kind. There is a need to transform this electoral democracy into a participative one, for which quality education is the most essential, that can arm citizens to make effective interventions that decide the conduct of their affairs..My experiments with law: Gandhi’s exploration of law’s potential.Besides, institutions such as initiative, referendum and recall can be added to our institutional framework. We also need a vibrant civil society for this purpose. In the marketplace of ideas, there is a need for adequately amplified voice to influence decision-making. Civil society organisations act as the aggregator of common voices, which then can influence policies and decision-making in the government.Another menace that has severely compromised the functioning of democracy is rampant defection. In Subhash Desai versus Principal Secretary, Governor of Maharashtra, the Supreme Court remarked that the “moral and democratic principles are compromised when a legislator shifts allegiance after the electorate votes for that legislator on the belief that they represent the ideology of a certain political party”.The institution of the Tenth Schedule by the 52nd Amendment Act did curb this tendency, but legislators have found innovative ways to circumvent the intent behind the Tenth Schedule by resigning en masse or by claiming a particular faction as the real party as happened in the case of Shiv Sena, or by effectuating the shift of loyalty of entire legislative party in smaller states (the latter two do not violate the letter of Tenth Schedule).A series of judgments of the Supreme Court in relation to these issues, as well as allied issues of the power of Speaker working as a Tribunal under the Tenth Schedule, or the power of the governor to invite a faction for government formation, etc., have been delivered but an effective system to deal with defection still needs a more coherent judicial pronouncement by a larger Constitution Bench as well as legislative intervention..Jawaharlal Nehru’s unifying shibboleth of “unity in diversity” weaved our immensely multicultural society into an abiding nation..A largely independent judiciary is another successful feature of India. It has proved to be an effective guardian of the Constitution. Aided by a vibrant civil society, it has also successfully overseen a paradigmatic shift from a public culture of arbitrary authority in the colonial era to that of the rule of law. But delay in justice, lack of access to a common person and lack of effective mechanism for judicial accountability inhibit the institution from realising substantially the promise of constitutional governance.Mark Galanter’s observation on the inability of the judicial system to provide legal services as a matter of routine on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Supreme Court is still relevant today.He averred that “the basic problem of low use of the courts and lawyers is that they are able to deliver so little by way of remedy, protection and vindication… Generally, they serve those who benefit from delay and non-implementation of legal norms, that is, parties who are already in possession or satisfied with the status quo”..Courts, couplets and the decoupling of law and complex, tangential language.Besides this, when the executive has returned with strong majorities in the Parliament, the judiciary has been disappointed in protecting individual liberties against the untrammeled exercise of executive authority as was witnessed during the Emergency or in the post-2014 period (ADM Jabalpur and other cases).Recent judgments in the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary & Ors. versus Union of India and Zakia Jafri & Anr versus State of Gujarat & Anr case reflects the same. These shortcomings of the judiciary affect public confidence in the institution and thus weaken it.Vast powers, with ineffective checks, under national security and other special laws have been a constant anathema to the rule of law due to their extensive misuse by the political executive in power for the evident purpose of containing opposition leaders and curbing dissent by common citizens.The same has been commonly witnessed in the use of institutions such as the police, Enforcement Directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation, income tax department, etc., for political vendetta. The common refrain of the Supreme Court has been that a law cannot be ruled unconstitutional merely because it has the potential of being abused.But when the power under the law has been abused more as a rule than as an exception, the court ought to be more proactive in striking down such laws or providing for effective checks in the nature of proving a case prima facie before draconian provisions under such a law are brought into play or by instituting severe legal repercussions for the deliberate misuse of such laws. This is of utmost significance to prevent democratic spirits and institutions from getting compromised and to protect against creeping authoritarianism..Yet there remain severe threats at the level of ideology as well as institutions to our democracy..Another institution that is touted as the steel frame of our national polity, i.e. the Indian Civil Services and, in fact, bureaucracy in general, was successful in providing shape and stability to the government establishment. This sense of stability was essential for a nation in the making.It also helped prevent the administration from descending into a partisan and outright ‘spoils’ system, which may have impacted the quality of administration as well as jeopardised the very democracy itself, with the administration being completely at the beck and call of the political executive.But this ‘steel frame’, sheltered by Article 311 of the Indian Constitution and equipped with vast discretionary power, continues to perpetuate its colonial characteristics of a ‘ruling’ force rather than a body of officials devoted to the ‘service’ of sovereign citizens..The first lesson in law.High-handedness and corruption have blighted the administration, and combined with the tendency of any institution to expand and perpetuate itself, its impact is felt in every aspect of the life of a common citizen. It impedes the socio-economic life of people, hampers initiative and impacts the development of the nation.Though the RTI has significantly curbed high-handedness, there is a need for repurposing and restructuring civil services into a light, efficient machinery devoted to the singular purpose of servicing citizens.Civil society and political cultureDemocratic institutions in England evolved as a result of the common and organised effort of the people over centuries. The strength of English democracy lies in the attitudes, beliefs and practices of common people that have shaped the democratic ideas and institutions of the country.Merely a change in certain democratic ideas and institutions would not deprive the country of democracy as what underlies these ideas and institutions is the democratic political culture and robust associations in the nature of civil society that strengthen and perpetuate democratic culture.In the case of our nation, the mass movement for freedom did imbue people with the democratic notion of each individual being a potential political actor, propagated a sense of legal equality and promoted resistance against unlawful authority.This secured them political independence and a democratic Constitution, but the same could not significantly erode millennia-old layers of feudal mindset and caste tendencies. Privileges and prerogatives or a tendency to seek the same is manifest in as mundane an activity as not maintaining a line, or stopping at red lights, or a lack of more profound belief and habit of treating every individual as equal in dignity and in law..Though the representation of various classes has increased in the Parliament and state legislatures, the quality of parliamentary debates and deliberations has declined, drastically so after 2014..On the other hand, the lasting influence of peaceful resistance continues to serve as a bulwark against authoritarian tendencies, as we witnessed during Total Revolution, Jan Lokpal Andolan, or in recent times in the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) movements, Kisan Andolan, etc.In all this, civil societies have played pivotal roles, as aggregators of people’s opinions and non-State enforcers of people’s will. Civil society has an umbilical connection with democratic political culture, and they serve as mutual reinforcers.It was the global public choice movement that provided a positive thrust to civil societies, which increasingly played crucial roles towards democratic deepening globally. In India, we witnessed a robust civil society ecosystem that played important roles in the above-mentioned movements as well as in the implementation of RTI and RTE..Taking constitutional values to the grassroots.However, the increasing intolerance towards these organisations in recent years on the pretext of safeguarding national security or economic development has hampered the deepening of the democratic process and the evolution of healthy democratic political culture. Tenacity on the part of civil society organisations and support from liberal political parties as well as the judiciary can go a long way in protecting and promoting these instruments of participative democracy.Another significant marker of a healthy political culture is mutual respect and tolerance in political exchange and discourse. According to Levitsky and Ziblatt, a political culture characterised by civility and mutual tolerance contributes greatly to the success of democracy.India was a shining example of this till recently. Ideological differences hardly resulted in militant antagonism. During the initial years of our independence when, among others, Jawaharlal Nehru, as the head of the government, assiduously cultivated democratic institutions as well as a culture through speeches, a series of letters to chief ministers, his colleagues in the Union cabinet, opposition leaders, etc.He inducted opposition political figures such as Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and Syama Prasad Mukherjee into his cabinet. Though this culture of respect and civility ebbed and flowed at different times, the general tone of the political exchange never crossed the limits of decency..Though the RTI has significantly curbed high-handedness, there is a need for repurposing and restructuring civil services into a light, efficient machinery devoted to the singular purpose of servicing citizens..In recent times, there has been a significant lowering of the political discourse between and by political parties and leaders, with acrimonious barbs, abusive language, dog whistles, etc. becoming increasingly common. Mutual antagonism and attempts at ‘eradication’ of opposition political parties are other features of current political behaviour.Such political culture is detrimental to democracy since it is based on the notion that the political actors are not competitors vying for their share in the marketplace of ideas but are pernicious enemies. The very perception of opposition as an enemy entails that that opposition be vanquished and eliminated.The logical consequence of this behavior is totalitarianism. Herein, lies the significance of civility and mutual tolerance as the essential elements of democratic political culture..Rehabilitating my great-grandmother on Gandhi Jayanti.Hence, the recent downturn ought to be looked at sternly both in the court of public opinion as well as in courts of law, so that we have a healthy political culture and democracy.To what end?Finally, and most importantly, a major concern in the initial years was how to make the independence of the country meaningful for the teeming millions wading in penury and starvation. This purposive attribute of the State has been the abiding concern of politicians and political thinkers since the beginning of civilisation.This is what Aristotle calls in Nicomachean Ethics as eudaimonia, i.e., human flourishing or happiness or welfare; or what Kautilya calls Yogakshema, i.e., security and well-being.Hence, for an impoverished nation, an improvement in quality of life characterised by the fulfillment of the basic needs of ‘roti, kapda, makan’ of the common man was a worthy goal to aim for at its independence.Whereas the initial State-backed thrust for the capital goods industry provided a passable base for an indigenous industrial sector, the Green Revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s along with other agricultural revolutions (White, Yellow, Golden, etc.) catapulted agricultural produce and eradicated the ever-looming threat of hunger..In recent times, there has been a significant lowering of the political discourse between and by political parties and leaders, with acrimonious barbs, abusive language, dog whistles, etc. becoming increasingly common..They also paved the way for the evolution of the economy from primary to secondary and tertiary sectors. India’s service sector, boosted by the economic liberalisation of 1991, is a major success story and accounts for the majority of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP).But the lack of development of the manufacturing sector, despite the initial thrust, has not only impacted the overall GDP but has also resulted in the failure of the sector to wean away the underemployed workforce from agriculture.Gross inequality and poverty still rule the roost. Combined with the colossal failure of our education system to produce an adequately and relevantly skilled labour force, our economy is staring at a demographic curse when it should have been reaping a demographic dividend..Is the ground more fertile or does it produce a better yield because of its caste?.It was also hoped that our independence would result in social transformation, and, accordingly, a transformative Constitution was designed. Various provisions in the Constitution such as Article 17, 341 and 342 as well as various legislations have contributed to improving the lot of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, yet their exploitation and deprivation at the hands of the so-called ‘upper-castes’ often hit news headlines.Also, the benefits of such affirmative measures going repeatedly and disproportionately to creamy layers to the exclusion of the most deprived among such populations have been another shortcoming of these measures.Political capitalism, wherein the political and economic elite combine to reap benefits from their mutual association, has seen a rapid rise in the last decade and is proving to be inimical to both the democracy and free market.The use of wealth to distort political debates and discussions has undermined the very health of democracy. On the other hand, crony capitalism has resulted in a disproportionate rise in the economic power of a few business houses, thereby inhibiting fair competition and impacting various stakeholders of the market economy..The use of wealth to distort political debates and discussions has undermined the very health of democracy..In this pas de deux between political and economic actors, the media has performed appallingly. Rather than speaking truth to power and enabling free and fair debates and discussions so essential for a healthy democracy, market forces have reduced most of the media houses to a caricature of itself.On the global stage, India has emerged as a major power with an enduring democracy, robust and growing economy and armed forces to reckon with. It is not viewed as a nuisance but a contributor towards global peace and prosperity. But whenever our human rights records become suspect, as has in recent years, our moral authority wanes and our global standing takes a beating.Today, we can say India is going to stand here as a robust nation for long but the above-mentioned concerns need to be addressed to realise her full potential, to make her a developed nation and to etch prosperity in the destiny of a billion-strong people.
