INDIA - THE 2

ND
REPUBLIC
A HYPOTHESIS
- Sanjay Dixit, IAS

FROM A PAPER PRESENTED IN GUJARAT UNIVERSITY
ON 2
ND
APRIL 2014

France is running its Fifth Republic. Can India not think in
terms of just the Second
The Constitution of India has borrowed heavily from various
constitutions of the world, but more extensively than others from the
Government of India Act, 1935. It would be fair to say that nearly 80% of
the Constitution of India is borrowed from the 1935 Act. Just go through
the Constituent Assembly Debates and the impression is inescapable that
we are debating more of an addendum and amendment to the 1935 Act.
Look at the basic framework, the scheme of Articles, the appellations in
most part, the Schedules and the entire scheme of governance. Leave aside
Part III (Fundamental Rights), and Part IV (Directive Principles of State
Policy), and the changes in the 1935 Act necessitated by our new character
as a Republic coupled with the accession of the Indian princely states, the
Constitution does not look very different.
We do not blame anyone for that. Most of our leaders were familiar
with the scheme of 1935 Act and had been part of the various provincial
assemblies, councils and the Federal Assembly and Council. It was but
natural for them to contextualize the debates accordingly. It was not
possible for anyone to imagine the kind of difficulties we would encounter
seventy years hence.
Congress, which was a natural heir to the British in India, was itself a
rainbow coalition of diverse viewpoints and different shades of opinions.
The legacy of Indian Independence Struggle had taught the leaders, both
big and small the art of reconciling different points of view and absorb a
whole range of contrarian political cultures. As long as the towering figure
of Nehru was there to pilot this rainbow coalition, things were not allowed
to spiral out of control.
It must be asserted, however, that the seeds of discord and instability
were inherent in the first past the post system of election by single non-
transferable vote, brought in by a law of Parliament. There was no
compulsion to take this route though, as Article 81 (a) and (b) of the
Constitution of India had provided the composition of Lok Sabha as
follows:

(a) not more than [five hundred and thirty members] chosen by direct
election from territorial constituencies in the States, and
(b) not more than [twenty members] to represent the Union territories,
chosen in such manner as Parliament may by law provide.

The letter of the Constitution had provided sufficient leeway to the
Parliament to provide for a system that would be least divisive and instable.
Due to their familiarity with the system prevalent in British India, they
chose the British India system. In hindsight, we can now say that they
failed to appreciate the insidious effects of the British system, even though
the partition of the country was in many ways the result of the
dissatisfaction among the Muslim elite with the first past the post system.
Separate electorates were the result of this apprehension. In spite of this,
Muslim League had failed to form a government even in Punjab, later the
centerpiece of League politics of division, where the Unionist Party formed
the government in coalition with Akalis and Congress. The experience of
coalition governments in Bengal and Sind was no less disastrous.
The scheme of representation in the Federal and Provincial Assemblies
was fairly complex, with British India contributing 250 seats to the Federal
Assembly, and Princely States contributing 125. Out of the 250 British
India seats, there were only 105 General seats, the other 145 being
reserved for Moammedans, Sikhs, Scheduled Castes, Anglo-Indians,
Europeans, Indian Christians, Commerce and Industry representatives,
Land Owners representatives, Labour representatives, and Women. The
method of election, however, was first past the post for each of the
electorates, including the reserved ones.
The pernicious effects of this system started manifesting itself in the
very first elections in 1936. However, with the intervention of the 2
nd

World War and resignation of Congress ministries, the British could
continue with the Governor-General exercising most power.
The immediate post-independence period was one of nationalistic
fervor and a spirit of nation-building. The trouble started in 1967, and
exacerbated ever since. With the loss of a national consensus over one
party, and rise of regional aspirations, regional parties have become more
and more important. National perspective has often given way to electoral
compulsions of keeping the regional allies happy. Even though the last 4
governments have been led by national parties, there capacity to take
decisions have been severely circumscribed by the coalition dharma, a
rather figurative description of the times of compromises we are living in.
I will not labour on the ills of the coalition politics and the handicap it
imposes on progress and growth, besides divisive and fissiparous
tendencies gaining ground. Much has been said for and against the
proposition. In my opinion, the first past the post system has spawned a
host of ills, outweighing any benefits it may have given. Small and
concentrated groups have benefited disproportionately at the expense of
what is in the interest of the country. In my wide administrative experience,
I have seen and confirmed these facts the smaller the constituency, the
bigger the divisive pull, and the first past the post system allows
unimaginable degree of manipulation and rarely reflects the popular will. In
my long administrative experience, which includes holding, supervising and
observing nearly 25 elections from Panchayat and Municipality to
Parliament, I have come to the firm conclusion that the larger the
constituency, the less divisive is the political course. A Panchayat election is
fought totally on kinship, whereas a Parliament election is least divisive on
this scale. We need to take it to a greater level, where the focus would be
much more on the national and developmental issues. Juxtapose it with the
explosion of technology and its tools finding its way into the hands of
majority of our populace, especially youth, and the limitations of this
systems become even more palpable.
At this point, I will venture to propose a solution to this debilitating
election format for the national election. State elections could be
something similar, but that is a matter of detail on which I will not dwell
upon in this paper.
The national aspiration now is for stability and progress, and we are now
at a crossroads where we must choose a system of direct membership of
parliament which also delivers a direct Prime Minister. In the proposed
system, no amendment to the Constitution is required. All it requires is that
each party declares its PM candidate and the Constituency representative.
On the EVM, the name of the PM candidate along with the local candidate
will be printed. The local representatives will be chosen on the basis of a
winner take all with all constituency votes aggregated at the State level.
Aggregation of votes and declaration of constituency representative does
not require an amendment of the Art. 81 (a) of the Constitution as it
remains a direct territorial election with only the law being changed to
allow for state wise aggregation.
Right now, the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and
Representation of the People Act, 1951 govern the manner in which
Parliament is formed. Direct elections of members need not have been
first past the post. The first past the post system has given rise to many
distortions, with the regional parties getting a 2% overall national vote
(concentrated in a particular area) may get 20-30 seats and dictate the
formation of a national government. Deve Gowda became PM with just 16
MPs in the bag. The variants I am putting forth take off from the DPR
system, and the run-off system but are actually different.
MODEL 1
If we extrapolate this proposition to the ongoing elections, first of all
each party will have to declare its PM candidate. If the opinion polls are
any guide, in every State, there are only 2 personalities who are leading the
sweepstakes. For example, in Tamil Nadu, the Congress is leading. When
aggregated, if Jayalalitha takes the top position, all 39 seats go to
AIADMK. Since it is national elections, it is likely that the top billing
would be taken by, say, Rahul Gandhi. In such a scenario, all 39 seats go to
Congress. In Karnataka, say, Narendra Modi emerges at the top, all 28
seats go to BJP. The effect can be diluted by adding a 2
nd
preference and
then reducing the contest to top 2 contestants on the basis of 1
st
preference
votes.
Technology can be used to facilitate this. With the addition of paper
trails to the votes cast by voters, it is an easy task to add 2
nd
preference
votes to the top two contestants. Single non-transferable vote is a
limitation imposed by law, not by the Constitution. We can take the voter
to the polling booth and get him to cast as many votes as the law may
prescribe. With the technology having developed to the level it has, it is
now well within the realm of possibility that we can attach all the EVMs to
a central console and get the result at the push of a button. The stand-alone
EVM is a major contribution of the Election Commission of India to the
world. It has proved itself superior to all the systems in the world. The
networked and interenet based systems are susceptible to infiltration, but
the stand-alone EVM is not. Since we are going to add the paper trail to
this system now, we should now get to the next stage, i.e. randomizing the
result and thereby eliminating a major weakness of the system, i.e.
disclosure of booth-wise voting details. Add to this the second (and maybe
third) preference votes through a central console, then get a state-level
aggregation to find the winner. Winner, then takes all the seats on which
the nominations have already been filed in the conventional manner.
Independents and smaller parties will stand no chance of getting anywhere
near the Parliament. All parties will have to necessarily focus on the
national and developmental issues. Voters too will have a wider vista to
look at. We can reform the electoral system using the technology available
and through this reform, introduce a stability in governance, taking the
focus to development.
MODEL 2
Let us now look at the 2
nd
possibility, as the fractured nature of Rajya
Sabha may not allow the passage of Model 1. Modeel 1 would sound the
death knell of regional parties, except in a rare situation where it is taking
huge leads in a State. Parties being naturally risk averse are unlikely to put a
Nation First approach, except the BJP.
So let us propose a far more inclusive proposition. Let us get 2 votes
from the voters at the time of poll. Technology makes it possible that a
person first goes to one machine which records the first vote, and
simultaneously disables that option in the second machine. The voter then
goes to the second EVM and records a second vote. When the results are
tabulated, there will be a first count and then a second count. In the first
count, the first two candidates will be entered into an automatic run-off if
no candidate secures a 50%+1 vote. Then the second preference votes
obtained by these two will be taken into account and added to the first
count to obtain a second count. Whoever obtains a higher second count is
then declared a winner in a Modified First Past the Post System. You
could even go for a third count by allowing the voters to give a 3
rd

preference. The third preference could be obtained on the same EVM as a
second press of a button and be recorded as such, or could be obtained on
a third EVM.
MODEL 3
This Model could be in the form of a straight run-off, where the voter
would be required to come back to the booth if any of the candidates fail
to obtain the 50% vote. This method has the disadvantage of duplicating
the already complicated logistics of the largest electoral exercise of the
world. However, it has the merit of being simple. In order to facilitate this,
one may reduce the elilgible percentage to say, 40% and send candidates to
a run-off only if the leader fails to obtain the 40% vote.
MODEL 4
Model 4 could a modification of the Model 2 where the vote is taken
twice, but the second preference is in the name of the designated top
leaders, who the party or an independent candidate has to notify at the time
of nomination. We could further modify it by deleting the independents
altogether after the first count if they fail to obtain the 50%+1 benchmark
(Even if they are in the top 2), or we could allow an independent the
leeway to give a second name for the second count. This is the model I like
the best as it strongly fortifies the party system and would force the parties
to nominate a PM candidate. Voters would also get a choice of choosing
from both the candidate and a party

MODEL 5
There is also a negative formulation possible, which is to allow only the
National parties to contest the national elections, but I personally do not
advocate this as this is a negative system.
The danger in the winner take all representation is that it will make for
entire states to be represented in the Parliament only by one Party. This can
be taken care of by increasing the number of MPs in the Rajya Sabha. We
cannot have a perfect system, only a system which will have maximum
advantages. This system has the advantage of promoting a national election
based on national issues, and on the basis of identifiable PM candidates.
Today, a constituency just elects his national representative and then has no
say in what he will do at the national level. First past the post system was
designed for countries having a two-party system. It is full of holes in a
country as diverse as India which has 4 National Parties and 47 State
Parties. (Not to mention 1563 Unrecognized Parties)
The reason I have proposed this solution is that it is impossible to bring
in a Constitutional amendment to amend Art. 81, as the National parties
put together will never have 2/3
rd
majority in both Houses. A National
Party like BSP will never agree to this, nor will CPM. BJP and Congress
will, in all likelihood, find this to their liking, but 2/3
rd
majority will elude
them.
We have loved the Republic we created, but every Republic must
squarely face the challenges thrown up by time. We are on the threshold of
a historical opportunity to become a great nation, with a key role to play in
the comity of nations on the basis of strength and economic development.
Let this opportunity not be allowed to be frittered away on the altar of the
ambitions of self-important regional leaders. Let us reinvent our Republic
by tweaking our electoral laws and usher in the 2nd Republic in India.

Disclaimer: This is only a Concept Paper. Detailed analysis,
Including a draft amendment and legal pros and cons
are going to be presented in a forthcoming book The
2
nd
Republic by the author of this paper.