How to Reform Parliamentary Democracy in India?

by B.K. Kaushik

Keeping in view the pluralist nature of the Indian polity, the makers of the Indian Constitution decided to adopt the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy instead of the American pattern of the presidential system. They were of the considered opinion that the former was more suitable for India than the latter as it could provide a share in the power structure to the various social, cultural, linguistic and regional groups at the national and State levels. Besides, this choice was influenced by the fact that India had been able to get an experience of the working of this system at the provincial level in the phase of provincial autonomy from 1937 to 1946 during the colonial period, and at the Central level after the attainment of independence on August 15, 1947. Perhaps, on the one hand, they were keen to have the system of their colonial masters and, on the other, they had turned against the adoption of the presidential system after witnessing conflict between the President and the Senate on the issue of the entry of the USA in the League of Nations after the First World War and between the President and the Supreme Court on the issue of the New Deal Programme on the eve of the Great Depression. Moreover, they had been impressed by the manner in which the parliamentary system had enabled the United Kingdom to emerge successful in the Second World War due to its flexibility.

And, it was the adoption of the parliamentary system that made them opt for the single-ballot simple majority system instead of the proportional representation system. It is pertinent to mention here that a well-known French scholar, Maurice Druverger, had argued that the former leads to the emergence of the two-party system which is a basic pre-requisite for the success of the parliamentary system, whereas the proportional representation system always results in the rise of a multi-party system which is not congenial for its proper working.

But the historic role of the Congress in the national movement and the charisma of the personalities of Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi led to the emergence and continuance of its dominance from 1952 to 1989 except for a brief interlude from 1977 to 1979. However, the regionalisation of Indian politics, as a cumulative impact of the processes of moderni-sation, politicisation and economic development, has resulted in the rise of a multi-party system since 1989. This has, in turn, led to the formation of coalition governments instead of single party governments since then except from 1991 to 1996. These have been found to be weak, ineffective and unstable. Hence, some scholars have begun to plead for switching over to the presidential system.

Yet this change is not possible as the parliamentary system has been recognised as part of the basic structure of the Indian Constitution by the Supreme Court of India in its judgement in the Keshavanand Bharti case in 1975. Moreover, no political party or coalition of parties is likely to get the needed two-thirds majority in the two Houses of Parliament for making such an amendment in the Constitution. Furthermore, it will be dangerous to adopt the presidential system in India as the same may get degenerated into a dictatorship because of the paucity of democratic culture on the one hand and the weakness in the party system in the country on the other. Therefore, we need to reform the parliamentary system instead of replacing it.

For this purpose, various reforms have been suggested. These include, in the first instance, election of the Prime Minister by the members of the Lok Sabha through a secret ballot instead of his/her appointment by the President; positive vote of no-confidence in place of the existing negative system which removes the incumbent but ignores the danger of non-availablity of a successor as happened in 1996; making provision for the formation of a national government if
no party or alliance is able to get majority support in the Lok Sabha; having a fixed tenure of five years in the Lok Sabha, simultaneous parliamentary, Assembly, panchayat and municipal elections; banning the criminals from contesting elections; reforming the party system through the strict enforcement of inner-party democracy in them; state funding of elections; provision for the rejection of all candidates by the voters of a constituency; election of a candidate only if she/he gets more than 50 per cent vote; and the introduction of the system of recall of the representatives from the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies by the voters on the basis of non-performance and mal-performance.

But all these measures are bound to prove futile unless we educate the voters. In its absence, caste and other parochial loyalties will continue to influence the voters. Money and muscle power will keep on playing an important role in deciding the voting behaviour. The educated voters will continue to abstain from voting. The election of the criminals shall persist. The corrupt, power-hungry and undeserving candidates will keep on entering the national and State legislatures. The political families and their dynasties shall continue to retain their hold over these bodies.

This takes us to the question: Who shall educate the voters? This task cannot be left to the political parties as they have a vested interest in keeping the voters uneducated. The Election Commission alone cannot accomplish this task as it does not have the needed machinery for this purpose. The media in general, and the electronic media in particular, too cannot be relied upon for undertaking this task as their priorities are different. The civil society also is too weak to perform this responsibility. Therefore, this role will have to be performed by the teachers of the universities and colleges. Let them play the role of academicians as activists. They should be made to realise that it is their moral duty to do so as nation builders instead of confining their role to teaching and research. Let them motivate the students for this task. Otherwise, it shall remain an unfinished agenda. The Academic Staff Colleges of the universities should use the mandatory Orientation Courses for this purpose. Due weightage should also be given to the performance of the teachers in this task while giving them senior scale, selection grade and before promoting them to higher positions under the career advancement schemes.

Dr B.K. Kaushik is an Associate Professor, D.A.V. (PG) College, Karnal (Haryana).