Build Back Better

 

During the first of my two United Nations deployments, in Mozambique, we were initially given an orientation on a few things. One of the sessions was on election management and our expected role in it. After the long session and an even longer bit of questions and answers, the speaker exclaimed, “This has been the easiest and the most enriching session for me, probably because yours is a thriving democracy!” Our elections were a key part of that democracy and it wowed western observers to exclaim, “Elections are one thing that the Indians do well.” India's democratic traditions have also been its biggest soft power.

The recently concluded Indian elections have again wowed the observers but there is a difference – it was held under conditions when the institutions safeguarding democracy, including the Election Commission of India (ECI) were flailing.

Democracy is not a very natural thing. Democracy is very fragile and needs constant nurturing through the strength of its institutions, most so by the election machinery. The elections must not only be fair and transparent, they must also be seen to be so. Only then do the government and democracy derive legitimacy and sustainability. The ECI should constantly try to reinforce this. Instead, it chose to adopt all possible means to negate many of the efforts already initiated in previous elections by taking dubious recourse to the letter (rather than the spirit) of the laws. I have elaborated on some of the shenanigans of the ECI in an earlier blog.

To add, it was completely incomprehensible as to why the ECI obstinately refused to share information on the number of votes polled after each phase of polling although that was done during the 2019 elections promptly. After revising the poll percentages in Phase I and Phase II by a whopping six percent (Phase I, after 11 days), ECI refused to share the absolute number of votes polled. It went to the extent of submitting an affidavit in the Supreme Court to the effect that sharing the same was “unfeasible” and “undesirable.” Then they suddenly released all the data for five phases in one go. In normal times, this would be an act of “contempt of court” because either they had given a false affidavit that it was “unfeasible” and “undesirable” or they were giving false numbers. However, we live in abnormal times. 

Many political parties have expressed concerns about the EVM machines. There is a weird logic going around – why blame the EVMs when you lose and not blame it when you win? EVM or no EVM, there’s serious rigging in each election in favour of whichever is the ruling party and the challenger has to not only win but actually win by a huge ‘real’ margin to overcome the effect of the rigging. When the ECI is in a “gathbandhan” with the ruling party or cowed down by it, the job becomes doubly difficult for the challenger. While EVM machines may or may not be possible to hack, rigging through false voting etc. is much easier with EVM machines. Why can’t EVM results be tallied with VVPAT? We are an IT nation; it’ll be simple to have the VVPATs machine-read. The opposition parties have done creditably not because there are no problems with EVM-based elections but in spite of them – they could well have done much better had these problems been addressed. 

In the case of advertisements against the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Calcutta High Court intervened, calling the ads “outright derogatory and definitely intended at insulting the rivals.” Further, the Court observed, “In the present case, the ECI has grossly failed to address the complaints raised by the petitioner (TMC) in due time. This court is surprised that no resolution worth the name has been arrived at regarding the complaints till date, more so because most of the phases of the election are already over.” 

There was no level playing field in terms of media coverage. All the mainstream media are so biased in their reporting even for mundane matters that I stopped watching them long back. Thankfully, some independent YouTubers stepped up to the place, at great risks to themselves. Ultimately, their news turned out to be correct. By all accounts, they are now a force to reckon with. However, one doesn’t know for how long. On March 20, 2024, the government suddenly issued a notification of a Fact Check Unit (FCU) to identify “fake or false or misleading” online content related to the business of the Central government and demand to remove it from the internet. This would have effectively killed any press freedom on the internet and these YouTubers would have either toed the government line or shut shop. Fortunately, the Supreme Court stayed the notification of the FCU the very next day, on March 21. If only they had stayed the appointment of the two Election Commissioners … 

There is a serious problem when a stay is not granted even when the government does something blatantly unconstitutional or violative of a Supreme Court judgement. The electoral bond scheme turned out to be unconstitutional. However, while the scheme was introduced in 2017 and notified in 2018, it was deemed unconstitutional in 2024. Thus, the country’s polity operated under an unconstitutional act which turned out to be nothing but a legalised extortion racket for six long years and the illegal proceeds continue to fund dubious activities even now. When it was so blatantly unconstitutional prima facie, the balance of justice favoured a stay. The same applies to National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Act, 2023 and the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 both of which have sought to negate Supreme Court rulings. The way two election commissioners were appointed just before the Parliamentary elections 2024 without following due process was abominable and deserved to be stayed. If, down the road, the ECI appointment Act is declared unconstitutional or illegal, we would still be governed by a polity elected under its provisions for a long five years. 

Then there were the matters of many candidates reportedly being made to withdraw, nomination of candidates not being accepted, and so on. 

With all this, the numbers do not really tell the story. The 237 seats won by the INDIA bloc feel like 337, probably more. If ECI had played fair, if SC had stayed the new ECI appointments, if the EVM related issues had been addressed, if the Electoral Bond scheme had been stayed earlier, if the media was not muzzled, if ED, CBI, IT, Governors were not weaponised to this extent and if ALL the campaigners violating the Model Code of Conduct were prohibited from further campaigning, the results may have been very different … 

When I was handling disaster management, we used to have a slogan for post-devastation scenarios, “Build back better.” Now that the Indian democracy is showing signs of limping up, I have a wish list of actions for building it back better – that will be in a later blog.