Tag: Democratic backsliding

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Case Study on State Assemblies of North East India: Need for Reservations for Women

[Editorial Note: Constitutional Renaissance’s Research on State assemblies of North East can be accessed here]

In this article, we conducted a research on the incumbent Members of Legislative Assembly (‘MLAs’) in eight states of North East (Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Meghalaya and Nagaland) as a sample data to analyse the number of women MLA in these regions, their family backgrounds, political parties and their income, whether they are from a relatively poor or rich background (click here to see our summarised research). This research tries to answer the question “whether women are proportionally represented in the State Assemblies according to their population in the state.” As the Tribune reports, ‘the Perception of Electoral Integrity Index gave India 40/100, under the Varieties of Democracy’s Female Rights Index, with India performing its lowest in political power. In the EIU’s Democracy Index (2019), India suffered a downfall in political participation from 7.22 to 6.67.’ Currently, in-state assembly elections, there is no proportional reservation for women, unlike in the third tier of government (Panchayats) where we have 33% reservation for women. Through this research, we will be proposing that there is a requirement for proportional reservation for women in the state assemblies and in Parliament to avoid ‘political lockout’ and to keep our democracy legitimate.

Liberal Constitution and ‘political lockout’

In liberal constitutions, like that of India, the state has an indispensable duty to protect the rights of the citizens and to ensure that the freedoms and civil liberties are not compromised at any cost. Although the denial of these civil liberties presents many stability problems for democracy. But ‘political lockout’ of a section of society out of power raises concerns with regard to the whole legitimacy of the democracy. That section of society could be Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes or women as well. In the words of Tarunabh Khaitan, political lockout means ‘when a group comprehensively loses any genuine prospects of garnering even a threshold level of political power at least some of the time, it has been ‘locked out’ of power’. We have always thought of political representation debate with regard to caste and religion. But keeping a whole group, which is women, out of politics may also repose serious threat to the legitimacy of the liberal order established by the Constitution. For instance, if a particular group is kept out of power for long and they are refused to participate in decisions which affect their lives, then that group will lose faith in the democracy as their interests are not fulfilled either represented in the law-making body. We have seen in the past when committees are formed for a particular purpose but they keep out a section of a society which are the most affected section, then it raises alarming concerns about that committee, to an extend delegitimizing it (for instance, see this). Through our research, we have found that women in north-east have been kept out of power for some time and they have been denied equal participation in the law-making process. In the northeast alone, out of 498 seats (MLAs) spread over eight different states, there are only 24 elected women representatives.

The research displays a lot of flustering concerns: about the legitimacy of democracy. Scholar Choudhary argues in his book that

‘the ambition of liberal constitutionalism is that a constitutional order must both be legitimate and must enjoy the allegiance of a sufficient number of its citizens.’

If a group, be it, women, any caste, any class, is kept out of power for some time then ‘that has the capacity to destabilise the constitutional settlement’. Through our research, we saw that the women who are in politics, and who become MLAs, are relatively richer to those women who do not get into politics. The data shows that all of the women MLAs who get elected are relatively richer with assets ranging from Rs. 1,49,77,798 (of a member from Tripura) to Rs. 1,86,28,851 (of a member from Assam). The plight of a woman who is not relatively rich and is not represented in the law-making process is so much that it might make the state assemblies illegitimate and no longer liberal as it does not represent democracy, rather a ‘plutocracy’. Plutocracy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. A majority group, who is relatively poor, is kept out of power.

Research shows us that there are no single women in all the states who are ‘relatively poor’ as compared to others. The MLA with the lowest income among all of them is from Tripura (CPI(M) party) who has assets worth Rs. 7,05,142 (But we never know if this has increased after getting elected as an MLA). If a set of group, which has a defining characteristic that is relatively poor and not-men, is kept out of political power (even the minimum share of power), then ‘the guarantee of fair political opportunity has been compromised’ (see Tarun Khaitan’s research). If need to make a democracy legitimate of authority beyond the formal declaration of ‘free and fair elections’, we must address the issues of ‘political lockout’, under-representation and every group must get a chance to represent itself in the position of power.

As Geetika Dang, Research analyst from Brookings India put it ‘while Mizoram has never elected a female member Parliament [as also shown through our research even in the case of state assemblies], perhaps the starkest example of the lack of female representation comes from Nagaland that has failed to elect a single female MLA in 55 years of statehood. Rano Shaiza, a member of United Democratic Party, was the first and only woman in this state who was elected to Lok Sabha in 1977.’ Our research shows that currently in Mizoram and Nagaland there are no women MLAs in an area where the population of women is 5.41 lakhs and 9.53 lakhs respectively. There is no state in North East India which does not regularly make laws for women but the voices of the women are not heard in the halls of the legislature as there is no one to represent them. Further, the data from Manipur raises more alarming concerns as for 14.17 lakhs women, there is only one MLA.

We also found something interesting that out of these total 24 elected MLAs in the North East region, only 4 of them have some kind of political background. Rest of them did not have any sort of political background, neither their husbands nor their parents are in politics. This shows a positive trend that women are becoming independent and without any political support, they are standing up and coming into a profession which is termed as ‘dirty’ in common parlance (but we are not sure about their political connection through other connections).

Although, it is true that every woman in North-East have a right to vote guaranteed by the Constitution, but just formal declaration of equality cannot justify the inequality faced by women in the law-making process (or even in their share of political power). Hence, there is a need for a minimum reservation of seats for women in the legislative assemblies.

 Answering the ‘inequality’ in Representation: A ‘Localised’ Solution?

One of the methods to ensure women representation in North-East region is by making sure all the women come together to support other women, basically lobby the support. This needs to be done through the Gandhian methods of localising the issues and answering them through a bottoms-up approach. As Simi Malhotra, Director of the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, Jamia Millia Islamia, said in a Development Seminar in 2019 that, “the paternalistic baggage of ethnicity, and hence the ethnic divide within the northeastern states, has been an impediment in this direction.  At the grassroots level, the women’s movement in the northeast and associated synergies and outlets of solidarity have to be explored.” But this casts another issue which is inevitable that only those women who are relatively richer will be able to organise women and get the support like how we see in national politics. Even the first generation politicians have strong economical backing. We hardly see any MP or MLA from a relatively poor background. As we have seen through our research that most of the women who are elected as MLAs are from an economically richer section of society.

Further, this, bottoms-up approach, is not an absolute guarantee that women will be represented in the assembly because keeping women out of politics is not just a problem of political parties who do not give chance to women, but also a constitutional and a social problem. The preamble uses the words ‘We the People’ gives ourselves this constitution, but if the ‘supreme document’ cannot guarantee a group minimum power in the political machinery, then the faith of that group would be shaken and hence, the problems need constitutional insurance/reservations.

‘Political Assurance’: Proportionate Reservation

Political empowerment of women is a necessity in eliminating gender inequality and discrimination. Political power is a (sort) of guarantee to the women which will ensure that the elected regime remains legitimate addressing all the issues related to women. If we look at the historical account of the efforts made to reserve seats for women in Lok Sabha and State Assemblies, we can trace a ‘background note’ by the Law Ministry which shows that efforts made to reserve seats for women in State Assemblies and House of People always failed due to lack of political consensus.

Again in 2008, Rajya Sabha’s Department related to Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, public grievances, law and justice presented its 36th Report on The Constitution (One Hundred and Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2008 in which the committee recommended for proportionate reservation for women in Lok Sabha and State Assemblies. Further AIDMK member orally stated before the committee on the need for reservation for women.

“Reservation for women is not a bounty but it is an honest recognition of their contribution to social development and to the society at large.”

We have seen the justices of the High Court in the past few years (as well) making “misogynistic observations” in cases involving penal sections like Rape, Assault etc. It shows the mindset of the society towards the women that is horrific and has no place in the 21st century and it enhances the need for a political assurance as ‘there is no logic in saying that women are deficient in physical, mental and intellectual capabilities. Still, they have been forced to be earmarked as the weaker sections of the society. In fact, by keeping 50 per cent of the society weaker we have made the whole society weak. In such a situation, some compulsory legislative measures need to be taken for proportionate representation of the women in the State Assemblies and the Lok Sabha as well.’

The arguments against the reservation of women state that women empowerment cannot be done through such measures, instead, we need a societal change where everyone changes from within. But such ‘Gandhian’ bottom’s up approach fails in the long run as the people do not have an incentive to change their attitude and behaviour towards the other gender. Rather, constitutional insurances which guarantee formal equality accelerates the ‘process of change’ in the society as seen in the case and experiment of Reservation of 33% for women in Panchayati Raj. The Committee which recommended the reservation for women also observed that ‘the data shows that through 1/3rd reservation of seats for women in Panchayats and Nagarpalikas, they have been able to make meaningful contributions and that the actual representation of women in Panchayati Raj institutions has gone up to 42.3% i.e., beyond the reservation percentage.’

Impossibility of Reservation in Rajya Sabha: ‘Article 80 of the Constitution specifies that members of state assemblies will elect Rajya Sabha MPs through a single transferable vote.  This implies that the votes are first allocated to the most preferred candidate, and then to the next preferred candidate, and so on.  This system cannot accommodate the principle of reserving a certain number of seats for a particular group.  Currently, Rajya Sabha does not have a reservation for SCs and STs. Therefore, any system that provides reservation in Rajya Sabha implies that the Constitution must be amended to jettison the Single Transferable Vote system.’

Anyhow, leaving the Rajya Sabha aside, the Preamble of the Indian Constitution states and guarantees that every citizen must be secured of ‘equality of status and opportunity’. These commitments in the Preamble must be the objective of the legislature which they must seek to achieve while enacting an amendment for reservation of women. The data shows that the women are not represented equally in the Assemblies and there is a need for change, or else questions against the legitimacy of the democracy will strengthen. Equality for women is not just a game of mockery and gimmickry for ‘International women’s day’, but it is a continuous effort to eradicate various social, economic and political gaps between the genders.

This is a research conducted by Chaitanya Singh, Founder and Editor of Constitutional Renaissance Blog. The author would like to thank Ms Raksha Tripathy, Ms Sulagna Sarkar and Mr Yuvraj Ranolia for assisting in data analysis and research.

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Executive Aggrandisement and Democratic Backsliding in India: A Conceptual Analysis

In the starting of the year 2020, there was a headline that “India falls to 51st position in Democratic Index” by a survey done by the Economist’s Intelligence Unit. Further back in 2018, the Indian National Congress, the main opposition party in the Parliament, launched a campaign called “Save the Constitution”. There are many incidents and events wherein the People claim that democracy is dying. Is democracy really crumbling?

The Constitution of India is based on democratic principles and the very democracy has been jeopardised by the elected government in the past (as well). But now it is not like the 20th century when we saw Mrs Gandhi’s emergency of 1975 and military coup in Pakistan (coup d’état by Musharraf), which shattered the democracy and the democratic principles of India and her adjoining neighbour. But how is the situation in 2020 different from 1975?  What we are witnessing now is not ‘shattering’ of the democracy, it is more like a gradual erosion. A democratic decay.

The Indian Constitution has established three organs of the state: Judiciary, legislature and executive, each of them are assigned a definitive sphere of powers and functions. To check upon these institutions, we have the idea of “Constitutionalism”— which is, various sorts of accountability demand to keep a check on the powers of the organs of the state in the form of rights against the state, limiting the scope of the authority of the organs among various other checks. Herein, a question arises, despite all these checks then how is the democracy backsliding or decaying in India in 2020?

Executive Aggrandisement and democratic backsliding

Democratic backsliding, as Bermeo says, is “the state-led debilitation or elimination of any of the political institutions that sustain an existing democracy”, which basically means that when the state eliminates or dismantles the aforementioned “checks” on its powers to sustain themselves in power. Backsliding happens precisely where oppositions are already incapacitated by electoral failures and other internal divisions like lack of leadership. In parliamentary democracies, like India, the political executive is discerned as the “sole repository” of the democratic mandate, which is the Modi-led-Cabinet in India (as the Executive’s political party, i.e. the BJP is mostly in majority in the legislature). In the book, “Constitutional Democracy in Crisis?”, Elkins states that “most, if not all, of the concerns regarding constitutional democracy, has to do with an executive”. When this executive weakens the checks on executive power by a series of institutional changes that hamper the power of opposition (accountability seeking) forces to challenge executive preferences, this ‘kind of’ democratic backsliding is called “Executive Aggrandisement”. The values of constitutionalism and democracy are hampered by the aggrandisement of the executive; institutional accountability is the key and inseparable from the “efficient institutional design”. The change brought by the democratically elected executive in weakening the checks upon itself is often done by labelling independent checking institutions as “anti-establishment/anti-government” or by “packing them with the cadre of their political party”, as reflected by Professor Khaitan of Oxford University. When there is a crisis of executive accountability, we can witness gradual erosion of accountability-seeking mechanisms such as 1. Electoral accountability (there is always fear and probability of electoral fraud and tampering, see here and here); 2. Accountability by the judiciary (power of judicial review, see Article 13) and legislature (see Article 74 and read here); and 3. Accountability to civil societies, media and the academics (read here and here).

The accountability to the legislature is mostly done away it, as the majority party-led by the Executive always controls the House and there is a little scope for the opposition to come forward and create pressure on the executive. Furthermore, in India, accountability to the “upper house or the Rajya Sabha” is also overridden by introducing important bills as ‘money bills’ (see Aadhar Act). The judiciary is already restricted due to many reasons such as it gets to ‘review’ the orders of the executive ex-post facto, it may be inefficient or be overworked and surprisingly, the Apex Court has become an “Executive Court” in India already, as Bhatia calls it. Hence, the final check on the Executive must come from the electorate, media, civil societies and academics as they are neither appointed nor elected by the executive. These external checks are really necessary to occlude the executive from backsliding democracy. However, the executive tends to tempt the electorates by showing them (illusory) short term promises and ‘cheaper methods’ like caste and communal politics, reservation etc to coax the voters to vote for their political party.

How is ‘executive aggrandisement’ done?

The most visible democratic backsliding can be seen when there is an attempt to side-line the right to free speech and expression (such as filing FIRs against journalists and activists) and judicial autonomy (such as transfers of the constitutional court’s judges who pass orders ‘against’ the executive and further, the ‘micro-assaults’ of the executive cannot be assessed individually by the Judiciary). Other ways are also brought in force such as blocking websites (read here and here), discouraging dissent, and enactment of draconian laws (which are usually against the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’). Most bizarre and not-so-open way of democratic backsliding lies where when the ‘big media outlets’ are often owned (through holding companies) by those businesses which are dependent on government contracts. Hence, there rises a conundrum for the journalist between freedom of speech and expression (and) a job, basically a Hobbesian choice.

There are certainly other ways in which backsliding is done and the amusing thing about these particular ways is that these issues seem is to be ‘normal’, when seen individually, for any mass protests and any individual or collective dissent. Those who speak against the executive, either any former judge or any opposition party member, is framed as a person having “special interests” or in general anti-national, a common term in India. Those who work for the disadvantaged groups and question the executive for its actions are banned and booked under state-made draconian laws. Many times, there remains a lack of collective action towards the ‘ill-actions’ of the government and the majority of the population is lost in the trance (of government’s short-sighted actions like the building of various religious congregations).

Furthermore, the “democratically” elected executive tends to make laws (which are usually passed without debates and discussions) which goes against the very basic human rights of the individuals, but challenging such laws is “highly risky” as the person who challenges may face many barriers such as, first, she is called a ‘foreign element’ for challenging or raising the voice against the “law”, second, attributing ‘nefarious purpose’ to the law is often difficult (as the intention of the Parliament cannot be brought under Judicial scrutiny) and third, all the changes made by the law has some ambiguous justification ( as the “intention” is to deepen the democracy, instead of destroying it). The “rules” of law are a major setback for those who want to come together and raise their voices against the actions taken by the executive. The laws framed to govern and protect the individuals are used against those very individuals.

All this is worrisome because of the reason that these changes came into force by the democratically elected government with a strong majority in the Parliament and the popular support of the masses. In a Democracy, where the executive doesn’t have any check is more likely to erode the very principles of democracy by taking one piece at a time from the “collage of institutions”.

A way forward?

This aggrandisement happens due to lack of devout action plan, nor any consensus, within the opposition party, media, academia and the citizens, to impart cohesion. The separation of opinion amidst the checkers of the executive lead to the point where democracy stands alone in a lonely corner. There needs to be a collective voice against the actions of the executive to prevent backsliding. As Sunil Khilnani (The Idea of India) says fasts, silences, penances are just techniques of an eccentric parent but are not designed to nourish the accountability of a democratic institution. In the absence of any institutional challenges to the executive, we [as citizens] should take lessons from the pre-independence Congress party wherein the mass organisation of people became the key to establish the democratic constitution. It shall be successful, as we already have seen how mass mobilisation of The People have also helped in reversing the most erroneous decisions of the Supreme Court (For example Mathura Rape Case).

There must be a push for free media and ‘citizens as watchdogs’ to put the elected executives under strict scrutiny. Other institutions which are not tied to the executive through the umbilical cord (political party) can work efficiently to hold the executive accountable for its actions and they must inform citizens about the actions of the executive in an unbiased way. As professor Khaitan says the reason for informing citizens will help the voters, as “they [voters] cannot exercise their function of holding governments to account at the ballot box unless they are properly informed”.

There needs to be scrutiny and review of every action of the government as ‘the very rules of the game are being changed’ now. We the People of India need to come together to “retrieve and build constitutionalism without the courts”, as the Constitution is so much more than just the Courts (as we all see it as). To conclude, as said by professor Khaitan said,

“Democracy is being killed by a thousand cuts—incrementally to avoid the noise and mess of big guns—but systemically. These mortal cuts are being inflicted by democrats themselves, who are justifying their expediency in the name of democracy itself (as surgery, rather than assault)”

[Note: If would like to read more extensive on this topic, then kindly proceed to Constitution Database page (Under the heading: Constitutionalism)]