CHASING A CARROT-AND-STICK DEMOCRACY

Indian Democracy hangs due to Contradictory Codes

One wonders if the Indian Constitution has problems of stability and inner-contradictions to cope with the dynamics of time. The Constitution has so far been amended ninety four times since it was adopted only 61 years ago. In contrast the US Constitution has been amended only 27 times in the past one hundred and twenty five years! To illustrate the point, the recent ruckus in Parliament over the passage of the much hyped Lok Pal Bill, which became somewhat a possibility after 42 years of trying, finally ended in a dramatic midnight adjournment of the Upper House following the prolonged and polemical debate over the constitutional positions. The question that confronts an inquisitive mind is whether the Indian constitution is capable of meeting the challenges of time or not. To try to find an answer puzzles us. For instance the passage of the Lok Pal Bill was stalled over the nuanced stand which was centered on Article 252 and Article 253. The bone of contention was whether to preserve the federal character of the State or to compromise with it for the sake of an international treaty.   However it is no denying the fact that in reality India has more unitary biases in its apparent federal structure. Federalism in a Unitary system is indeed an oxymoron. The many contradictions in the Constitution have made it into a political chimera and the democracy of the people, by the people and for the people is an ultimate sufferer. The  Chimera  belies the aspirations of the people who chase it in the hyperbole of a carrot-and-stick democracy that torments them no end. Let us try an innovative idea of a flowchart diagram to look for a non sequitur. We select Article 21 for two reasons. First, the article guarantees the protection of human life and liberty which must be the most coveted goal of any political ideology but it also has an exception of law to negate this ideal, and therefore there is a contradiction. Secondly, the historical observation of the renowned Parliamentarian, Mr. Frank Anthony, in the Constituent Assembly in the year 1949 cannot be wished away.

Article 21 provides that “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law”.  A flowchart diagram would appear like this.

 The above flowchart ends in a non sequitur if we assume that the idealism enshrined in Article 21 is attainable in democracy.  Logically the flowchart leads into a state of dictatorship in order to uphold Article 21 in that the President  must override the judiciary. In that event the President will appear in the role of a dictator. The principle of Separation of Power which is  the pillar of democracy has to break down as a logical condition. Conversely if this cardinal principle of democracy is to hold good  then State killing is a necessary condition for Article 21. This is a non sequitur because the highest ideal of democracy strives for the protection of life and liberty in society. Frank Anthony must be saluted for his understanding of such illogical construct (Part II of Art.21 related to State killing). Mr. Anthony had objected to the illogicality of Art 21 that embeds a seed of, to borrow his own words, “totalitarian oppression and a violation of Fundamental human right”.  In software terminology this flowchart will generate a core dump, that is to say a system will hang because both false and true arguments cannot lead to the same thing.  It may be pertinent to emphasize here that many mature democracies of the world have abolished capital punishment to put an end to the unacceptable State killings.

In the words of Mr. Frank Anthony, “this article 21 which says that a person may not be deprived of his life or liberty except by procedure of law as established, gave me cause for considerable misgivings. I am afraid, that in this form article 21, if the Executive and Government of the day choose to, can be abused and made a handle for totalitarian oppression. The Executive can make it a handle for superseding rule of law they can make it a handle for depriving citizens of the elementary principles of natural justice, and of jurisprudence.”  Mr. Anthony had further added that “I am one of those who can only express the very sincere hope that when the next elections are fought or the elections after that and with an electorate which will be predominantly illiterate, with an electorate which will be predominantly unaware of exercising the franchise on a basis of being able to analyze political issues in a rational way, that this electorate will not be stampeded by empty slogans by meretricious shibboleths into chasing political chimeras which will not only lead to chaos but to the very destruction of the democracy which we have chosen to give them.”

Political chaos has indeed resulted as we have mentioned in the beginning. Contradictions in the Constitutional provisions have also led to “the very destruction of the democracy”, as feared by Mr. Anthony in the Constituent Assembly.  Let us consider a serious inner-contradiction with respect to article 74 in conjunction with article 75. It renders the Creator to be the functionally dependent on his creation! What a paradox. Indian Constitution is such a classic oxymoron. We have dictatorship, chaos and anarchy (the term also chosen by Mr. Anthony in his remark to the Constituent Assembly) running through and through in our democracy. Is it democratic dictatorship or dictatorial democracy? President who appoints the Prime Minster at the head of his council of ministers is bound by the advice of his own Council of Ministers. The Creator, i.e., the President can be impeached under Article 61 but his appointee the Prime Minister cannot be dismissed from office; the paradox is that a Governor who is not elected but only a chosen person installed in office to emulate the role of the President as his representative will appoint and can dismiss an elected Chief Minister under Article 164(1). This is a bizarre contradiction at the root of corrupting the foundation of democracy. Article 153 concerning the appointment of Governor for a state absolutely vitiates federalism.   Again in terms of software terminology of functional dependency, if P stands for President and M stands for Prime Minister, then the mathematical notation written as (FD:)  P → M trivial, M is a subset of P would have been logical; this would imply a Presidential form of democracy. But there is a contradiction in the parliamentary form forcing the creator to be kept hostage to his creation!

Historically speaking there have been many instances of difference of opinion between almost all the Presidents on one hand and the Prime Ministers on the other, who held office at various points of time since the adoption of the Constitution  in the year 1950. Once the subsurface tension became so intense that President V.V. Giri had to blurt out  in the public domain that he would not be dictated to like a rubber-stamp President. President Venkataraghavan went as far as to suggest that the Presidential form of democracy would be a better choice in India's condition. The recent tension between the MHA and the President Prativa Patil over the delay in deciding on the Afzal Guru’s mercy petition has caused hiccups and exposed serious holes in the functionality of parliamentary democracy.

In conclusion, the inner contradictions in our Constitution generate “error codes” and manage to corrupt the system from within. The parliamentary democracy becomes a political chimera and fails as a delivery system of removing the common man’s miseries. Social movements once launched by J P Narayan and now by his reincarnate Anna Hazare will fail unless the Constitution is debugged of its inner-contradictions that are destroying democracy and the federalism. How true has become the prediction of Frank Anthony! The apparent checks and balances are no bull-work against these inherent contradictions. For instance, the Constitution has failed to address the compromised coalition politics and unethical post-poll alliances which reverse the people’s mandate. The political parties come to terms with each other to manipulate a number game in their favour even by resorting to money-launderings and Machiavellian ploys which are antithesis of democracy. 

Democracy-Hypocrisy Jai Ho!